I'm Joey Montes - dad, builder, strategist, storyteller, and stubbornly hopeful realist. My work lives where grief, faith, design, and responsibility collide. This is the hub for my story, my family, and the missions I lead.
As CEO of MKTG, I build brands, campaigns, and narratives that refuse to be shallow. Wrapped around that engine are HeartPlanted, The Dig Foundation, and Dawne.org - each one a focused expression of truth, legacy, stewardship, and protection for real families.
HeartPlanted is where impact becomes visible: living memorials, dealership programs, community plantings, and rooted gestures that outlast headlines. It started with my story. It’s built now for anyone who needs a way to remember, honor, or begin again.
Before foundations and frameworks, it was simple: faith, marriage, kids, road trips, late-night ideas, and a house full of noise, music, and inside jokes. Those years formed how I see loyalty, calling, and why legacy has to be lived - not just posted.
This chapter holds the context: the love, the building, and the promises made before everything changed.
Now I live as a widowed dad, founder, and advocate who refuses to sanitize what happened. Through MKTG, HeartPlanted, The Dig Foundation, and Dawne.org, I’m telling the truth about prescription painkillers, addiction, grief, and rebuilding - so my boys, and other families, never have to wonder what was real.
Read my journal Explore my work
This is intentionally raw. No spin. No script. Just the record I owe my sons and anyone standing in similar fire.
Next is scaling impact without losing integrity: more trees planted with purpose, more equipped families, more honest conversations in rooms that usually stay quiet. The Dig Foundation and Dawne.org push forward prevention, education, and remembrance built from lived experience, not theory.
If you’re here to help build something that actually matters, there’s room.
I’m not a persona; I’m a guy from Wentzville who has buried the love of his life, raised boys through shockwaves, and still believes in beauty, accountability, and deeply built brands. Everything I do - in MKTG or any foundation - is anchored in real stakes and real names.
I’m not a persona; I’m a guy from Wentzville who has buried the love of his life, raised boys through shockwaves, and still believes in beauty, accountability, and deeply built brands. Everything I do - in MKTG or any foundation - is anchored in real stakes and real names.
HeartPlanted is my way of translating grief into growth. Memorial trees, dealer test-drive programs, school and city plantings, and custom projects that tie stories to living roots. Built for families, communities, churches, campuses, and brands that want more than lip service.
Unfiltered entries on grief, love, rebuilding, work, and what it means to keep going when everything in you wanted to quit.
The creative and strategic core: brand systems, story architecture, campaigns, and experiences that are sharp, honest, and measurable.
Built from personal loss and hard data, The Dig Foundation and Dawne.org focus on overdose awareness, prescription risk education, early-warning conversations, and memorial projects that hold space for the ones we lost.
For partnerships, speaking, consulting, creative direction, tree programs, or a real conversation about building an honest, impact-driven brand.
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