Welcome to the Work
I shall pass this way but once. Any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now; let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. — Etienne de Grellet
That saying was hanging in the hallway of my grandmother’s house and I would see it everyday throughout my childhood. I memorized it when I was 6, or maybe 7, and have carried it with me for over the past forty-five years since. If we met during my decades of teaching you heard a variation I used to say: we’re gonna cross paths one time, it’s incumbent upon me to give you everything I know.
Seven years ago, I didn’t start a brand. I didn’t launch a content strategy or file a trademark application and then wait for press coverage. I didn’t take a selfie in front of my tools or build a following around aspirational masculinity. I got to work.
I started building a mission timer. Not a vibe. Not a lifestyle. Not a logo.
A tool.
Something that could be trusted by the people who don’t get to fail. The ones who operate where failure isn’t an option, not because of ego but because of consequences. The ones who run toward the problem. The ones who have to get it right, every time, even when the rest of the world is unraveling.
ARES wasn’t founded in the pursuit of inspiration. It was founded in the pursuit of trust. And trust only comes through one thing: time.
Where have I been for seven years?
I’ve been in the shop. Sourcing steel. Machining prototypes. Blasting cases. Reworking components. Testing bezels. Rebuilding movements. Setting hands. Logging failures. Logging solutions. Fixing what didn’t work and making sure it couldn’t fail again.
I have been building from me into we. We’ve been answering phone calls at 10 p.m. and shipping repairs next day air. We’ve been eating the cost when something didn’t meet spec, even if the customer never would have known. We’ve been listening to the silence that follows a critical mistake and committing to doing it better.
We didn’t build our company on content. We built it on work. Not trend-chasing. Not marketing automation. Not SEO optimization. Just work.
That’s why this is Journal Entry 01. Not because we forgot to start the blog, but because we were building something worth writing about first.
While other brands were going viral, we were going vertical. Building our own shop, our own supply chain, and developing our own watch makers. Not just our online following. Partnering with American machinists who know what it means to cut a thread right the first time. Building relationships that are measured not in likes but in tolerances.
We didn’t build to sell. We built to serve.
That distinction matters.
You rarely saw photos of our prototypes because we weren’t trying to prove anything to anyone. We were trying to make something that would prove itself in the field. And we weren’t trying to get noticed. We were trying to get it right. The image above of our captured bezel design, integrated into our machining and manufacturing just in the past six months, was started three years ago. Iteration after iteration, cutting away what didn't work. Refining what did. Over 1,000 days of working and testing to get it right, not just get it to market.
You haven’t read interviews from me because I’m not a founder in the branding sense. I’m a founder in the shop floor sense. I’ve never built a pitch deck, but I paint every grenade can by hand because the first thing you see as our customer should be the last thing I made.
Servant leadership is a popular phrase in entrepreneurship now. But it isn’t theory here. It’s muscle memory. It’s my sons working beside me. Jonah, blasting steel with his hands and eyes until every surface is ready for assembly. Caleb, building timers from the inside out, one component at a time, signing off only when it meets the standard he helped set.
The work teaches them. And the work teaches me.
What we do here isn’t about appearing committed. It’s about being committed. Because what we ship out the door may one day be used by someone who doesn’t get a second chance. And if it fails, they don’t get to post about it. They’re just gone.
This work doesn’t exist for likes. It exists because it matters. We build for those in the margins, not in the middle.
And that’s why, if you’re looking for something comfortable, something polished, something meant to pair with your fit and aesthetic, you shouldn’t buy our watch.
If you haven’t learned to embrace the cold, this isn’t for you. If you’re not used to being tired on purpose, tested by design, and driven past your own comfort zone—that’s okay. But we didn’t build this company with you in mind.
We built it for the rescue pilot who cranks at 3 a.m. For the breacher and the #1 who eats the charge. For the diver welding pipe in a dark current with no margin for error. For the firefighter who sent us a message saying our lume helped him orient through black smoke.
For the veteran who still lives the code. And for his son who wants to wear what his father trusted.
We built this company as we build each timer - for them and those like them. Those who put in the work. Those who believe their life is their mission. This isn’t lifestyle branding. It’s life-dependent design.
Seven years of showing up. Seven years of building backwards from the mission to the maker. Seven years of learning to lead by doing, of making the hard decisions before they have to be made. That’s what servant leadership looks like here.
So why now? Why start talking now?
Because we earned it. Because we didn’t skip ahead. Because the words now have weight behind them.
Welcome to the work.
