Built by two operators who wanted to put their experience behind work that matters.

Laura got here on purpose. She spent most of her career in nonprofits, and her time at a nonprofit startup accelerator made her curious about the other side of the coin. So she went into tech to see what building looks like from the ground up, and to create the kind of company and culture she wanted to see in the world. Now she’s ready to bring what she learned back to impact work.

Ryan’s path was less of a plan. He spent most of his career in healthcare at a Fortune 4 company and, by early 2022, had started asking whether success at work was enough if the work itself didn’t feel connected to the life he wanted to build. An executive leadership fellowship opened those questions up. Since then, startup tech and a lot of deep personal work have kept him following them, and along the way, he found community with people doing impact work. They’re the people he wants to work alongside.

Building a company together was a separate thread for us. When we started Pine Lake Ops, we expected to work with all kinds of small businesses. But the conversations that left us energized kept being with nonprofit leaders, impact investors, and community builders here in Colorado. They were doing hard, important work with too little support behind them.

That’s when it all came together. The work we each wanted to do turned out to be the same work, and the company we wanted to build together was how we’d do it.

Ryan grew up in Colorado, and this is where we’ve built our life. The name comes from Pine Lake in Sammamish, Washington, where we got married. It reminds us why we wanted to build something together in the first place, and that we want the work to be useful to the communities we’re part of.