About the Founder
Fuel the Mission“We don’t need more talk about healing—we need a place that doesn’t flinch. One that meets you in the hard, messy middle. Not another underfunded promise or overmarketed program. Golden Forge was built to do the work—because talk doesn’t change lives. Action does.”
Suzi McKinley is a Marine Corps veteran, endurance athlete, and mission-driven builder. Her path has spanned combat zones, wildland fires, classrooms, and boardrooms. But it’s the crucible of trauma—and the climb back to purpose—that forged the vision behind Golden Forge.
After three combat deployments and over a decade leading the development and implementation of mission-critical tech at Palantir, Suzi committed her own capital—because waiting for permission wasn’t an option—to create what she couldn’t find when she needed it most: a place where strength, healing, and regenerative living converge to help people come back to life.
Golden Forge began as a personal reckoning—then became a mission. Suzi walked through the invisible aftermath of service, through the kind of darkness that buries people—twice, she almost didn’t come back. It wasn’t therapy alone that pulled her back—it was movement, silence, and a mission worth staying alive for. That recovery was supported by nontraditional medicine—including psychedelic-assisted therapy and a stellate ganglion block—treatments that reached her nervous system when nothing else could. Golden Forge is the embodiment of that path—where innovation meets lived truth. It exists because she chose to live.
That belief now lives on a 163-acre high-altitude ranch in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains—where Golden Forge offers a grounded, intensive path forward for those who serve and seek to rise again.
Suzi blends tactical execution with unshakable conviction. She’s built and scaled teams under pressure, led high-impact initiatives in complex environments, and carries the lived empathy of someone who knows what’s at stake. Her leadership is grounded in grit, discernment, and the belief that strength is not the absence of struggle—but what rises from it.