From co-owner to consultant to volunteer, industrial engineering alumna’s career is dedicated to data-driven solutions
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Western Michigan University industrial and entrepreneurial engineering alumna Amber Johnson, B.S.E’18, is a go-getter.
Between co-owning a beverage co-manufacturing and fulfillment facility called Good Trade Depot, being a fractional industrial engineer at a company she founded named Peachy Profitability, working with WMU undergraduates as an industry sponsor for the Senior Engineering Design Conference and being a globally ranked Microsoft Excel competitor, Johnson is booked and busy.
“A successful day for me is helping someone have even the smallest light bulb moment,” says Johnson. “Hope positively builds compounding interest—I love being a small ignition of hope that work can work better.”
Johnson’s career is dedicated to making small businesses run smoothly. Utilizing the skillset she learned at Western, Johnson is a time-saver and a chaos reducer, streamlining old processes into data-driven systems.
“My favorite part of the career I’m in is helping people and businesses be better, faster, cheaper or whatever they’d like,” says Johnson. “I love helping someone achieve whatever objective goal they’re after.”
Johnson began her career at Anheuser-Busch as a wholesaler demand forecaster, learning about world-class applications of continuous improvement, creating objective data out of subjective experiences, Microsoft Excel and automation.
When she was invited back to Kalamazoo by the owner of Good Trade Depot, Matt White, to scale up his business, Johnson was hesitant. It was a visit to the startup’s facility that informed Johnson of how much impact she could have on process creation and optimization for small and medium-sized businesses.
“When you work with the best of the best, you start to assume everyone else knows what you know,” says Johnson. “It was shocking how large a gap there is for growing businesses to have access to the skills I have.”
At Good Trade Depot, Johnson creates and improves all systems inside the business, including sales, production, warehousing, fulfillment, administrative duties and finances. She finds that her favorite part of her role is creating a web between departments and data.
“At large businesses, you often will see massive silos of knowledge, software, systems and data,” says Johnson. “My true job is to ensure the business operates with world-class efficiency as it scales.”
Her role at Good Trade Depot inspired Johnson to begin Peachy Profitability, a consulting company that helps other small businesses to streamline their processes.
“My job is to save teams time, reduce chaos and enable operations that can keep up with ever growing demands,” says Johnson. “Most of the time I’m click-clacking away in Microsoft Excel.”
Johnson credits her undergraduate experience at Western, particularly Dr. Tycho Fredericks, professor and chair of the Department of Industrial and Entrepreneurial Engineering and Engineering Management, for her holistic knowledge and skill. She notes that Fredericks checked in on her during hard times, ensuring that she had the capacity to always do her best.
“Having a mentor who believes in you can truly get you through extremely difficult times that lead to opportunities you’d never imagined,” says Johnson. “WMU's program emphasized problem-solving under uncertainty, data-driven decision-making, teamwork and continuous improvement. Those foundations have carried through every role and life experience I’ve faced since!”
“Amber exemplifies resilience and determination,” says Fredericks. “As a student, she managed the extraordinary—balancing full-time studies with nearly full-time work. Even when exhausted, Amber never wavered; her perseverance, dedication and ability to push through challenges were truly inspiring."
Johnson is returning to her Western roots through the Senior Engineering Design Conference. She is working with graduating students, sponsoring their capstone projects. She presents a problem her business is facing and offers students the opportunity to come up with a solution as their senior design project.
“I try to leave solution creation open enough to not stifle their creativity but be a nearby mentor if they get stuck,” says Johnson. “The senior design students have the full toolbelt of industrial and entrepreneurial engineering skills fresh in their mind, and they come with a new lens of creativity to any problem I hand them.”
It was all her success that earned Johnson an Emerging Alumni Award from WMU’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 2025. According to Johnson, receiving the award was a welcome surprise, inspiring her to become even more involved with her alma mater.
“If anything, receiving this award encourages me to dedicate even more time and effort to supporting this wonderful program any way I can,” says Johnson. “It’s given me the career of a lifetime and a set of skills no one can take away.”
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