Our Story

Ohms Collective is the brainchild of co-founders and life partners, Omar Uribe and Chrissy Dasco. While the couple traveled from different paths, together they arrived at this shared vision and continue to inspire each other creatively as they develop the concrete and abstract aspects of building a brand and launching a business together.

The following is just a snippet of the story of how Omar and Chrissy both arrived here:

As a teenager Omar struggled with suicidal depression due to a multitude of circumstances. Omar was bullied as a child due to the color of his skin and wrongful assumptions about his ethnicity. His father struggled with alcohol abuse, and his parents divorced when Omar was 7 years old. When Omar was fifteen years old he lost his father to cancer.

Just before the passing of his father, Omar cooked a meal for his family. This meal is marked as a pivotal moment in Omar's life; it was the moment he knew he wanted to dive into the world of culinary arts.

During the four years that followed high school, Omar held multiple jobs at some of Santa Barbara's finest restaurants, paid his way through culinary school, and graduated at the top of his class. During his time at the Culinary Arts Program at Santa Barbara City College, Omar was introduced to foraging mushrooms among other wild edible foods; he began building a strong bond to being in nature. Omar's connection to mushrooms is what really gave him peace from the depression that he had struggled with throughout his teenage years.

Upon graduating SBCC at the age of 22, Omar was offered the opportunity to open a restaurant in Ojai as executive chef. It was at this time that he really fell in love with foraging mushrooms as these weekly mushroom forays became his only peaceful escape from the stress of running the restaurant. After two years of working 80+ hour work weeks running the kitchen, Omar knew that restaurant work was not conducive to the healthy and balanced life he wanted for himself.

It was at this time that he journeyed further down the rabbit hole of mycology as well as developed the recipe for what was to become the Big Brain Bar. He created the Big Brain Bar to help kids and adults have a healthier sweet treat option that packed a punch of healthy fats and adaptogens that boost cognitive functions and energy.

When Omar was offered an opportunity to develop a mushroom garden on a neighbour's property the vision for Ohms Collective began to really take shape. The more focused intention Omar poured into mushroom cultivation and the development of superfood products, the more opportunities for sharing his gifts with the community emerged. Eventually, Omar prioritized his work from the hotline in restaurants to focusing on preventive medicines and, with the support of Chrissy's creative directing and consulting, committed fully to dialing in the vision for Ohms Collective.

On the opposite side of the country, Chrissy also struggled through teenagehood and young adulthood. Chrissy was born with a bellyache and lactose intolerance. Therefore, from a very young age, she had heightened awareness of the effects that food has on our bodies. As a teenager Chrissy struggled with anxiety, body dysphoria, disordered eating and exercise habits, and restrictive dieting. At the age of seventeen Chrissy began working with a holistic nutritionist who offered the awareness that our brains have a major impact on how our bodies process food. It was at this time that Chrissy became interested with uncovering the mysteries of food and human health and she decided to pursue higher education in the realms of food science and nutrition. But after completing her first year of undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Chrissy decided to answer her soul-calling and instead began to pursue a career working with children in child-centered, holistic, and self-directed spaces.

Upon graduating college, Chrissy found her way to Ojai, California to accept her dream job as a mentor at Rock Tree Sky, a self-directed learning program for children.

Still, Chrissy has remained inquisitive and ever committed to working on healing her own body-mind connection. She has studied herbalism, ayurveda, and has completed 500 hours of yoga teacher training. This commitment to holistic health and wellbeing comes through in her daily life and in her work as a role-model and mentor to children. In the realm of education, Chrissy's number one priority is to support children's social and emotional wellbeing.

Connecting with Omar and working with him to build Ohms Collective has allowed Chrissy the opportunity to draw out her interests in food and human health in a way she hadn't imagined possible. She is devoted to creating a brand that she would like to support as a consumer.

Together Chrissy and Omar derive inspiration from music festival culture, dance, art, freedom of expression, the outdoors, exercise, community engagement, and eating really good food.

Our dream is for Ohms Collective to be a reflection of our shared spirit. It’s colorful, a little psychedelic, and uniquely us.