Meet ManualShift

Joe Bargas has spent more than 25 years in the trenches of retail and franchise operations, and he's seen just about everything that can go right and wrong when a business tries to grow.

He's consulted with and written franchise operations manuals and training programs for clients across a wide range of industries, including the United States Navy, BP, Dave & Buster's, Fogo de Chão, Zain, First Watch, Buona Beef, Rainbow Cone, and Rosati's. The work looks different depending on the business, but the goal is always the same: make sure the people doing the job actually know how to do it right.

Before ManualShift, Joe was Director of Franchise Development and Operations at Famous Famiglia Pizzeria, where he helped take the brand from 12 locations to over 200 open and in development. He built the training and operational infrastructure for the entire franchise program—not inherited it, not tweaked it, built it. That experience gave him a firsthand understanding of what it takes to grow a concept without losing what made it work in the first place.

Before Famous Famiglia, he spent several years as Midwest Regional Director for Auntie Anne’s, Inc., guiding regional growth from a handful of stores to more than 150 locations. The operational and training approaches he developed there were eventually rolled out across the whole system.

Joe started his career at OfficeMax, where he developed the company's core operational materials and helped launch their Train-the-Trainer program—a program that proved its worth when OfficeMax absorbed two major competitors on opposite coasts. He also led the team that built OfficeMax's home-delivery system, which is still running today.

Joe was a standout high school basketball player, earning the moniker “Jumpin' Joe from Kokomo!”

He holds a BA from Southern Illinois University (Go Salukis!).

As an operations and training systems writer and editor with 12+ years of experience, Sheila Benson develops comprehensive playbooks for businesses of all types and sizes. She excels at organizing content, consolidating complex procedures, and extracting key details to create clear, well-structured materials that are easy to use—helping business owners train their teams and operate with greater consistency and confidence.

Before joining ManualShift, Sheila served as Executive Director of a regional chamber of commerce, providing support to the business community through advocacy, marketing, and access to educational and networking opportunities. In that role, she gained an understanding of the operations and challenges of small businesses while helping members achieve steady growth and long-term success. 

Sheila holds a BA from Northern Illinois University and lives in Chicago with her husband, Mark, and their Great Pyrenees, Benny.

From fitness studios and home services to senior care, personal services, and med spas, Terry Conroy has spent over 22 years helping businesses run more smoothly. She’s worked with everyone—from first-time founders to well-known national brands—and loves finding the systems and processes that make work easier, teams stronger, and customers happier.

Before she ever wrote an operations manual, Terry was in the classroom. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Marquette University and a degree in Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, then spent several years teaching middle and high school. That time in education sparked her love for creating clear, practical materials that make learning simple—a skill she later used to write teaching manuals and textbooks.

Moving from education to business operations was a natural shift. Terry realized that the same principles that help students learn also help teams thrive: structure, clarity, and purposeful communication. Today, she channels that educator’s mindset into developing training programs and operations playbooks that help businesses of all sizes grow with confidence and consistency.

Over the years, Terry has partnered with brands like CorePower Yoga, Baked by Melissa, FedEx, and European Wax Center, as well as countless smaller startups finding their rhythm. No matter the project, her approach is warm, collaborative, and solutions-focused. At the heart of her work is a simple goal: to help businesses build stronger foundations and make everyday operations feel a little lighter.

Bev Descoteaux has spent nearly two decades doing work that most people don't fully appreciate until they desperately need it. With 19 years of experience and more than 400 operations manuals under her belt, she knows how to take the way a business actually runs and turn it into something a team can learn from, follow, and rely on.

Her client list spans a wide range of industries, from Dave & Buster's and Fogo de Chão to Buona Beef, Rainbow Cone, Clean Juice, Capriotti's, Imo's Pizza, Hot Head Burritos, CRAL Contracting, and Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. The industries look different, but the challenge is usually the same: getting the right knowledge out of people's heads and into a format that actually holds up on the floor.

Before ManualShift, Bev worked as a Project Manager at a global integrated communications firm, where she owned projects from the first spark of an idea through final delivery. That experience gave her a sharp eye for how the pieces of a project fit together, and a low tolerance for anything that gets in the way of getting it done right.

When she's not working, Bev can be found walking the dogs, reading, or watching sports. She also once took first place in fantasy football, a fact she will mention if you give her any opening at all.

Michael Goldberg has spent 30+ years doing something most people can't quite pull off: being genuinely useful on both sides of the brain—and several sides most people don't know exist.

Michael’s career spans video production, enterprise operations consulting, and Agile transformation leadership, including 20 years at IBM where he helped redesign how 50,000+ employees work across four continents. These days, he channels that range into helping small and growing businesses build the operational clarity they need to scale—without losing what made them good in the first place.

He holds an MFA from the University of Illinois and dual ICAgile certifications in Agile Coaching and Team Facilitation—the formal way of saying he helps organizations get out of their own way.

At ManualShift, Michael brings strategic thinking, storytelling instincts, and a genuine talent for getting what lives in a business owner's head onto the page—or on screen—so their team can execute it, their training actually sticks, and their business can grow without the owner having to be in every room at once.

Jim Green has spent 23+ years inside the messy reality of how businesses actually operate—not how they're supposed to on paper. He's worked with early-stage startups scrambling to get off the ground and with established brands like BP, Topgolf, PetSmart, Ace Hardware, Potbelly Sandwich Shop, and College Hunks Hauling Junk, helping them build systems that hold up when things get busy.

His specialty is operations manuals and training programs, but the work is really about something simpler: getting the knowledge out of people's heads and into something the whole team can use. Most businesses don't have a people problem; they have a systems problem. That's what Jim helps fix.

Before starting ManualShift, he spent years in operations and training roles, supporting statewide programs and helping large teams actually adopt the processes they were handed. He's seen what happens when that doesn't work, and it's informed everything about how he approaches the work now.

He's not big on jargon or overly complex frameworks. He just wants to help your business run better tomorrow than it did today.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a Certified Franchise Executive (CFE).

When he's not working, you'll find Jim on a baseball diamond, either coaching youth baseball or watching his son play. His daughter keeps the family schedule just as full with dance practices and competitions, and his wife somehow keeps it all moving. He's a firm believer that strong communities are built close to home, which is why he stays involved with his local baseball and softball organization. It's the same instinct that drives his work: show up, put in the work, and make it better for the people around you.

Sue Hamilton is an editor with more than 20 years of experience crafting clear, high-impact guides for national brands. She specializes in the full-scale production of detailed operations manuals, transforming complex information into polished, brand-aligned resources.

Sue’s career began with a co-op placement at Amoco Corporation via Robert Morris College. This early immersion as a cross-functional specialist allowed her to navigate diverse corporate departments before joining the Environmental Affairs & Safety team full-time. During her decade at Amoco, Sue built a strong foundation in exacting editorial standards, serving as a key resource for the rigorous document preparation and proofreading required for global communications.

At ManualShift, Sue is recognized for her meticulous attention to detail and her reputation as a reliable partner who delivers on time, every time. Even under the most demanding deadlines, she ensures every project meets the highest quality standards, combining her extensive corporate background with a strategic approach to documentation.

When Sue is not working, she enjoys baking, catching a movie, and spending quality time with friends and family. A lifelong Chicago White Sox fan, she is also an avid tennis and baseball enthusiast.

With more than 35 years of experience working with businesses to improve and document their operational systems, Dan Levy has worked directly with more than 500 businesses ranging from Nothing Bundt Cakes to T-Mobile and Ace Hardware to Häagen-Dazs. While these businesses might seem to have little in common, Dan discovered early in his career that most successful businesses are successful because they excel at doing many of the same things every day. For a business to thrive and grow, it must understand the hundreds of things that make it tick, and it must doggedly pursue carrying out all these things day in and day out. Dan’s expertise is helping determine and distill what those hundreds of things are that make the business work, developing systems and tools that ensure that these things are being done every day, and creating training that explains the “how’s” and the “why’s” behind each, so there is a full understanding and commitment from the team.  

In addition to his consulting engagements, Dan has worked as a Regional Director with Auntie Anne’s, Inc., a 1,000+ unit chain of mall-based pretzel operations. In this role, Dan was able to see, firsthand, how growth puts pressure on companies. When owners are no longer able to be “everywhere at all times,” their business begins to slip. In the absence of the on-site hand-holding, a vacuum forms. Employees become unsure of what the best practices are, shortcuts begin to be made, the culture begins to diminish, and the customer notices. This is why Dan believes it’s critical to have all operational standards and best practices documented and packaged in a way that employees can be easily trained from and reference easily. Dan has seen what a difference these tools make in the long-term success of a business and what difficulties businesses face when they’re not in place.

Dan has lectured on the topic of operational documentation and business growth at universities and at business conferences throughout the United States and internationally. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and attended Northern Illinois University’s Graduate School of Business.