Charles Finkelstein (Finkel-stein, like Einstein, a correction his father delivered when Charles was in high school) grew up in a house that made the part instead of buying it. His father was a tool and die maker. When the kitchen oven shot flames, his brother pulled the eroded gas jet, walked down to the shop, and machined a new one out of brass stock in twenty minutes. Popular Science on the table, a Corvair engine built at twelve, and a first car Charles sanded to bare metal himself, before YouTube existed to show him how.

That instinct became a forty-year career. A computer science degree in the 1980s, work on the internet before most people knew what it was, and then Microsoft in the early 1990s, where he covered Northern California as the technical half of the sales team, specializing in email and connectivity. Eighteen years there, time at Salesforce, and a stack of patents across AI, cloud, and privacy.

Now he is asking the question the industry keeps deferring. He is enthusiastic about the compute, but the data centers are hungry: the power, the cooling water, the land. His own utility bill has doubled in eight years, the heat domes keep coming, and he is blunt that it does not matter who you blame, it costs lives and it costs businesses. So he invested in ChatGPTree, where the price of a latte a month plants trees to offset your burning tokens, and he filed the paperwork for AI for Ecology, now a 501(c)(3) working on efficiency benchmarks, tooling, and the events where like-minded people find each other.

When Rachael said the only way to embrace AI with a clear conscience is to do what he is doing, Charles claimed the line on the spot as his new bottom line. It fits. The Vantage assessment pegged him a meaningful connector, and he agrees: a techie who is also an empath, who feels people in a room and wants their light to shine.

What he needs right now
He is building the AI for Ecology board and needs help: people who know nonprofits, grant writing, and the AI infrastructure supply chain. The work is volunteer until funding lands, and he is explicit that it is a place to build real skills in a hard market.

Connect with Charles
AI for Ecology (learn more, volunteer, or donate): ai4ecology.org
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chasf

April Vian spent 15 years working with neurodivergent kids, and kept watching them age into adults the world quietly stopped helping. The assumption is that you either lean on your parents forever or somehow have it all figured out by 22. Most people live in between: independent and capable, but never taught the skills that make work and life click. So April built Bridging the Gap, a social benefit corporation (one that can never put profit above purpose) that teaches those skills to individuals, and coaches the companies that employ them.

In this one: why "we have to be inclusive" is the wrong starting line, the difference between a rule that matters and a rule we just never questioned (everyone needs to be on time, versus you need to meet your deadlines), and why so many capable people get stuck in a contributor-only lane for lack of the soft skills nobody ever taught them. Plus April's favorite reframe for the adults she works with: you might be a normal zebra, not a weird horse.

What she can give the room: connecting people (especially across healthcare and mental health), parenting and IEP advocacy, and adult ADHD and autism clarity assessments. 

The introduction she is looking for: decision-makers and speaking stages, to reach more employers and more neurodivergent adults.

How to work with April

The front door is a Discovery Call, a short exploratory call to find where she can help. From there the paths are:

• Individual coaching: executive functioning, social and leadership skills, the things that actually get people promoted.
• For employers: inclusivity and HR behavioral coaching, plus executive-functioning and social-skills workshops for your team.
• Clarity assessments: for adults wondering if they might be ADHD or autistic. Not a medical diagnosis, a clarifying one.
• Speaking: April speaks to teams and audiences on neurodivergence at work.

As a social benefit corporation, Bridging the Gap also offers discounted or free trainings for small, family, and minority-owned businesses, and accepts donations.

Connect with April
Book a Discovery Call: bridgingthegapwa.com/appointments
Services: bridgingthegapwa.com/services
Speaking: bridgingthegapwa.com/speaking-1
Resources: bridgingthegapwa.com/resources
Website: bridgingthegapwa.com

Book she recommends: The Mastery of Self by don Miguel Ruiz Jr.

Katrina Romatowski is, in her own words, a curious human being, and she has spent 30 years in real estate unable to stop building. Everything she does lives on one continuum: if it involves the dirt under your feet or the roof over your head, she is in it. That continuum is three ventures. 
Katrina Eileen Real Estate, her brokerage. reSpace, her co-homeownership company. And Level Up, a nonprofit she co-founded in 2019 with Frank Shankwitz, a founder of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, that pairs housing with mentorship for men coming out of re-entry and recovery.

reSpace was born from an uncomfortable question. Katrina built two infill homes in a backyard, put one on the market, and watched it sell in days for $950,000. Who can afford that? Around the same time she saw fractional ownership being used to hand wealthy families a slice of multimillion-dollar second homes. Her reaction: who cares about rich people getting a second home, how about the everyday person being able to afford one? reSpace meets people where they already are and turns it into real ownership: every bedroom a private primary suite, the kitchen and living and outdoor spaces shared, and for a fraction of the cost of the whole house you own a piece of it. The first home, a yellow Victorian mansion in Leschi with five suites, is live now.

This is the third episode in a row about doors. Jesse took his off the hinges, Roger held his open, and when Rachael asked Katrina who she builds doors for, Katrina said a door is not what she sees. She sees a big brick wall, and nobody even tells you there is a world on the other side of it. Her answer: stop looking for the door. Either build what you want right where you are, or get some dynamite and blow up the wall. Where she comes from there was no permission to do much of anything, so she never waited for it.

Her north star: a rising tide raises all ships. What she can give the room is connection, she remembers everyone and refuses to gatekeep. What she needs is capital: reSpace is gaining traction and investment is the one thing holding it back, Level Up needs mentors and volunteers and capital to add homes, and Katrina Eileen Real Estate, the brokerage that funds the mission, is ready for anyone buying or selling.

Connect with Katrina
reSpace (co-homeownership: invest, co-own, or live in one): respace.co
Katrina Eileen Real Estate (buy or sell a home): katrinaeileen.com
Level Up Seattle (volunteer, mentor, or donate): www.leveluphome.org
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/katrinaeileen

Erica Carraway is the CEO and founder of Key Wellness, and Vantage's own strategic partnerships and marketing lead. 

Key Wellness is an umbrella over a whole ecosystem, and every business is named for a key on a keyboard: 
Alt (the herbal coffee alternative she built to reverse her own diabetes), 
Escape (retreats that heal through astrology and the elements), 
Shift (her marketing agency), and 
Control (a creative marketplace where talent trades for equity instead of one-off contracts). The thread is refusal: she will not do one thing forever just because it worked. 

She is a brand developer, and the most important part of that is making square one un-scary, for herself and everyone she builds with. Her superpower is partnership, and she does it give-first: she shows up as a social consumer, supports people first, and lets the business manifest from the relationship. 

The heart of the episode is her daughters, and the one lesson she wants them to inherit: that sharing your spotlight is a power that only ever fuels you. 

CONNECT WITH ERICA CARRAWAY 
Website: https://yourkeywellness.com 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amanodior 
Alt (herbal coffee): https://www.instagram.com/alt_xcoffee 
Email: [email protected] 

Every member gets a seat in this chair. Vantage Voices is the podcast of Vantage. 

Learn more at https://www.joinvantage.co

Roger Starkweather is the Chief Experience Officer of ANEWbrand, the branding and marketing agency he built with his best friend of fifteen years, Steven Picanza, for what they call do-good organizations. 

Before that he spent years inside the giants: Nordstrom, Starbucks, REI, L'Oreal. The turn came when two pathways collided. Roger and Steven were frustrated with big-agency models that took advantage of clients, and at the same time Roger was in his own personal transformation: coming out. He chose to be raw and honest about who he is and tie it to what he wanted to do in life, which is give back. Then the club handed him something he never went searching for: the board presidency. 

Five general managers in seven years, COVID, no clear direction. His answer was to consistently show up, so consistently that people called him the mayor. And as the first openly gay chair of the Columbia Tower Club, he became fully visible himself right as he was helping the community do the same. 

Jesse talked in episode two about taking the door off. Roger walked through his, and then held it open. He leaves the episode with the three words he lives by, inspired by his three kids, all artists and creators out in the world: create, learn and love. 

CONNECT WITH ROGER STARKWEATHER 
Website: https://www.anewbrand.co 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerstarkweather
ANEWbrand on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/anewbrandconsulting 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anewbrand.co 
Substack: https://allaboutbranding.substack.com 

The Good Gathering (nonprofit programming Roger chairs at the World Trade Center) is August 12 and open to all. Every member gets a seat in this chair. 

Vantage Voices is the podcast of Vantage. Learn more at https://www.joinvantage.co

The first member of Vantage takes the mic. Jesse Rhodes Jr. is a keynote speaker, a University of Washington professor, and a self-described cultural architect whose whole purpose is to work with humans to create possibilities, not excuses. In episode two of Vantage Voices, Rachael Barclay turns the questions back on the man who interviewed her first.

We get into humanity as a discipline, the "door" (the invisible barriers that stop people before they start), the five-minute embrace that made his whole day, the 25 fellows from 20 African countries he promised to visit for a cup of tea, and his message straight to the Columbia Tower Club community he chaired when it closed.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Turning the mic back on Jesse
00:38 One word: humanity
01:16 What a cultural architect actually builds
03:01 Keynotes, UW, and 20 countries
04:30 Humanness vs. the hustle
04:53 The door: the barriers we do not see
07:29 Who Jesse invites into the room
09:44 The one introduction he is looking for
13:28 A message to the Columbia Tower Club
15:42 Relationship capital

LISTEN EVERYWHERE
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/vantage-voices/id6791746604
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033QGptiCILHJLC4NmPWqH
All platforms + full show notes: https://www.joinvantage.co/podcast/jesse-rhodes-jr

ABOUT VANTAGE VOICES
The room behind the room, on the record. Short, honest conversations with the people building the next version of Seattle. Hosted by Rachael Barclay. Two new voices a week.

Vantage is a members-first network, and the public business directory is free forever. Learn more or apply at https://www.joinvantage.co

#VantageVoices #SeattleBusiness #Leadership #Community #Podcast

Episode one, and Jesse Rhodes Jr. opens with a curveball. He came with his own questions and turns the mic around on Rachael, because before anyone hears from the members, the audience should hear from the person who built the room.

Rachael was general manager of Columbia Tower Club for almost two years, left in 2025, and came back as a member. She watched the club fight through COVID, and she never could shake the question: it is not the space, so what is the thing? When the news landed in April, the answer stopped being theoretical. Time to accelerate.

What Vantage actually is, in three parts. First, the public directory: free to list your business, your nonprofit, or your client's nonprofit, free forever, with every page built to be found by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI. That is the give-first economy, out loud. Second, the network: access to the other members, on your terms, protected on purpose. Third, proactive introductions: three people you did not know, inside your first 90 days, starting with the Vantage Type assessment.

Also in this one: who the room is for (people who do things, who create, build, and operate) and who it is not for. Why the filter is not your resume but "evidence that you show up for people when there is nothing in it for you." What the clubs taught her, from hostess at seventeen to Invited Clubs, and why hospitality is a discipline and not a vibe. And the real why: an entrepreneurial streak she calls highly unemployable, plus the family time she says she would not trade back for a million years.

Jesse's framing is worth the listen on its own: Vantage from the vantage point. The value is not only the new introductions, it is finally seeing the opportunity already sitting inside your own network.

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List your business free: https://www.joinvantage.co/get-listed
Browse the directory: https://www.joinvantage.co/directory
Take the Vantage Type assessment: https://www.joinvantage.co/vantage-type
Apply to join: https://www.joinvantage.co/join

Vantage Voices is the podcast of Vantage. Every member gets a seat in this chair. CONNECT WITH VANTAGE Website: https://www.joinvantage.co Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevantagenetwork/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560489763262 Vantage Voices is the podcast of Vantage. Every member gets a seat in this chair.