The work, and the rooms it happened in

A resume tells you where I worked. These are pictures from those places. Only the chapters I have photographs of are here.

Titles and dates match my resume exactly.

Independent AI Operations Builder

Self-directed

Jun 2026 to present

Building and running AI systems that do real operational work, then checking their output. The evidence for this chapter is not photographs; it is the systems themselves.

See the artifacts

Studio Manager

Plunge Performance & Recovery, Dana Point, CA

Sep 2022 to May 2026

I ran every operating function of a wellness studio as its only full-time operator. It opened under an earlier name in a room we built out ourselves, and it grew into the space in the later photographs.

Interlocking wood floor tiles being laid around a cold plunge tub during build-out — Build-out. The floor going in.

A finished plunge room with a single steel-framed tub, wood decking and a stone statue — The first room, finished.

A large storefront sign laid flat on the parking lot pavement before installation, banner hung on the stairs above — Opening week. Sign on the ground, not yet on the wall.

Studio lobby with a moss wall, front desk and neon signage — The same business, two years on.

A treatment room with a therapy table, equipment cart and wall art — Treatment room.

A therapy pod in a room lit entirely in deep red light — Red light room.

Thirty seconds of the actual job: walking a general audience through a routine temperature change on a plunge.

Training, Service Assurance & Online Sales Operations Specialist

REI Co-op, Sumner, WA

Sep 2003 to Jun 2020

Seventeen years, advancing from call-center agent through Online Sales, Training, Service Assurance, and Customer Service Escalation Specialist. I delivered contact-center training for over a decade, which is what the classroom pictures are.

Rob Stickler at a contact-center workstation wearing earbuds, monitor and keyboard in front of him — At the desk.

A classroom whiteboard headed Welcome to Basic Training, listing the week one agenda alongside a drawing — A Basic Training board, week one. Someone else's marker work; my classroom.

A training room set up with tables, laptops and a projector screen before a class — The room, set up for a class.

Restaurant General Manager

Pizza Hut, Western Washington

1997 to 2003

Full P&L and a team of about thirty. Grew sales 40% year over year and was named Manager of the Year for all Pizza Huts in Western Washington in 1998. One photograph survives.

A 1990s photograph of a young Rob Stickler in uniform behind a Pizza Hut front counter — The only one I have.

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