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Our Leadership

Doug-Sherman

Doug Sherman

Founder/Chairman of Board

Doug Sherman is Founder of Trading Up.org, a 501(c) 3 ministry. His unique message and passion is to help people change their view of God by seeing Him more clearly and enjoying Him more often during the active hours of their day. The active hours make up 95% of our life and it’s when we face our biggest spiritual battles.

Doug is a popular speaker and a published author of several books, his most popular being "Your Work Matters to God". He has spent his career engaging God both in the marketplace and ministry, which gives him the unique experience to understand both worlds.

Over the years Doug has deployed his leadership and visionary gifts to start several companies and ministries resulting in significant impact.

Doug graduated from the Air Force Academy, served in the Air Force as a fighter pilot trainer, and then earned a Master of Theology degree from Dallas Seminary.

TJ Morelli

TJ Morelli

Interim Operations Leader/Board Member

As Trading Up searches for a full-time Executive Director, TJ is overseeing the overall operation at Trading Up. He is currently the Executive Director of PIVOT Leadership Group, and serves in a limited part-time pastoral role at Austin Ridge Bible Church (ARBC). Doug's teaching has had a profound impact on how TJ leads and disciples.

TJ and his wife, Rachel, have been attending ARBC since 2001. They have three kids, Jake, Emma, and Thomas. TJ grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and went to college in NY at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Upon graduation, he served as an Engineer Officer in the U.S. Army. After separating from the service, he ran a business for just over 13 years prior to coming on staff at the Ridge in 2010. TJ has a passion for marriages, for children, and most importantly, for showing Christ to those who are thirsting. He and Rachel love being involved in ministry in the City of Austin and feel blessed to be a part of the amazing things God is doing in the community.

Doug Cassady

Doug Cassady

Project Manager & Development

Doug serves Trading Up through project development/implementation and administration. Authentic disciple-making has been a life-long pursuit, and Trading Up's focus on relevant and life-transforming "fellowship" of Jesus generates deep gratefulness for being on the Trading Up support team. He concurrently serves as the Executive Director for Synergy Missions. Synergy Missions equips churches for cross-cultural, church-to-church partnerships, and effective mission solutions.

The call of the wild beckons Doug into his hobbies of hunting and fishing. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his beautiful wife Brenda; they have two adult children, Amber and Colton. Doug's background includes B.S. from Texas A & M University, DMIN/MDIV from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and being a Missions Pastor/Missiologist since 2001.

Margery McAlister

Margery McAlister

Community Liaison & Operations Manager

Margery has 17 years of acting a team coordinator, project manager and event consultant. She works part time for Trading Up acting as the Community Liaison & Operations Manager. Her other ‘job’ is being a mother to her wonderful little boy, Callum.

DG-Elmore

DG Elmore

Board Member

DG has over 25 years of experience co-founding, leading, and acquiring multiple businesses in various industries. His industry experience includes travel management, technology, publishing, manufacturing, professional sports, and staffing.

DG’s degrees include a B.B.A. from Southern Methodist University, an M.B.A. from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University, and a law degree from the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University. D.G. and his wife, Gini, live in Bloomington, Indiana, and have six children. DG is the Chair of The Navigators’ U.S. Board of Directors, an international Christian organization.

Dan-Miller

Dan Miller

Board Member

Dan is a successful businessman and owns Advantiv Solutions, a collaborative planning and procurement software company he founded in 1996.

Dan is a life-long Christian, active in church life from the earliest age. He has served as a musician, teacher, youth mentor, marriage mentor, marriage ministry leader, board member, and board chair. Through faith, Dan is passionate about the expression and extension of grace, love, and mercy to the unchurched and untended among us, and has always been willing to take necessary risks to achieve that mission.

Dan earned a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations with a Computer Science minor in 1984 from LeMoyne College, a Jesuit school in Syracuse, NY.

Steve Kahle

Steve Kahle

Board Member

Steve Kahle has served at Trading Up in several different capacities from the executive director, small group leader, and board member over the years. He is blessed with a beautiful God-fearing wife and three amazing boys who happen to be his favorite disciples. Being hardwired at a young age with an operations and systems mindset, he enjoys helping organizations and individuals achieve greater results through technology and human-centered operational excellence. He also enjoys teaching 'Personal Execution Intelligence' to self-aware leaders and entrepreneurs who identify or aspire to be elite operators. This is what Steve has to say about Trading Up's impact on him.

"Before Trading Up, I had a typical, ordinary relationship with Jesus. After, I see God much more clearly and live out an overflow from the active walk training I received from Doug Sherman and the Trading Up teaching. The life-changing experience was like pouring jet fuel on my walk with Christ. The joy, peace, and sense of adventure I have today as a result of walking closely with the King of Kings is my most treasured gift - one that I battle for each day. It is a blessing beyond measure helping others find that same type of connection with Jesus."

Shad Haddox

Shad Haddox

Board Member

Shad Haddox is blessed to serve as a board member for Trading Up. Shad was raised in a Christian home, and he can trace back his early admiration for Jesus to listening to stories on his grandmother's lap. Though from this time he was always a Christian, through the Wholehearted discipleship program and the Trading Up ministry, he has taken his faith to a new level of personal relationship with Jesus, where he walks with him daily. Shad is a men’s leader at Austin Ridge, where he shares his passion for walking with Jesus, with other men in the city of Austin. He is also blessed to lead Wholehearted discipleship trainings outside of church, as well as practice a Jesus following life at home with his wife and children.

Shad uses his skillset as a natural speaker and leader, and his devotion to Christ to invite others to experience the joy he has found from a more personal relationship with Jesus. He works every day to move from a fan to a follower and to spend time marinating in the scripture, which now speaks to him in new and more impactful ways. Inspired by the teachings of Doug Sherman, who has taught Shad to view Jesus as a loving Father, Shad is excited to bring his experience in the corporate world along with his heart for Jesus to grow the reach of Trading Up and bringing new believers and Christians to a new level in their walk with God.