All Episodes

Nathan Shaw is the Executive Director and Founder of Vindeket Foods in Fort Collins, and Benjamin Jewell is the Chairman of the Board. Vindeket is a non-profit organization that was originally founded under the umbrella of Serve 6.8, a ministry aligned with Timberline Church. Vindeket is a food rescue - they take in near-expired and after best-by packaged foods as well as small or non-standard shaped fruits and vegetables from grocers, food pantries, farmers, and distributors - and distribute it...

Shauna Hylenski and her husband Bryan have been Longmont-based entrepreneurs since 2015, when they came to Colorado from South Korea. Bryan had there built a reputation as a world-class sport and mountain climber, and they came to represent a Korean climbing shoe manufacturer and built an import brand - HMH Outdoors. In 2017, they recruited their best friends, Mack and Heeran, and Shauna's big sister Heather and her husband Aaron, to come together to form the Climbing Collective, which opened in...

Houska Automotive in Fort Collins was started in 1952, by Dennis’s father - Charles “Chuck” Houska, and still operates from the original location at 899 Riverside Avenue in Fort Collins. Chuck had been a B-17 Mechanic in WWII, and opened the business not long after moving to Northern Colorado. Dennis was crawling around the shop before he could walk, and never really worked anywhere else. He took over the business in 1974, and Chuck continued to work there nearly until his death in 1985. LJ bec...

We're sharing Curt's blog from November, which is titled Grateful for a Great and Full 10 Years, a. k. a. The Loco Think Tank Story. "Last month marked the 10th anniversary of the last paycheck that didn’t come from my own business account, and of my first days as an entrepreneur. " We hope you enjoy! Read the Blog Check out LoCo Think Tank The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/ 💡Learn about LoCo Think Tank Follow us to see what we're up to: I...

For almost 30 years, Alan Jantzen was the man behind the scenes for what became one of the Fort Collins restaurant industry’s most dominant organizations - Hot Corner Concepts. Featuring amazing brands including Moot House, Austin’s American Grill, Big Al’s Burgers & Dogs, and Comet Chicken, Hot Corner Concepts set the standard for quality and consistency in our region. Along the journey, Alan was given many opportunities and lots of responsibility, but was never granted an opportunity to become...

Today we welcomed Aaron Everitt back to The LoCo Experience studios for our Northern Colorado real estate and water update, and as usual we got into all kinds of additional topics. Aaron had recently been a part of a historical tour of sorts, and we had some discussion about the history of Fort Collins, and the many subdivisions that his family enterprise built throughout the last 50+ years -, and we spent a lot of time talking about water - rising cots, declining liquidity (so to speak), and th...

Jake Jorgovan is a serial entrepreneur and podcast industry expert, whom I first met at a Colorado Podcasters gathering in 2022. He’s the Founder of Content Allies, a B2B podcast strategy, production, and promotion agency, and the owner of Listen Network, a targeted podcast promotion and cross-promotion network. He’s the co-host of Leaders of B2B Podcast and A Guide to B2B Podcasting. Jake has worked with some of the largest B2B companies in the world, including Meta, Siemens, Gusto, Alibaba, an...

I met Dr. Heather Rubin at the Innovation Showcase Event held at the Warehouse Innovation Hub in Loveland in late August. Heather took home 2 of the 4 awards presented that day - the Most Disruptive Business Model and the People’s Choice Award! Heather’s journey is an inspiring one, and I was struck throughout how her focus on collaboration was the key to unlocking this potentially disruptive journey. Initially hired as a consultant to evaluate university research technology, Heather fell in lo...

Marc Torres started his journey with Cheba Hut in perfect “cheba” fashion - a failed drug test foiled his job prospects with the City of Fort Collins, and a snarky friend said “you should go work at Cheba Hut, I bet they don’t drug test!”. Marc started on the front line (and claims he remains an excellent sandwich maker) and worked his way up in the ranks to store manager, and eventually became the primary trainer for new franchisees. He managed a premier location owned by the founder of Cheba H...

Greg Roeder is a 2nd time guest on The LoCo Experience, and was my guest with then-partner and co-founder Josh Guernsey of Waypoint Real Estate, in Episode 45. They were celebrating their 5th anniversary and had already grown to a staff of over 30 - focused on commercial brokerage, market data, and property management. Greg, however, was increasingly focused on residential real estate, and providing white-glove service to a discerning clientele. In March of 2023, Greg made the decision to join S...

I was introduced to Cameron Singh by our mutual friend, Fort Collins Mayor Emeritus Wade Troxell, and we’ve enjoyed some wonderful conversations in the few short weeks since. During the first, Cameron shared his experiences in the aviation industry, how he’d come to Northern Colorado, and the vision of creating a world-class private plane services company with Discovery Air - a Water Valley Company. He was serving as the Director of Business Development, and was the point person for bringing the...

Kristin Todd joined the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado in April of 2021, continuing a career of impact in the realm of philanthropy. Prior to joining the Community Foundation, she spent over 15 years with Daniels Fund based in Denver but serving much of the Rocky Mountain Region, and before that was with El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs. In this episode, you will learn all about the behind-the-scenes of foundation work, and particularly the differences in how these various org...

Matt Gettig is my neighbor of 14 years, and his home at the corner of Whitcomb and Laporte in Fort Collins is the epicenter of a neighborhood phenomenon known as Lightning Mini Golf. During the summer of 2020, Matt and his son, Ray, built a mini golf hole on a hard-to-grow section of his lawn, set it up with putters and balls and signage welcoming players - and within days found lines of people waiting to play! Soon followed by a second hole, and a third on their property, and new holes installe...

Sean Follin is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Encounter Strategies, based in Fort Collins, Colorado but serving clients nationally, and occasionally internationally. He’s a great example of Fort Collins as a choice city - if you can choose to live anywhere, where do you choose? (It turns out - in my neighborhood!) Sean is a remarkably experienced strategic planner for his age, and worked his way up through two consulting organizations in Washington DC before making his way to Colorado. ...

Jennifer Lewis grew up in West Loveland in an entrepreneurial family and started her career with Mr. Neat’s Formal Wear when she was 15 years old. She excelled in sales and relationship building, and became a store manager and part of the leadership team at the age of 19! She took classes at UNC and quickly shifted from a medical track to a business track in her education - and stayed on with Mr. Neat’s as they grew to a total of 19 locations before selling to a larger enterprise! - that she soo...

Colin Jones and partner Neil Fisher founded WeldWerks Brewing Company in 2014 in a long-vacant property just off Highway 85 in Greeley. Neil had been a talented homebrewer for years, and Colin was the Director of Technology at Flood and Peterson Insurance prior to the founding. Soon, both were full-time and more at Weldwerks, and they buckled up for a high-growth journey from there - growing production and revenues at an average rate of over 100% per year! An early focus on systems and processes...

Hope Hartmann, Kat Hart, and Lisa Hudson are the leading ladies, respectively, at the Larimer Small Business Development Center, Loveland Business Development Center, and East Colorado Small Business Development Center. These regional SBDC’s in cooperation with other partners will bring us the Unstoppable Women’s Conference on October 10, 2023! Hope has been on the podcast previously (Episode 93), so this episode was particularly focused on Kat and Lisa’s journeys, in addition to all the ladies ...

Dan Garvin is the President of Colorado Iron & Metal, one of our region’s largest metal recycling centers with locations in Fort Collins and Loveland. This was my first time really digging into the industry, and I was surprised by both the complexity of the operations, and the similarities to an industry I grew up around - grain elevators. They take in various commodities, sometimes clean it up or blend it for max value, and then sell to a limited number of potential customers. In 1995, Kent Ga...

Jen Henderson is the Founder and CEO of Tilt - a SaaS platform and team that provides companies with professional, consistent, and compliant leave management. As with many founding stories, Jen’s mission developed from her own experience. A fast-rising manager with Starbucks and later Noodles & Company, she had promotions and trajectories twice interrupted by the birth of her children, and decided to do something about the vagaries she experienced when she shared the news of her expanding family...

Nathan Scott is arguably one of Fort Collins most interesting people, and this podcast episode was spawned, in part, by Nathan’s introduction of so many inspiring guest candidates! He’s one of the show's biggest fans, and he’s journeyed a fascinating career from impact role to impact role. Nathan spent time in the Navy after high school, and after a tour with Americorps, he landed a leading role in Up With People - a travelling collection of international musicians and actors, with stops in 11 ...

Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen is the Founder and Chief Experience Officer at PULP Leadership Coaching, and a LoCo Facilitator for the Catalyst Collective chapter, a post she’s now held for about 8 months. Kristen founded the business and began coaching soon after her first experience being coached, during a time when she was balancing working as an ER Nurse, obtaining her first graduate degree, and raising a 5 year old as a single parent! Kristen is an amazing human. She had a baby only a few days a...

Aaron Everitt is back in The LoCo Experience studio for our quarterly-ish real estate update, where we always remember - there’s opportunity in every market! We talk about current interest rates and inventory especially, along with longer term forecasts and trends you’ll want to be aware of. We also get into the dark horse candidacy of Robert Kennedy Jr., the still unreleased files surrounding the killing of JFK (60 years, really?), and drift into some misinformation and discussion around free s...

During Dr. Trevin Cardon’s residency with Poudre Valley Hospital, he determined to follow a less-traditional path. He and his wife Allison founded Hometown Family Health. A Direct Primary Care (DPC) office, Hometown Family Health offers a monthly membership whereby patients receive regular check-ups, discounted testing and blood work, and most importantly - a relationship with their doctor! This episode explores the business of medicine, the respective family stories of Trevin and Allison, and ...

Tim and Ami Lindgren started Lindgren Landscape while they were engaged to be married, and still in college at CSU. They’ve been building the best backyards in Northern Colorado ever since, and have also developed a substantial commercial maintenance division. They employ more than 80 full time employees at peak season. Tim & Ami share a business journey that overlays the entirety of their relationship, and the growth and changes and course corrections that allowed the development of the Lindgr...