Neurodivergent. Self-taught. Was nonverbal until age 4. Twenty years as an over-the-road truck driver. In 2010, a crushing injury put him in a coma for eight months — told he would never walk again. He walked. He then taught himself nutrition science, completed a Precision Nutrition master’s program, and spent a year researching the nutritional dimensions of cancer, dementia, and Alzheimer’s — the same diseases his AI systems now address.
He has taught over 3,000 students in underserved populations. He was recognized by the Knox County Board of Developmental Disabilities with their Community Partner Award in 2018 for his cooking and nutrition classes with developmentally disabled individuals — the same population AlphaVox was built to serve. He continues that work today. The mission didn’t start when he filed the patent. It started decades before.
His grandfather Clarence Christman was auditor and then city manager of Washington Court House — Christman Park carries his name. In 1970, at forty-four, he died of a heart attack at a bulk plant fire on Dayton Avenue, assisting the fire department. That legacy lives in every line of this code.
The team
Why they are here.
Everyone on this team came to it from something they lived through first. These are the long versions. The short ones are on the team section.
EC
Everett Christman
Founder & CEO · Managing Member
MC
Misty Christman
CFO · Member
Chief Financial Officer. Primary authority over financial management, accounting, budgeting, and reporting. Co-owner of the company’s financial structure and future.
Nineteen years before she was anyone’s CFO, she was a staffing coordinator at a nursing and rehabilitation centre. A stranger at another facility — short-staffed, calling around at the end of a shift — reached her by phone. Misty sent one of her own scheduled nurses over with the words “please take care of my girl,” then handed over her personal cell number: “any time you need anything, please call and we can help each other out. Isn’t that what it’s all about?” The woman went home that night and wrote a letter about it. Nobody asked her to.
Kindred Healthcare named Misty its district Above & Beyond winner for February 2007. She was promoted. That same year the company’s Health Services Division named her its Above & Beyond Winner — the award still on the shelf.
Nineteen years before she was anyone’s CFO, she was a staffing coordinator at a nursing and rehabilitation centre. A stranger at another facility — short-staffed, calling around at the end of a shift — reached her by phone. Misty sent one of her own scheduled nurses over with the words “please take care of my girl,” then handed over her personal cell number: “any time you need anything, please call and we can help each other out. Isn’t that what it’s all about?” The woman went home that night and wrote a letter about it. Nobody asked her to.
Kindred Healthcare named Misty its district Above & Beyond winner for February 2007. She was promoted. That same year the company’s Health Services Division named her its Above & Beyond Winner — the award still on the shelf.
PM
Patty Mette
Chief Design Officer · Final Review
Owns design across the project — UX and frontend engineering, specialized in accessible interface design for neurodivergent and disabled users, the hardest design problem in the field. Nothing ships without her sign-off.
Her first son, Ronald Allen Sederburg, was nonverbal autistic. She worked it out herself when he was two and a half, from a television program, and called the Gingerbread House — two women came out and evaluated him. A week into a three-week program in Columbia, Missouri, he climbed onto a counter, and instead of swatting him she tapped his shoulder and asked, “does Ronnie need a drink?” He jumped down and shook all over. She calls it the day her world changed. He wrapped and unwrapped vacuum cords in a figure eight to stim. When he was happy he made a diddle-diddle-diddle noise. She lost him in a house fire in 1994, four days before Christmas. He was five.
In her words: “If I had had AlphaVox back then it would have been world changing in a way bigger way.”
She met Everett five years ago. She didn’t know how to copy and paste. The day he told her what he was building, she signed up to learn to code — she now holds a Python certification. She is here so no mother has to feel there is nobody to help her.
Her first son, Ronald Allen Sederburg, was nonverbal autistic. She worked it out herself when he was two and a half, from a television program, and called the Gingerbread House — two women came out and evaluated him. A week into a three-week program in Columbia, Missouri, he climbed onto a counter, and instead of swatting him she tapped his shoulder and asked, “does Ronnie need a drink?” He jumped down and shook all over. She calls it the day her world changed. He wrapped and unwrapped vacuum cords in a figure eight to stim. When he was happy he made a diddle-diddle-diddle noise. She lost him in a house fire in 1994, four days before Christmas. He was five.
In her words: “If I had had AlphaVox back then it would have been world changing in a way bigger way.”
She met Everett five years ago. She didn’t know how to copy and paste. The day he told her what he was building, she signed up to learn to code — she now holds a Python certification. She is here so no mother has to feel there is nobody to help her.