August 10, 2015, is etched into my memory. Not as a gentle turning point, but as a gut punch that knocked the wind out of me.
At the time, I was working as a manager & virtual assistant for Zirtual. My husband was deployed. I was three months pregnant. And I was in Hilton Head, finally taking a little break with my family and brand new baby niece. Life felt…steady. Predictable. Safe.
Then, at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning, I tried logging in to my work accounts. Locked out. I thought it was just a glitch. But then an email landed in my inbox from the CEO: Zirtual was shutting down. Effective immediately.
No warning. No severance. No “here’s how we can help you transition.” Just…done.
I remember staring at my laptop, my heart racing, thinking, How am I going to tell my clients? How am I going to pay my bills? My phone started buzzing from clients, teammates, friends - all asking the same question: What happens now?
One of those clients was Daniel Houghton, at the time I was his right hand and remote sidekick. I called him in full-blown, hormonal hysterics; ugly crying, snotty voice, the whole thing. I blurted out that I had no idea what was going to happen next. And instead of panicking, he calmly said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
That moment changed me.
I grabbed my car keys, drove to the closest Best Buy, and bought a laptop with money I really didn’t have to spare. By mid-afternoon, I was on the phone with my other clients one by one, bracing for the worst. But every single one of them said the same thing: “We’re staying with you.”
Zirtual’s collapse wasn’t a small stumble, it was a total freefall. The company had scaled too fast, spent too much, and when the money ran out, the people were left to pick up the pieces. I was one of those people. Pregnant. Military spouse. Far from family. With a career that just evaporated overnight.
And yet, in that wreckage, something unexpected began. Without even fully realizing it, I started building the systems, values, and relationships that would one day become the basis for Squared Away.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took almost two years post-Zirtual before Squared Away officially took shape. By then, I was thriving as a mom, with my clients, and had a rhythm I had worked hard to create after moving to Hawaii. Then my now-co-founder, Shane Mac, came to me with a challenge: “I need you to help me scale.” That was the push.
In July 2017, we soft-launched Squared Away. Not as a desperate rebound from a collapse, but as a deliberate, people-first business built on everything I had learned since that August morning.
The lessons from 2015 became our foundation:
Communicate openly, even when the news isn’t pretty.
Build relationships that can weather any storm.
Make decisions with people in mind first, profit second.
Fast forward eight years, and that little post-crisis seed has grown into something far bigger than I could have imagined. We’ve employed over 1,600 military spouses, supported clients in every niche and season of life, and paid out over $30 million dollars directly to military families.
And we’ve done it all with integrity, transparency, and taking care of people as our north star.
When I think back to that August day, with all the fear, uncertainty, and countless tears, I can see now that it was the start of something extraordinary. What felt like the end was really the moment the door swung open to a bigger purpose.
Sometimes the worst day of your professional life is the day that sets the stage for the best work you’ll ever do.
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