Sarah Hope

Sarah Hope is the founder of Vertical Identity, a nationwide DOT drug & alcohol testing consortium and motor-carrier compliance company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. She built Vertical Identity to give owner-operators and small fleets the same federally-compliant random-testing program, FMCSA Clearinghouse support, and full driver-compliance lifecycle that large carriers get — at transparent, published prices, without a sales call.

Under Sarah's leadership, Vertical Identity operates as a Consortium / Third-Party Administrator (C/TPA) registered with the FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, serving carriers in all 50 states. The company is registered in SAM.gov and certified as a Woman-Owned Small Business, and it covers the complete hire-and-maintain lifecycle for CDL drivers — random pool enrollment, Clearinghouse queries, MVRs, PSP reports, background checks, DOT physicals, supervisor training, written drug & alcohol policies, and driver qualification file management — alongside corporate, non-DOT background screening.

Sarah brings firsthand experience from across the entire drug-testing and occupational-health world. While serving as CEO of Vertical Identity, she simultaneously built and ran an interlinked group of compliance, occupational-health, and background-screening companies — including 911 Drug Testing, a group of Phoenix-area collection clinics and a mobile post-accident testing service. The businesses shared staff, systems, and expertise across the whole family, and across all of it Sarah personally ran collections, trained collectors, and managed DOT compliance end to end. As a certified DOT collector and trainer, she has done the work at every step, which is exactly why Vertical Identity is built around what carriers actually need across the entire driver lifecycle, not just the random pool.

When COVID-19 hit, Sarah rebranded the clinics as 911 OccMed and stood up one of the Valley's larger pandemic testing and vaccination operations, sending mobile teams across Arizona and administering up to 800 vaccinations a day under contracts with Maricopa County and the State of Arizona. As a first-generation Cuban-American business owner, she aimed those teams at the communities the system usually misses — farmworkers, migrants, and people who couldn't take time off or get to a clinic. That work was featured in outlets including AZ Central, the Phoenix Business Journal, and the Daily Independent.

Vertical Identity has been in business since 2014, and its work goes beyond trucking. Alongside the DOT consortium, the company runs a corporate background screening division — at verticalid.com — that manages the full screening process for school districts, volunteer organizations, government agencies, and small businesses nationwide. Whether it's a CDL driver or a classroom volunteer, the same principle drives the company: make compliance accurate, simple, and done for you.

Companies founded & led

Areas of focus

In the press & on air

Sarah has been featured in regional and trade coverage and on industry podcasts. She has appeared twice on the Women in Motion podcast ("Avoiding Hiring Pitfalls: The Critical Role of Background Screening" and "Women's Month & Stress Awareness: Stress Management"), and her companies have been covered by the Daily Independent ("Glendale clinic offers rapid COVID test results"), AZ Central, and the Phoenix Business Journal.