Our Forge members are innovative, forward thinking, and considerate of our Birmingham community. Skip Vanderburg is no exception. Athenaeum Recovery, Skip’s newest undertaking, is a platform that helps loved ones of those suffering from addiction navigate the path to recovery.
Why did you decide to start Athenaeum Recovery?
I have been in recovery for over 9 years. Our investors came to me in San Francisco and asked if I would advise them on this concept of bringing people together who have loved ones with addiction issues or individuals seeking to learn and get recovery. The mission is to help facilitate the aggregation of recovery centers, information about addiction recovery, a safe place for those to come to and discuss openly about addiction and join a community of like-minded people. Additionally, we are building out a Recovery Experience Platform to help recovery centers, counselors and addiction specialists.
How do you see your company impacting the Birmingham community in the future?
Our initial launch plan is to help those within the community and surroundings of Birmingham, receive guidance on addiction, local and align recovery needs to resources, and connect the community in an online safe and controlled environment for recovery. Ultimately using Birmingham as the test market we want to scale this program.
What are the next steps for Athenaeum Recovery?
Our next steps at Athenaeum Recovery is not only scale to a national or even global presence, but to develop a multichannel solution suite for beyond the recovery center. An example is engagement and becoming part of larger organization’s CSR programs, which are programs to bring positive impact to the community they serve in.
Why did you decide to join Forge? When did you become a member?
We joined in April. And the reason was we had to hit the ground running. Time is everything in addiction. People are dying daily. We need infrastructure, a place to work and conduct meetings. Forge was ready fit for that to help us on day one to be launched.
What is your favorite aspect of coworking?
Having spent over 2 decades in Silicon Valley, coworking environments are somewhat something we did years ago, so I am very familiar with it. I have been a member of WeWork in the past, which is similar to Forge, so it was a no brainer to locate such a facility in Birmingham and get launched as quickly as we could and Forge has definitely enabled us to do just that.