About & Contact
Rusty to Ready was created for experienced professionals navigating an unexpected career transition.
Highly experienced professionals.
Deep subject-matter experts.
People who had spent years doing meaningful, consequential work in service to others.
And suddenly, they were on the job market for the first time in a long time.
Many of the people we built Rusty to Ready for spent much of their careers inside the federal government or other public-sector systems. In those environments, roles are clearly defined, impact is understood, and you don’t constantly have to explain why your work matters.
The private job market plays by different rules.
Today, millions of mid- and late-career professionals are navigating career transitions they didn’t plan for. Some were laid off. Some were reorganized out. Some reached a moment where staying no longer made sense. And many of them are encountering a hiring market that expects clarity, compression, and narrative skill in ways they’ve never had to practice before.
The problem isn’t a lack of talent.
It’s a translation problem.
People with decades of experience that is long, layered, and complex, and they’re suddenly expected to compress it into clear answers to the most common job search questions:
Tell me about yourself…
What are you looking for?
Tell me about a time when…
Without structure, those conversations feel awkward, draining, and harder than they should be.
Rusty to Ready exists to solve that problem.
We help experienced professionals organize their professional identity, make clearer decisions about what comes next, and develop language that helps others understand who they are and how they work. Not by teaching people to “sell themselves,” but by giving them structure they can rely on.
We don’t promise jobs. We don’t trade in hustle culture or empty motivation. What we offer are practical frameworks that help people move through career transitions with more clarity, credibility, and agency.
Being rusty doesn’t mean you’re behind.
It means your experience grew inside systems that didn’t require this kind of translation.
Rusty to Ready exists to help you find the words.
So you can be Ready.
Jana Sanchez - Co-Founder / CEO
Jana has spent the last two decades helping people find the right words—and the confidence—to say them out loud. With a career built at the intersection of communication, coaching, and community development, she’s worked with everyone from scrappy startups to Fortune 1000 executives, nonprofit leaders, and grad students who just need help explaining what it is they actually do.
As the founder of Alchemy With Words and creator of Rusty to Ready, Jana helps seasoned professionals build the confidence and clarity they need to talk about themselves with conviction—in interviews, at networking events, and in those awkward “so, what do you do?” conversations. Her workshops and one-on-one coaching combine deep listening, sharp strategy, and the occasional lovingly delivered truth bomb. Because let’s face it: you don’t need another pep talk.
You need a plan and a voice that sounds like you on your best day.
Jana holds a Master’s in Organizational Management & Corporate Culture and a Bachelor’s in Theatre Management, which means she’s uniquely qualified to coach you through both your next career pivot and your next boardroom performance. She’s a certified ECHO Listening Intelligence™ Practitioner and Conflict Fluency™ trainer, and she’s facilitated hundreds of workshops and strategic retreats on everything from storytelling to stakeholder alignment.
When she’s not helping professionals find their voice, she’s building ecosystems that support small businesses and local economies—most recently as the Executive Director of LaunchNo.CO and Program Manager of the Estes Park BASE accelerator.
And yes, she believes words really can change your outcome.
(But no, she won’t let you get away with calling yourself a “results-driven self-starter” ever again.)
Chris Radliff - Co-Founder / COO
Christopher has over 25 years experience as a multi-disciplined creative professional and entrepreneur, serving as a founder / board member and at the director, coo, and president levels at design studios, consumer product companies, and non-profit entities.
As an executive, he helps guide business development and product strategy within collaborative teams, centered on the firm foundation of value proposition and brand promise. As a consultant he advises early-stage startups in establishing core strategy and practices.
In his creative capacity he has done a variety of work in building brands & brand strategy and the development of products and creative content in the education, healthcare, advertising, marketing, and consumer products spaces - across print, web, multimedia, courseware, video, photography, and manufacturing.
Contact Us
Stay up to date on the latest Rusty to Ready news and information. Our newsletter provides insightful tips and resources to assist with your journey from Rusty to Ready.
Press : Contact Rusty to Ready via email here.
