About

Jon Bryan has a background in building businesses through relationships. After spending over a decade in advertising, he left the industry to become a firefighter and paramedic, driven by a desire to make a more direct impact.

Following the loss of a captain and close friend, Jon helped organize a large-scale benefit concert supporting first responder mental health, raising over $160,000 in just four months through partnerships. That experience revealed a clear strength — bringing the right people and opportunities together to produce real outcomes.

He carried that same approach into business as Chief Growth Officer at Fire Department Coffee, where he helped scale retail distribution from approximately 1,000 locations to over 11,000 nationwide. At the same time, he helped grow social media sponsorship revenue more than 20x through strategic brand partnerships. He was part of an amazing team and learned a lot about business and sales.

Jon later applied this model in construction, helping scale a custom home building company from 2 homes to nearly 30 in just 18 months.

This repeated success across industries led to the creation of Escala Growth Partners.

Today, Jon maintains relationships across major brands, national retailers, media, motorsports, and multiple fortune 500 companies. He is also the co-founder of The Crutcher Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting first responder mental health.

Mariana Bryan is the "Heart" of Escala and focuses on the people behind the businesses.

With a background in psychology, communication, and leadership, she has worked in high-performance, service-driven environments with companies like United Airlines and Lufthansa. Her experience centers on team dynamics, communication under pressure, and leadership development.

Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Mariana speaks five languages and brings a global perspective to communication and human connection. She is also the inspiration behind the name “Escala.”

She works with founders and teams to strengthen alignment, improve communication, and build cultures that support long-term growth.

Together, they built Escala on a simple belief:

When strategy and people are aligned, growth becomes inevitable.