T.U.T — The Unwritten Teachings

In this episode, I sat down with Julie Abner, Principal Designer & Owner at Julie Abner Interiors, an award-winning full-service interior design firm based in St. Louis. Julie has been building her firm for nearly 20 years, with work featured in publications like St. Louis Magazine , Sophisticated Living , and St. Louis Homes + Lifestyles . We talked about her early creative influences, how he...

I sat down with Tom Schlafly, President at Schlafly Beer, co-founder and chairman of The Saint Louis Brewery, an attorney, author, civic leader, and minority owner of the St. Louis Blues. Tom helped pioneer craft beer in St. Louis when he opened what became Missouri’s first microbrewery in 1991, at a time when craft beer was virtually nonexistent locally and Anheuser-Busch dominated the city’s bee...

In this episode, I sat down with Ness Sándoval, a Professor of Demography and Sociology at Saint Louis University and one of the leading voices sounding the alarm on population decline. Ness walks through his personal journey from growing up in a small, segregated town in Nebraska to becoming deeply focused on demographic trends and spatial inequality. His early exposure to contrasting environment...

In this episode, I sat down with Laurie Schultz, Principal & Co-Founder at Avenue, Viva Bene to discuss how aging demographics are reshaping real estate and why traditional senior living is due for a major transformation. Laurie shared her journey from growing up in St. Louis to building a career across apartments, healthcare real estate, and senior housing. She has helped develop more than $1...

In this episode, I sat down with Sharnie Grewal, Functional Wellness Coach focused on helping women over 30 optimize their health through a root-cause, functional approach. Sharnie shares her journey from growing up in London to becoming a physical therapist and eventually transitioning into entrepreneurship after experiencing her own health struggles. What stood out to me is how her personal frus...

In this episode, I sit down with Steve Smith, co-founder of Lawrence Group and founder of New + Found. Steve started Lawrence Group in 1983 in the attic of his home with just a few hundred dollars and a vision of building what he once called the “super firm” — a company that designs, builds, develops, and owns real estate. Over four decades, that vision has grown into a vertically integrated organ...

In this episode, I sat down with Sonia Cajigal , an Allergy/Immunologist at St. Louis Family Allergy , to talk about her path from an accelerated medical program into allergy and immunology, and eventually into building her own private practice in St. Peters, Missouri. She has a strong clinical background, but what stood out to me was how intentionally she has built a more modern, flexible, patien...

Mark Turnbull, founder of Module Building Systems, shares the journey of building an offsite construction company in Saint Louis with a mission to deliver high-quality, attainable housing at scale. Originally from Hamilton, Ontario, Mark traces his entrepreneurial roots from early real estate investments to a pivotal realization inspired by IKEA’s flat-pack model and Henry Ford’s manufacturing sys...

Rachel Wallis is a second-generation business leader, former CEO of Wallis Companies, and founder of The Sixth Level, a leadership and culture consultancy. During her tenure, Wallis Companies grew into a multibillion-dollar enterprise with fuel distribution, convenience retail, and car wash operations across the Midwest. Rachel is also the first woman to serve as President of the Missouri Convenie...

Shaun Hayes returns for his second appearance to share hard-earned lessons from a career that spans entrepreneurship, banking, and executive leadership. He’s an author and speaker who has built and scaled businesses, evaluated thousands of business plans, and brings a pragmatic operator’s lens to what actually makes companies succeed or fail. This conversation frames his newest book, The Green Cho...

Han Ko (Sacco Group) joins Raj Tut to share his journey from being born in South Korea, immigrating to Southern California, and ultimately building his career in the St. Louis region after studying engineering at Washington University. With a background in computer science, electrical engineering, and signal processing, Han climbed the corporate ladder in the telecom industry before taking the ent...

Ricky Shah is the Director of Kumon Chesterfield, a high-performing education franchise known for its strong enrollment and operational discipline. A former Kumon student who completed both the math and reading programs, Ricky’s story comes full circle as he eventually acquired and now leads the same center where he once studied and taught. His background spans teaching, nonprofit work, statewide...

In this episode, we sit down with Rob Zeitler , President and Co-Founder of FLEX Payment Solutions , a family-owned B2B fintech company specializing in payment processing for niche and highly regulated industries. With over 20 years in the electronic payments space, Rob has helped build FLEX into a direct-payment processor serving sectors like consumer lending, CBD/hemp, tribal and native-owned bu...

Jason King is the Director of Real Estate and Impact Investing for Lewis and Clark Holdings, the Hillman family office, where he oversees investments across real estate, clean energy, affordable housing and tax-related strategies. Over his career, Jason has invested close to $1 billion across more than 4,000 multifamily units, student housing, industrial, and medical office properties. He shares h...

Amit Kothari is the founder & CEO of Tallyfy, an AI-driven startup focused on helping companies document, track, and continuously improve their processes. Born in Kenya, raised in London, and now calling St. Louis home, Amit’s path runs from flipping rare stamps to pay off university debt, to poetry, to a decade consulting on process improvement—before launching his current company. Grants fir...

Dr. Calvin Cajigal , a first-generation physician and partner at Pain Management Services in St. Louis, joins Raj Tut for a deep dive into the realities of modern healthcare. After earning his medical degree through UMKC’s competitive six-year program and completing his anesthesia and pain management training at the University of Iowa, Dr. Cajigal has built a career balancing clinical excellence w...

Brian Thies is the Vice President of National Commercial Services at ATA National Title Group, a large Midwest-based title agency that handles complex commercial and residential transactions across multiple states. With 22+ years in the industry, Brian has operated at every scale—from small agencies to national platforms—specializing in multi-state deals and construction disbursing. In this conver...

Mitchell “Mitch” Walsh is the Director of CRE Debt & Equity Originations at Gantry , with over nine years of experience in commercial real estate finance. Based in the St. Louis area, Mitch has underwritten and closed loans across multifamily, industrial, retail, and other asset classes and has been part of Gantry’s growth following its acquisition of Triad. He helps sponsors structure deals w...

Michael Hamburg is the founder of Pier Property Group, a St. Louis–based developer behind 1,200+ Class-A units and ~$340M in projects since 2016–2018. Raised around real estate, he studied economics at Vanderbilt, cut his teeth in real estate finance and tax-credit investing, and then launched PPG to develop adaptive-reuse and ground-up communities across the St. Louis MSA. His work includes Midto...

John Duckworth, co-founder and Managing Partner of True Title, shares his journey from running a fireworks stand as a teenager to building the largest locally owned title company in St. Louis. With over 20 years of experience, John has grown True Title to 17 branches across Missouri, Illinois, and Colorado while earning recognition for innovation and client-focused service. His entrepreneurial bac...

Robert “Cujo” Teschner is a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and weapons school instructor, now founder and CEO of VMax Group, a leadership consultancy based in St. Louis. With an impressive career that includes leading missions over southern Iraq and training at the Air Force’s Top Gun school, Cujo brings decades of high-performance team leadership and strategic clarity into the corporate worl...

Zach “Dr. Z” Schaefer , founder and CEO of Spark The Discussion , is a respected leadership coach, management consultant, certified Predictive Index® partner, and award‑winning speaker. A retired tenured professor, he also owns a stake in a sports bar chain, advising on culture, tech, and strategy. Zach has helped hundreds of companies, authored multiple books, and recently released The Missing Co...

Tom Kaiman is the founder of Mia Rose Holdings, a St. Louis-based real estate development firm with nearly $1B in assets under management and over 3,000 apartment units developed. Before becoming a prolific builder, Tom was a professional hockey player and earned a degree in civil engineering. His unique background in sports, construction, and entrepreneurship has shaped his mission: to build high...

Alex Erbs is the VP and co-owner of Storage Mall Group and Gateway Storage, a family-run business with over 60 years of experience in the self-storage industry. With more than 2 million square feet under management across 11 states and over 12,000 units, Alex has played a pivotal role in scaling operations across the Midwest and Northeast. He also serves as Vice President of the Missouri Self-Stor...

Tim Crowley is a St. Louis-based real estate investor and entrepreneur who built a decades-long career in triple net sale-leasebacks, conservative underwriting, and long-term investing. With no formal real estate background, Tim entered the industry after careers in manufacturing and oil & gas, eventually becoming a respected figure across 21 states. He’s also known for his role in golf course...