The operator behind PELORA.

Twelve years sober. The foundation under everything.

The honest version: the only reason any of this exists is that Preston got sober in his early twenties and never looked back. Twelve years in, sobriety isn’t a chapter — it’s the operating system. It’s why the work is creative-first, why the standards are non-negotiable, and why behavioral health is the one industry he’ll never leave.

“Recovery taught me what discipline is supposed to feel like. Everything I’ve built since is downstream of that.”

The reason this work is not optional.

In 2015, Preston’s father died by suicide. The same year, he and his brother opened the first detox. The two events are not unrelated. Years later, his brother passed away from a fentanyl overdose. Friends in the same orbit have been lost to illness and addiction since.

That is the reason PELORA exists, and the reason it stays in this category. The mission is to help people live happier, healthier, longer, more active lives. If your business does that, our job is to make sure people find you, choose you, and have a great experience working with you. We treat the work like it matters because for the people sitting on the other end of the funnel, it does.

“The companies we work for are the ones helping people get better. The work is personal because of who I lost. We do not pretend it isn’t.”

Co-founded Fresh Start of California Detox with his brother. Two sub-acute detox locations.

In 2015, Preston and his brother co-founded Fresh Start of California Detox. A licensed sub-acute detox program built to actually move people through the hardest 7 to 14 days of recovery. They ran admissions, intake, clinical operations, marketing, and the whole back-office stack themselves. The business grew to two sub-acute detox locations across California.

That is the part most marketers cannot bring to a client meeting: the muscle memory of running a treatment center as the operator, not the vendor. Everything PELORA ships for behavioral health and wellness brands is built on that ground truth.

Sold both Fresh Start detox locations in 2025. Multimillion-dollar treatment centers built and consulted for.

Both Fresh Start of California Detox locations were sold in 2025, completing nearly a decade as the operator. Beyond Fresh Start, Preston has built and consulted for multimillion-dollar treatment centers across California and remote work nationwide. Detox, residential, PHP, IOP, virtual outpatient, mental health primary, dual diagnosis. Owner-side, executive-side, and clinical-marketing-side at every level.

Across that work he has personally helped thousands of clients and families move through behavioral health programs. PELORA is the agency he wishes had existed when he was the operator on the other side of the table.

Co-founded SoCal Mental Health — raised $12M.

In parallel, Preston co-founded SoCal Mental Health alongside a top-performing McDonald’s franchise operator. Together they raised $12M in capital to build out a multi-program behavioral health platform. The clinical and operational lessons from that build are still in the playbook today — even though the venture eventually wound down.

What it taught him: capital doesn’t fix a brand problem, brand doesn’t fix a clinical problem, and the only way out is creative truth-telling at every stage. That’s the lens PELORA brings to every health and wellness client.

The Epic Journal — 20,000+ copies, still selling 1,000–1,500 a month.

Preston is the author of The Epic Journal. A guided mind-body-spirit journal designed for people in or adjacent to recovery. It has crossed 20,000+ copies sold and continues to move 1,000 to 1,500 copies every month organically, with no paid push. It is the curriculum behind Epic Journey Recovery (epicjourneyrecovery.co), the sister behavioral health company to PELORA Marketing.

The book is also the proof case PELORA points to most often: it’s a content engine, an SEO surface, a customer-acquisition asset, and a conversation-starter all in one product — built without a launch budget, sustained by creative.

Worked with Kirk Perron (founder of Jamba Juice), top McDonald’s franchisees & functional medicine doctors.

Preston has consulted, partnered, and built alongside operators most agencies do not have access to. Kirk Perron, founder of Jamba Juice, was an early collaborator. Some of the top-performing McDonald’s franchisees in the country have been business partners on multi-program behavioral health builds. Functional medicine MDs, ketamine clinic operators, longevity practitioners, and consumer health founders have hired Preston for brand, growth, and operator-side strategy.

That network is the reason PELORA can ship work most boutique agencies cannot: it has been pressure-tested across multiple industries with operators who have built brands at scale. The same playbook that grows a Jamba franchise grows a peptide brand. The same playbook that compounds a McDonald’s franchisee’s portfolio compounds a treatment center’s census.

Brand and content partner to Monster Energy and Red Bull athletes.

Outside of behavioral health, Preston has built brand and content work for some of the most-watched action-sports athletes in the world — including endorsements and creative collaborations with Monster Energy and Red Bull-sponsored athletes such as Robbie Maddison and Sebastian Alvarez. He has coached and consulted for large brands across action sports, longevity, and wellness verticals.

That’s the side of PELORA that explains why we’re creative-first. Athletes don’t hire vendors who’ve never been in the air, on the bike, or in the water. They hire creators — and the work shows on camera.

$580,000+ raised for behavioral health, mental health, addiction & wellness fundraisers.

Across the past decade, Preston has personally raised more than $580,000 for fundraisers benefiting behavioral health programs, mental health awareness, addiction recovery, and consumer wellness initiatives. Foundation work, athlete partnerships, golf tournaments, alumni events, and direct community fundraising. The Red Songbird Foundation event PELORA powered is one chapter of that work.

The reason it matters here: agencies that have never been on the giving side of this category miss the buyer’s emotional reality. Treatment center owners, functional medicine practitioners, and recovery-adjacent founders are not running ad-budget calculations in a vacuum. They are doing the work because someone they loved needed help. PELORA understands that because PELORA has lived it.

PELORA — the operator’s creative agency.

PELORA is the synthesis. A creative-first agency in Newport Beach, CA, built for health & wellness, behavioral health, longevity, and mind-body-spirit brands — companies that help people live healthier, longer, and more spiritual lives. We shoot the videography, design the websites and landing pages, run the paid ads, and build out AI-powered CRM automation so leads never fall through the cracks.

Preston is the operator who lives in the back end — the one personally building out CRMs, integrating AI agents, automating client businesses, and overseeing every project shipped under the PELORA name. The agency runs the way he wishes one had existed when he was the client.