Founder
Khaalis Wooden
Thirty years. Warehouses to war zones. Spreadsheets to supply chains.
Every role the same mission: leave it better than you found it.
The path to Zuup wasn't planned.
It was earned.
It started in 1996 at Fort Sam Houston, where a young logistics specialist learned that systems either serve people or fail them. There's no middle ground. That principle followed me through a decade of Army service—from artillery support at Fort Sill to barracks management at Fort Benning, from MWR operations in Kuwait to supply chain logistics in Iraq.
The military doesn't teach you to cut corners. It teaches you that shortcuts cost lives.
After uniform came the proving ground of civilian operations. Managing $10 million in retail operations. Supporting an 87% enrollment surge through ERP integration. Overseeing quality assurance for 10 million USDA-certified poultry units. Each role different. Each role the same question:
“Can you build something that actually works when no one's watching?”
The answer had to be yes. Every time.
The Journey
The Foundation
Army logistics specialist. First lesson: systems either serve people or fail them.
A Decade in Uniform
Artillery support. Barracks management. MWR operations. Supply chain in war zones. The military teaches you that shortcuts cost lives.
The Proving Ground
$10M retail operations at Hibbett. 87% enrollment surge at ASU/CSU through ERP integration. 10M+ USDA-certified units at Halal Co.
The Shop Floor
386 consecutive days. Zero safety incidents. Up to 100 projects across OEM and Tier 1 sites. The reputation forms: treat every opportunity like your last.
Systems at Scale
30% reduction in safety incidents. 15% process error reduction. Not through heroics—through systems that make integrity the default.
The Convergence
Federal capture leadership. GSA MAS preparation across eight SINs. MBA completion. Seven platforms. One mission: technology that works when no one's watching.
What mattered was
the shop floor.
Not the title. Not the org chart. The shop floor—where problems are real, where excuses don't ship product, where your word is either good or it isn't.
I built a reputation there: the leader who treated a weekend warehouse shift with the same intensity as a federal contract negotiation. Because every opportunity—big or small—was an opportunity to prove that integrity scales.
Co-founded brands. Built creative campaigns at Pvlse Media. Developed performance wellness systems at 4.0 Fitness. Some succeeded. Some didn't. All of them taught. The wins showed what was possible. The losses showed what mattered.
Zuup Innovation Lab is what happens when
thirty years of shop-floor wisdom
meets frontier technology.
Every platform we build—Aureon, Veyra, Civium, PodX, Symbion, QAWM—carries the same DNA: systems that serve people, not the other way around. We don't build technology to impress. We build technology that works when no one's watching.
“The road less traveled isn't romantic. It's longer, harder, and lonelier than the well-worn path. But it's where you learn what you're actually made of. It's where losses become lessons and lessons become moats.”
Zuup is that moat—built from every hard lesson, every shop floor challenge, every moment when doing the right thing was the harder choice.
Certifications
Languages
“Every role. Every shift. Every opportunity—like it was my last.”
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