The following individuals are members of the ever-expanding Open Source Capitalism tribe- global thought leaders and champions who share the belief that transparency, accountability, accessibility and fairness can clear the way for a new generation of disruptive innovations.
Abraham Alfonso Abreu, Sr.
Abe Abreu is a broadly experienced strategic development executive with palpable energy and creative/solutions “wiring” uniquely qualified to disrupt industrial-age thinking, break old paradigms and drive frightening change. Abe is naturally inclined to development – innovation, process, product, service, business, market – and has the operational and tactical programming capabilities to articulate, motivate, lead and execute.
Abe has deep experience across several business, technology and geographic domains and is a seasoned entrepreneur, start up founder and business owner- having had a few successes and his fair share of wonderfully productive and informing failures – all of which color his emerging global perspective on creating lasting economic value.
Currently, Abe is focused and firmly intent on work that develops entrepreneurial talent, produces accessible, high-value intellectual property, facilitates better-informed community through networked collaboration, and has demonstrable, positive impact on the civic and economic trajectory of natural economic markets and geographic regions.
Abe has international ex-pat experience and is a well travelled and articulate speaker. Abe is bilingual and has many passions, creative and artistic interests outside of work.
Keith M. Chiavetta
Keith Chiavetta is the President and CEO of Chiavetta Management Advisors, LLC, helping organizations achieve business and information technology alignment.
Most recently, Keith worked for a Global-6 accounting, tax and advisory services firm, where he held a variety of roles including corporate strategist, business process re-alignment leader and advisory services director. Some of the clients Keith has worked with include Bear Stearns, Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wal-Mart, as well as many family-owned and not-for-profit businesses.
Keith began his career as an entrepreneur. While at the University of Iowa, he owned and operated a CD-ROM development and multimedia production firm. Keith subsequently served in technology management roles at Apple Computer, Rockwell Collins and Hewlett Packard, and has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal.
Stan DeForest
Stan DeForest is a Director of Commercial Operations at Cornell University, one of the top institutions of higher learning and research in the United States. In addition to a 15 year technical background with the automotive industry, Stan is also the co-founder of two startups and a founding director of two nonprofit educational organizations in Upstate NY. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Kettering University (formerly General Motors Institute) and holds dual M.B.A. degrees from Cornell University and Queen’s University. Stan lives in the Ithaca, NY area where he participates as an active coach and mentor to entrepreneurs.
Daniel Epstein
A fundamental belief that entrepreneurship is the answer to nearly all the
issues we face today has shaped Daniel Epstein’s life. By the time he
received his degree in philosophy from CU Boulder, he’d already started
three companies. Today he is recognized by Forbes as one of the top 30 most impactful entrepreneurs in his roll as the Founder and CEO of Unreasonable Adventures, focused on leveraging eco-tourism markets as an international tool for development, and as Founder of the Unreasonable Institute, an international accelerator and seed stage investor in entrepreneurs working to alleviate social and environmental issues globally.
Annually, the Unreasonable Institute gathers 25 entrepreneurs from 20 countries to Boulder Colorado for a 6 week intensive Institute. The ultimate goal of the Institute is to provide early stage entrepreneurs with the connections, skills, and access to capital needed to scale up companies future generations will remember as having defined progress in our time.
Daniel is also the Founder of Unreasonable at Sea, an international accelerator for technology entrepreneurs that is hosted on a ship as it circumnavigates the southern hemisphere.
Daniel is a self identified misfit and enjoys nothing more than seeking refuge amongst fellow misfits and entrepreneurs… He also has an overt love for the outdoors, enjoys walking his dog Kaya more than any other pastime, and he struggles to take himself too seriously.
Traci Fenton
Traci Fenton is the Founder and CEO of WorldBlu, whose mission is championing the growth of democratically-run companies worldwide. WorldBlu publishes the annual WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces™, a list of the most transparent, collaborative and decentralized companies in the world, ranging from small to FORTUNE 500-sized organizations. As a leading expert in organizational democracy, she is recognized as one of the business thought-leaders of her generation as well as of the next generation of business.
Traci frequently addresses audiences on organizational democracy and freedom-centered leadership and has shared her message with individuals from over 100 countries, in forums and for organizations such as TEDx, South by Southwest, Yahoo!, Fox Interactive Media, the CIA, and Harvard University.
Traci has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, US News and World Report, The New York Times, Fast Company, BusinessWeek, Forbes the BBC and dozens of other media around the globe.
Drawing from over a decade of original research and hundreds of conversations with business executives and leading practitioners about how freedom, rather than fear and control, can be practiced within a business environment, Traci is currently working on her first book highlighting innovative case studies in organizational democracy.
Prior to becoming Founder and CEO of WorldBlu, Inc., Traci founded the WorldBlu Foundation, a non-profit think-tank. Previously in her career she worked in public relations and advertising for a FORTUNE 500 company, was a social venture capitalist for the NASDAQ Stock Market’s multi-million dollar educational foundation, and was a social entrepreneurial consultant for a national non-profit organization.
Traci has traveled throughout Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. She earned a BA in global studies and entrepreneurship from Principia College and a master’s degree in international development from American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC. In her free time Traci loves traveling, running, yoga, painting, spending time outdoors and writing poetry. She currently lives on an airplane, and when not on one can be found relaxing at the beach or enjoying time with her family in her home state of Iowa.
Patrick Grant
Patrick Grant, MBA, serves on the Global Advisory Board of TIF as well as holds the current positions of Chairman of Grant Enterprises of America and President of the Joseph H Kanter Family Foundation.
Over the past 25 years, Mr. Grant has assisted multiple companies in Organizational Development using his proprietary and patent pending models through strategic alignment of stakeholders in Start-ups, Consulting, Mergers, Cooperative Development and Entrepreneurship. He has written several books including “Let’s Cooperate!” as well as patents for multiple industry applications in these areas.
Over the past three years Mr. Grant initiated and supported development of efforts to help Service Disabled Veterans begin their own businesses through a Mentor program named “AbledVets!”, as well as launched the first multimedia IPTV Health Television Station, KanterHealthTV.
Mr. Grant has been a guest speaker at conferences throughout the world on topics including Sustainable Resource Management in Agriculture, Water, Labor as well as Cooperative Business Development at events held by the Virginia Farm Bureau (Annual Conference); Office National de l’Eau Potable O.N.E.P, Rabat Morocco; International Agricultural Minister’s Conference, Sacramento, CA; International Boundary Water Commission, El Paso, Texas USA (Mexico Water Debt Repayment to USA); Commission National de Agua, Mexico City, DF, Mexico (Cost Analysis of Water Source Alternatives); Department of Water Resources, Anna University, Chennai, India (Guest Lecturer); National Engineering Research Center for Water and Irrigation, Yangling Shanxi Province, PRC; Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois USA, (Non-Genetically Modified Yield Enhancer for Legumes).
Mr. Grant will be actively involved in designing the TIF Executive Management Compensation Plan that will follow precepts of his models. Mr. Grant resides in Miami, Florida and has two children, a daughter involved in the Private Equity industry and a son who served our country as a medic in Afghanistan, and is now completing two masters programs in Illinois.
Alan K. Hauser, Ph.D., CLP
With 25 years of broad multidisciplinary experience encompassing the technical, IP, market, and economic aspects of fostering innovation, Dr. Hauser is an accomplished life science commercialization leader, Certified Licensing Professional, and a biotools inventor. Since obtaining his doctorate in chemical engineering from the college of chemistry at U.C. Berkeley, Alan has completed the executive business program at Northwestern’s Kellogg Management Institute as well as additional finance/valuation courses at the University of Chicago and Harvard.
Alan has been building businesses for more than fifteen years based on disruptive technologies that are transforming the way medicine and research is practiced. His strategic roadmapping and in-licensing efforts have led to the launch of an FDA-cleared DNA detection system that is enabling paradigm-shifting pharmacogenomics-driven diagnosis and targeted treatments, a.k.a. personalized or stratified medicine. He also built a robust microfluidics patent portfolio for a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup that resulted in its $189 million IPO. More recently, Dr. Hauser facilitated the gestation of 25 Northwestern University spinout opportunities while coaching/mentoring 40 student interns. NU startups raised $199 million in venture capital and corporate investment during the 2010/2011 academic year.
As an academic researcher, tech-transfer executive, strategic consultant and biosciences industry veteran, Alan K. Hauser has advanced and commercialized R&D-derived proprietary products that are serving large unmet market needs. His extensive background specifically includes postdoctoral fellowships, a proven track record of demonstrated intra-entrepreneurship at a large CRO (SRI International, formerly known as Stanford Research Institute), two Bay Area biotech startups (Pangene and ACLARA BioSciences), a Fortune 100 Company (Motorola Life Sciences’ CodeLink and eSensors business units), and as a management consultant at Bio-Com International. Having directed the technology licensing team and served as executive director of business development at Northwestern’s Innovation and New Ventures Office (formerly the Technology Transfer Program), Dr. Hauser is currently translating emerging bio-innovations to the marketplace through technology/intellectual-property prospecting, assessment, and new venture creation.
David Holmes
Mr. Holmes has spent twenty-two years in the financial services industry from his early beginnings in trading and wealth management to his current role as a deal architect, Mr. Holmes has had the opportunity to work with some of the largest financial and consulting institutions in the world, this has taken him throughout the world, allowing him an unique perspective that he has imparted through his speaking engagements and consulting assignments.
Mr. Holmes has consulted with many different types of entities giving advice on company structure, capital formation strategies, and product development. Through his many years as a consultant Mr. Holmes has advised on hundreds of millions of dollars of capital formation and billions of dollars of company assets, Mr. Holmes’ unique position as a consultant has allowed him the opportunity to be both on the buy side and on the sell side of the financial services industry providing clients a perspective that creates a 360 degree view of the deal allowing for more informed decisions to be made.
Over the years Mr. Holmes has done work for or consulted to market leaders such as follows; Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, CIBC, G.E. Capital, BCG consulting, Mckinsey, Bank of America, Spectrum, Trident, and others that can’t be named. These assignments have allowed Mr. Holmes to develop a unique perspective on what works and what does not, and creating new benchmarks in the marketplace.
Mr. Holmes’ projects have ranged from portfolio management of assets, setting up of a private bank offshore, reorganizing multiple financial service companies and hedge funds, creation of hedge fund and private equity structures, and capital raising for various entities
Currently Mr Holmes along with his partners are currently advising on multiple projects both here, in Brazil, and other countries, under an umbrella fund that has been created to invest and create product for many different applications. Mr. Holmes is deeply committed to both open source capitalism, and the Incubation Factory model and has committed any and all resources to this endeavor
Jason Kumpf
Jason is a Partner at Accelerate Growth Partners, a management consulting firm specializing in developing strategy and implementing tactics in business development, marketing, operations and finance of small and medium size enterprises. He works with executives of companies to accelerate their growth by taking an active role in improve company’s performance, utilizing his extensive international experience and vast network of connections.
Jason is also a Vice President at PE-Nexus, the intelligent online middle market private equity & investment banking deal flow network & marketplace. He works with private equity groups and investment banks to improve their deal flow by matching them with high quality companies. Jason is also an Advisor at The Incubation Factory Veterans Corps, helping forge teams of US Veterans and cutting edge technologies, utilizing the infrastructure that The Incubation Factory developed to successfully commercialize technology transfer ventures.
Jason has over fourteen years of professional experience in marketing, management, business development and finance. With experience in Global Fortune 500 to start ups, he has led a diverse set of important initiatives resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues and transactions. From investment advising in Europe, to project management of global IT projects, to marketing for national US consumer electronics companies, to business development for California startup technology companies, to sales for New York real estate firms and consulting to energy, finance & healthcare firms. Jason has a diverse but in-depth back ground. He was a dynamic team member of the once junior company TracFone Wireless, assisting it to quickly grow to over a billion dollars in revenue, an early team member of the then idea phase technology company, 5BARz International, helping it become worth over $40 million and has additionally started, advised, turned around and managed numerous companies.
His natural curiosity leads to exciting new paths for company growth. Very analytical, constantly researching to identify the main opportunities and challenges a business faces. Jason’s creative spark manifests innovative solutions to dramatically improve company performance. He energetically motivates teams to out-perform the competition, leading with extraordinary obsession to achieve the goals. Importantly, Jason holds a long term view that ensures sustainable growth. Sometimes more importantly, his partners and clients quickly benefit from his current business development systems, partner synergies and world class team building.
Jason is passionate about technology entrepreneurship and has been involved in numerous startup ventures. Particularly, he has been actively involved in social media for over six years and sees the wide and niche networking of humanity as an inevitable and growing market. Jason has spoken at international business conferences and co-hosted a political and business radio show. In addition he is actively involved in health care volunteerism and philanthropy. Jason attended Emory University, the University of Florida and holds a bachelors of Science Degree in Finance and Accounting from Deree College. He has lived and travelled most of the world with multiyear stays in the US, Middle East, Caribbean and Europe.
Michael Lucca
Michael Lucca is a Principal within The Incubation Factory. Mike is an experienced technology industry executive and has held various senior management roles in engineering, marketing and business development for start-up organizations as well as Fortune 500 companies, including; Hewlett-Packard, Unisys and Bluestone Software Mike has developed market positioning plans for various technology segments including machine-to-machine middleware, utility computing and mobile/wireless.
This has included market analysis/segmentation, partner and acquisition strategy, contract negotiation and deal structuring and go-to-market plans. Prior to The Incubation Factory, Mike was the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for a digital wireless service provider. Mike was a Venture Partner at an early stage venture firm focused on University Start-Ups.
At The Incubation Factory, Mike’s role is to source high-potential technologies, develop long-term relationships with universities and research labs, and manage the investment portfolio. Mike has an M.S. degree from Villanova University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Penn State University. He resides in Sewell, NJ with his wife Donna.
Stavros Messinis
Stavros is a coFounder and community curator of coLab Workspace, Greece’s top coworking space which hosts a number technology startups and is home to the majority of Greece’s tech meetups such as the GoogleTech User Group, The JavaHellenic User Group, Startup Gallery, AppCamp, Android and iPhone Camp, .NET Zone amongst others.
Part of Stavros’ immediate plans is to expand coLab to other cities in Greece and beyond.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, he had had a long career in Information Technology, working for the British Government. Stavros has been operating coLab workspace for the last 18 months.
Stavros is also a founding member of the Hellenic Startup Association and co-organiser of StartupWeekend Athens.
John O’Callaghan
John is Vice President of Investor Relations for TIF. John comes to the firm with 18 years of experience in the Investment community, having spent time with such firms as State Street Global Advisors, Concordia Capital, and Pillar Financial. At the Incubation Factory, John’s role is to interact with the firm’s capital partners. John has an MBA from Boston College and a BA from Tufts University. He resides just outside Boston, MA with his family.
Angela O’Connor
Angela O’Connor heads up strategic relationships for TIF. Angela has successfully initiated start-up companies in Healthcare, International Supply Sourcing & Logistics. She developed and implemented business and operational strategies, including management of foreign organizations, operations, finance, production and distribution. She brings over twenty years of business and entrepreneurial experience with extensive experience in sales, sales management, international supply chain management, partner acquisition, international logistics, establishment of manufacturing processes and all facets of international facility establishment.
Most recently, she co-founded and built the largest packaging manufacturing facility of its kind in the western hemisphere, located in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
Angela O’Connor graduated Magna Cum Laude with a double major in Business and Political Science from Birmingham Southern College in 1988. Since 1997, Angela has been a resident of Colorado, where she resides with her family in Denver’s Governor’s Park District.
John Rosser
John is Founder of Sustainatopia (www.sustainatopia.com), one of the largest annual events in the world for social, financial and environmental sustainability. Rosser makes additional social investments and provides consulting through his company, DVK, Inc.
Rosser was Managing Director of the Sport/Media/Entertainment Division of investment bank Aspen Capital Partners as well as leading the Gasparilla International Film Festival (Tampa). Previously, Mr. Rosser was Executive Producer of ‘Origami with Leonor’, a children educational television program which has been broadcast in over 20 countries around the world and on PBS affiliates across the United States. The broadcast launched an children’s education video series still distributed throughout the US and Canada.
Over the past two decades, Rosser has consulted for more than a dozen children products and media companies, while having also negotiated over 20 separate purchase/investment deals in transportation, education, publishing and retail. Rosser has spent years as an investor/options trader. The first company he founded, the world’s largest international MBA job fair, was sold to the Washington Post in 1996.
Rosser has his Master in International Business Studies degree from the University of South Carolina, and is fluent in German, with moderate fluency in Spanish and French.
Armin K. Sarabi
Mr. Sarabi is currently the Managing Partner at Sarabi Zelnick LLP, and named as one of the “Rising Stars” of Super Lawyers Colorado. His current practice involves providing general counsel services to business clients, and specialized services for small businesses, start-ups and non-profits, including representation of clients with business related employment transactions.
Prior to the formation of Sarabi Zelnick LLP, he practiced corporate and securities law at the Denver office of Holland & Hart, one of the most prestigious law firms in the Rocky Mountain region with more than 400 attorneys and 15 offices throughout the Mountain West Region and Washington D.C. While employed with Holland & Hart, Mr. Sarabi represented a variety of companies ranging from smaller locally owned businesses to fortune 100 companies across an array of industries such as technology, telecommunications, healthcare, mining and natural resources, and renewable energy.
Cindy Schmitt
Cindy Schmitt is the Executive Vice President of Back Office Services for both AAQ and TIF. Cindy’s career began when she was hired by General Motors Acceptance Corporation where she remained for nine years, eventually reaching the position of Vice President of Bank Relations. Cindy also served as Asst. Vice President of Cash Management with Norwest Corporation as well as Vice President of Cash Management for G. E. Capital.
Cindy directs the operations of all TIF back office functions, including accounting, legal and human resources. Cindy is also responsible for compliance and regulatory activities for TIF and all portfolio companies. Cindy received a B.A. in Accounting from the University of Northern Iowa in 1983. Cindy is actively involved in community affairs, routinely volunteering her time and talent to various organizations. She resides with her family in St. Louis, MO.
Dan Schmitt
Dan Schmitt is co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of AAQ and the founder of The Incubation Factory (“TIF”). By 1998, AAQ had become the 156th fastest growing company in the United States on Inc. Magazine’s Top 500 list. In 1997, Dan co-founded Advanced Business Fulfillment (ABF), which applies document processing solutions to the healthcare industry. In 2003, ABF had become the 23rd fastest growing company on the Inc. 500 list and #1 in Missouri, and it was sold to WebMD for $260 million in that same year.
Dan was the mastermind of the AAQ and ABF business models and the architect of a methodology for creating new business initiatives. In 2005, he combined his expertise in business development, administration, finance, and marketing to create The Incubation Factory – a privately funded Economic Development Platform. Dan’s primary roles as CEO are setting company strategy and vision, creating company culture, and supporting the TIF executive team. Dan participates in the evaluation and selection of all portfolio companies and takes an active role in strategic consulting and business model development of each incubated company. He is an investor in all of TIF’s incubated companies.
For the last 10 consecutive years, Dan has spent nearly $25MM in developing a platform that has been coined “Open Source Capitalism”. Part maverick, part scientist, part psychologist and new age “wanna-be”, Dan has created a new entrepreneurial vision he believes can turn the repeating cycles self-destruction into a new vision of Spontaneous Abundance that puts the “intended” form of capitalism and democracy at the heart of daily operations…meaning every aspect of our lives.
The “factory” has a unique process that if duplicated en masse, re-innovates innovation itself. Dan strongly professes start-ups are it’s own industry whose time has come to put a renewed infrastructure around as Dan proclaims, “The Innovation Sector (i.e. start ups) is unequivocally the most important in the world”. His personal motto is “Save the entrepreneur…Save the World.”
James J. Talano, MHA
Jim Talano is founder and Managing Director of Southwest Florida Research, a site research organization dedicated to providing medical research opportunities for Southwest Florida physicians and their patients, and he is also co-founder and Administrative Director of the Southwest Institute for Cardiovascular Fitness and Treatment. Jim currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Western Florida Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives and is a Member of the Medical Group Management Association and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
Jim received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Northwestern University and a Master of Healthcare Administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jim has had a diverse career that has spanned many facets of the health care field. He has held the positions of Director of Managed Care and IT Integration for Northeast Health Systems, an integrated delivery system located on the North Shore of Boston. He was a manager with the Chicago office of First Consulting Group specializing in healthcare information technology and strategy consulting. He held the title of Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Business Development for Medical Systems Management (MSM), a Boston-area-based medical software company, and then went on the become a Vice President with and later serve on the Board of Directors of Picis after helping orchestrate the merger of Picis and MSM. Jim has since been involved in several healthcare-related entrepreneurial ventures and recently sold a home health and care management company that he developed and grew through the acquisition and merger of two Naples-based companies.
Some of Jim’s career experiences have included the creation of physician-hospital organizations (PHOs), management service organizations (MSOs), affiliated medical practice corporations, and medical groups. He has been involved in a variety of IT system selections and implementations for hospitals, managed care organizations, and physician organizations. Jim has also participated in Health Information Exchange initiatives.
He currently lives in Naples, Florida with his wife and two children.
Kirk E. Watkins
Kirk is an accomplished CEO, entrepreneur, and senior executive whose expertise is recruiting and leading world-class teams to deliver superior results. With over 20 years of experience, Kirk has the ability to both determine a winning strategic direction and drive its execution. His life-long passion is building teams, launching new products, enhancing existing business models and delivering results.
In 1998, Kirk founded e-Duction, a patented enterprise software solution for Fortune 1000 companies; which later became an affiliate of First Data (FDC). Kirk successfully built and sold four entrepreneurial businesses, raised over $40 million dollars in private equity and has extensive experience in identifying market needs, developing new products, commercializing technology, global business development, creating strategic partnerships with large multi-national accounts, long and short term strategic planning, operations management, product development, recruiting award winning teams, social media marketing, cultivating relationships with premier private equity firms.
Tim Weber
Tim Weber is the Chief Marketing Officer for The Incubation Factory. Weber’s career includes significant and diverse experience in founding and operating early stage companies in areas ranging from live concert promotion to business consulting to publishing. He has a fierce love for team-building at all levels, and has supported entrepreneurship for the better part of two decades.
In addition to his involvement with TIF, Weber is currently a partner in The Newsmagazine Network, a 125,000 circulation newspaper group in suburban St. Louis, and the managing partner of The Old Rock House, a concert and events venue in downtown St. Louis. Weber has served on the board of several local charities, and helped to found an organization named Shop HERE which promoted the activities of locally-owned businesses. He lives in St. Louis, MO with his wife, Shannon, and their daughter Stella.
Gary Whitehill
A relentless entrepreneur and driven philanthropist with a footprint on four continents; broad experience spanning entrepreneurship, M&A, business turnarounds, and Fortune 100 board directorships. In 2009, Gary began leveraging his global rolodex of accomplished leaders and innovators to build the largest network of Entrepreneur Weeks in the world. Currently, the global platform resides in 11 cities and 4 continents, providing knowledge, resources, relationships, and access to capital to early-stage entrepreneurs and business owners.
Since its inception, Entrepreneur Week has convened more than 5,000 entrepreneurs, representing more than $8 billion in revenue and continues its expansion into 25 cities and 14 countries. Furthermore, the platform made history in both 2011 and 2012 as the first institution, aside
from the President of the United States, to usher delegations of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and investors to other continents to advise Heads of State, Prime Ministers, and Presidents, which included Chile
and Greece.
A visionary in structuring the macro-level dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems, Gary has published more than 10 articles for industry-leading publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Inc. and Time Magazine, and delivered over 50 presentations to audiences around the World on many topical facets of
entrepreneurship. Gary is also an investor in 8 companies spanning multiple verticals, including consumer products, outdoor-advertising, print, and technology.
Philanthropically, Gary is driven by his desire to ensure every continent maintains a global competitiveness within the entrepreneurship space. He seeks to build a framework for teaching every child the tenets of entrepreneurship inside K-12 classrooms by 2030. This mission persists within the establishment of The
Relentless Foundation, commenced in 2009. Gary also plans to expand upon this vision by implementing entrepreneurship-based curricula into schools across major cities around the globe within the next two decades.
Driven to promote innovation in large corporations, Gary played an instrumental role in architecting the first Fortune 50 Entrepreneur-in-Residence program at Dell. He also resides as a member of the AOL Small Business Board of Directors, Astia Global Board of Directors, Dell Entrepreneur-in-Residence Advisory Board, and Holcomb Nature Farm Board of Directors. In 2011, Gary represented the United States at the Young G20 Summit in Paris, France, advising Heads of State on innovation in technology and communication. He was recently nominated to represent the United States at the G8 Young Global Leaders Summit in Chicago, Illinois to be held in May 2012.
Gary was Division I collegiate athlete in both Football and Track & Field at Central Connecticut State University and graduated with a triple degree in management, marketing, and entrepreneurship.
Andy Wolter
Andy Wolter is the Executive Vice President of Operations of both AAQ and TIF. Andy’s career began when he served in the U.S. Navy’s Nuclear Power Program as a commissioned officer from 1990-1997. From there, he joined GE Appliances as an Advanced Manufacturing Engineer and was promoted to Master Black Belt in GE’s Six Sigma Quality organization. In 2001, he joined GE Capital as an Operations Manager for Vendor Financial Services. Andy left GE in 2003 to join AAQ and has helped shape TIF since its inception.
Andy’s roles as the COO include managing the infrastructure and operations of TIF while providing operational support to all companies under the TIF umbrella. Andy actively participates in the development of each new company’s infrastructure, creation of core processes, and continued monitoring of operational metrics. He also assists in reviewing new deal flow and conducting final diligence on all targeted opportunities. Andy completed a degree in engineering at Iowa State University, and received his M.B.A with honors from the College of William & Mary. He lives in Marion, IA with his wife, Cassidee, and their sons, Joseph, Jacob and Andrew.
Nancy Zurbuchen
Nancy Zurbuchen has achieved a notable record for innovation and outstanding business performance during her many years as an entrepreneur. She has frequently been an early adopter of technology in her businesses. Communication by Design, her first company, provided advertising and print design and was early in the ‘desktop publishing’ era. Her second company, Motional Images, was a pioneer in the creation of interactive training, CD-ROM development, and video graphics.
The company was the first in the region to provide computer-generated 3-D animation for TV commercials and special effects, and interactive video. After selling this company, Nancy then formed her current company, Motional Multimedia, which specializes in marketing communication services in the business-to-business environment.
