Built in Effingham.
Built for You.

How This Started

Swayde spent years managing large IT projects at Empower — one of America's two biggest retirement record keepers. Real projects, regulated environments, real money on the line. He got good at finding where operations leak value and building the right solution.

Bryan built and runs his own e-commerce business, All About Pocket Knives. Not a side project — a live operation with real customers, real inventory, and real problems he solved himself because nobody else was going to.

The idea for Crossroads came from noticing the same thing separately: small and mid-sized businesses have the same operational problems big companies do. They just don't have access to the same solutions. Nobody was bringing enterprise-grade thinking to the local business owner — the kind of thinking that turns a scheduling nightmare into a system that learns and improves on its own, or catches operational inefficiencies that are costing you money.

The industry doesn't matter. The framework does: identify the problem, understand the business, build the fix.

Why "Crossroads Automation"

The name has a few layers. Literally, we're at the intersection of I-57 and I-70 — crossroads of Central Illinois, middle of everything. That cross you see lit up at night off the interstate? That's Effingham. That's our home.

Strategically, we think most businesses are standing at a crossroads right now: keep running things manually and slowly fall behind, or use the tools that exist to operate at a different level.

And personally: the crossroads means something beyond business to us. Swayde is a Christian, and that shapes how he works — with integrity, in genuine service to this community, and with something at stake beyond just profit. We're not here to build a brand around it. But we won't hide it either. It's part of why we care about doing this right.

We're not evangelical about AI or automation. We're practical about it. If there's a smarter workflow that doesn't require either, that's what we'll build. The goal is always the same: your operation works better than it did before we met.

How We Work

Real problems, real solutions. We don't build technology for its own sake. We solve operational problems that have a real price tag. The ones costing you hours every week or revenue you can't see slipping away.

Built with you, not sold to you. We're not here to sell you a product. We learn how your operation actually runs and build something that fits it. You're involved throughout, not handed a finished thing at the end.

Humans stay in the loop. Automation handles the repetitive stuff. Your people handle everything that requires a person: judgment calls, relationships, the things that actually need them. We're not replacing your team. We're freeing them.

No vendor lock-in. You own what we build. If we part ways, you keep the solution. No ongoing fees, no dependency on us to keep things running.

We're here, not elsewhere. We're not scaling to 10,000 customers in 50 states. We're focused on Effingham and Central Illinois. When you call, you get us.

Meet the Team

Swayde Sanders

Swayde Sanders

Co-Founder & Senior Project Manager

Swayde currently manages large-scale automation and digital transformation projects at Empower, one of the two largest retirement record keepers in the U.S. He's delivered $10M+ in captured savings, led 6 major initiatives including an industry-first deployment no other record keeper has done, and maintained 85–95% adoption rates on complex digital transformations. 100% on-time and on-budget delivery across every project.

Before that: US Army Sergeant with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, earning two campaign stars. He coached, mentored, and trained anywhere from eight to forty soldiers at a time in support of global operations. He held a U.S. security clearance required for handling $6M in classified equipment vital to national security and the safety of 200 U.S. military personnel. He moved it from Louisiana to Kuwait to Iraq to Afghanistan and back. Zero losses. He graduated first in his class in the Basic Leadership Course out of more than 100 soldiers. That's not a resume line. It's how he learned to adapt, lead, and deliver when the pressure is highest and people are counting on you.

He started Crossroads because he got tired of watching big corporations get bigger while the people and businesses in his own community got left behind. Effingham deserves partners who actually show up — not offshore teams and vendor lock-in. Swayde's calling is simple: take the skills God gave him, give back to the people around him, and build valuable tools that put local businesses on the cutting edge.

Education: BS in Computer Information Systems, University of Southern Indiana

Certifications: PMP, PSM I

Bryan Sanders

Bryan Sanders

Co-Founder & Principal Engineer

Bryan has been building production systems for over twenty years — not demos, not prototypes, but infrastructure that real businesses depend on daily. In 2003 he founded allaboutpocketknives.com, a multi-vendor marketplace and collector community that's still running today on bare-metal servers he personally maintains. Before most developers had heard the term "API," he was working directly with eBay to build server-to-server systems for real-time inventory sync and multi-platform distribution. That architecture became the modern drop-ship model. He's built e-commerce platforms, real estate software integrating live MLS data feeds, and algorithmic systems for investment analysis.

Bryan's been reading numbers since before he could drive, studying baseball card statistics as a kid with the same intensity he'd later bring to equity markets after the 1987 crash. He earned a finance degree from Eastern Illinois University while working full-time. A spinal cord injury in his final semester forced him to finish remotely during rehabilitation, adding advanced accounting coursework and carrying a 3.8 GPA. He came out of it with a rare dual lens: the ability to read a balance sheet and a codebase with equal fluency. That's not a talking point. It's how he builds everything.

After years of building businesses for himself and others, he stepped back to run AAPK. Then AI changed the landscape and pulled him back in — not as a newcomer chasing hype, but as an engineer who knows exactly where AI accelerates the work and where it introduces risk that only two decades of experience can catch.

Education: B.S. Finance, Eastern Illinois University · Advanced Accounting Concentration

Where We're Headed

We're not chasing an exit or angling for an acquisition. We're building a sustainable business that helps local companies operate better. That starts here in Effingham, with the businesses we can actually sit across the table from.

We're early and honest about it. The first businesses we work with will help shape what this becomes. In return, they get our full attention, direct access to both of us, and pricing that reflects they're helping us build something.

When local businesses do well, everyone here benefits. That's not a marketing line — it's the reason we started this.

Want to Talk?

No pitch, no pressure. We're happy to hear what's going on in your business and tell you honestly whether we can help.

Let's Talk