Hi, I'm Travis.

Before I ever became an engineer, I was the kid taking things apart in the garage. Bicycles. Parts spread across the floor. Studying how one piece moved another.

Not because they were broken. I just needed to understand how they worked. That curiosity never really left.

At 15, I walked into a local paintball field and asked for a job. My parents never required me to work, they believed school was my job. But something in me wanted responsibility. Ownership. Growth.

That simple decision changed a lot.

I learned the value of a dollar. How many hours it actually took to earn one. How saving required patience. How independence feels. I stopped asking my parents for money and started funding my own wants.

But more importantly, I met a manager who was studying mechanical engineering in college. For the first time in my life, I had someone to talk to about how things actually worked. We'd take apart paintball markers and talk through the mechanics. Air systems. Pressure regulation. Failure points. We'd challenge each other's thinking. But I wasn't just learning how they worked, I was learning how to diagnose them.

People would bring in broken markers, and I'd troubleshoot the issue. Trace the malfunction through the system. Identify the failing component. Replace what was worn. Reassemble. Test. Over time, I got good. Good enough that I could hear how a marker was firing and know what was wrong.

I was 15, learning problem-solving and systems thinking before I had language for it.

Around the same time, I joined Science Olympiad. I led two events for my school: Mission Possible, a Rube Goldberg build and Egg Scrambler, a mechanically powered egg-carrying car.

This was 1999. Before tutorials. Before forums. Everything was experimentation. I learned about energy transfer. Mechanical to electrical to chemical to heat. Photo resistors triggering circuits. Motors activating switches. Chain reactions built from scratch. My senior year, I placed 2nd in state for the Rube Goldberg event. 1st in state for the egg car.

But what stayed with me wasn't the placement. It was the process.

Build. Test. Fail. Refine. Repeat.

That mindset carried into a 20-year career in industrial engineering and continuous improvement. Most people think my work was about fixing broken systems. Sometimes it was. But what set me apart wasn't just seeing problems. It was walking into systems that were already performing well and asking:

What could make this even better?

How do we increase output without increasing strain? How do we improve reliability before breakdowns occur? How do we remove friction people have just learned to tolerate?

I wasn't scanning for failure. I was scanning for potential. Eventually, I realized the most complex systems I'd ever worked on weren't machines.

They were human lives.

High-performing professionals who looked successful but felt overloaded internally. Not broken. Just operating inside systems they had outgrown.

Then I was laid off. And for the first time, I had to turn the lens inward. Where was I tolerating friction? Where was I operating on inertia instead of intention? What would it look like to redesign my own life system?

That season became the foundation for Intelligent Path Collective. I don't coach motivation. I help people redesign the systems they live inside.

Because capable people don't need to be pushed harder. They need clearer architecture.

Through the Energy Leak Audit, Summit Launchpad, and SummitArc, I work with professionals who sense there's more available, not because they're failing, but because they know their current system isn't optimized for who they're becoming.

We reduce friction. We simplify decisions. We protect energy. We build reliability. We create momentum that doesn't require force.

The goal isn't productivity. It's alignment. A life that works.

If you're here, you probably don't feel broken.

You just know there's a more refined system waiting to be built.

That's where I work best.