All Episodes

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...

Dan Bennett is in his second season with Lightning eMotors, previously known as Lightning Hybrids, and has had a front row seat to the evolution of a significant local enterprise, now employing over 200 as the anchor tenant at the Forge Campus in Loveland. Initially offering hydraulic-hybrid drivetrain modifications to enhance fuel efficiency, Lightning Hybrids subsequently shifted its entire business model (and name) to instead provide fully-electric drivetrain systems for mid-size commercial t...

Rayno Seaser founded The Egg & I in 1987, as a breakfast and lunch restaurant in what is now mid-town Fort Collins. Before long, additional regional locations were added, and though a franchise was never the plan - the market demanded it. Rayno grew the enterprise to around a dozen locations before selling 90% of the franchise company, and then watched The Egg & I grow to over 100 locations before being acquired by First Watch - which was one of Rayno’s first restaurant industry contacts going b...

Warren Yoder is the CEO of the Yoder Family of Companies, which includes numerous Weld and Larimer County enterprises - namely Weld County Garage, Yoder Chevrolet, ABRA of Fort Collins and Greeley, The Carriage Shop, Kayman Direct, Iron Clad Manufacturing, Truck City, Drivewise, and Driven Financial. All are in the automotive industry and adjacent, and Warren has spent his whole career in the automotive sector - which like any sector - is the people business. This episode runs fast through a se...

Sean Fox and his partner Zac Horton founded Mjolin Technology in 2018, after working together at Greystone Technology. We might call it a boutique IT agency, named after Thor’s hammer! Sean’s family has a long banking heritage, and before getting into technology, he was a Loan Officer / IT Administrator for their family banking organization - and he remains CTO today! We talk about a lot of nerdy stuff in this one - building and maintaining secure systems, common mistakes business owners make w...

Antonio Barbera is the Founder and CEO of Table Tennis Connections, a 501c(3) Non-Profit Organization that builds community and empowers neural development through table tennis AKA ping-pong! Dr. Barbera has developed the NeuroPong™ system to forestall and even reverse the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinsons, and cognitive impairment - and is highly effective in supporting youth with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder - AKA ADHD. Dr. Barbera began hi...

Chas Greener, formerly a Dance Director at Mountain Kids in Fort Collins, transitioned into content creation after an injury in 2019. She now runs Chas's Crazy Creations with over 10,000 YouTube subscribers and an active website. Additionally, she operates Site Consulting Services, assisting creatives in maximizing their online presence. This episode zooms in on the life and journey of a creative solo-preneur - how to build community among creatives with authentic communications, intentional pa...

Samson Jagoras was a Division I football player at CU, and soon became an early-stage and key leader and eventually minority partner in Madwire/Marketing 360. Darius Bell came to know Samson while he was a standout employee at Madwire, and is a lifelong student of brand and marketing. Together, Samson and Darius have created the Pain to Profits Podcast, and are building a business education and brokerage platform for the next generation - Clearly Acquired. Their mission is to simplify business ...

Chris Cox found relief from long-term back pain through use of CBD in 2016, and soon turned his growing knowledge of and passion for holistic medicine into a retail enterprise - Plenty Wellness in Loveland, Colorado. Plenty Wellness carries the highest-quality retail CBD products in the region, and has a very education-focused and consultative approach. Buzz Screens was founded in 2022, as an efficient way for local businesses to reach community marketplaces - their screens are located in dozen...

Valeria Ortiz, founder of Vortiz Insurance, offers education and insurance packages for the Medicare market, with its headquarters in Greeley, Colorado. I met Valeria at a local event and struck up a conversation which eventually led to Valeria joining LoCo Think Tank and sharing her story. Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Valeria worked in marketing for a similar agency before moving to Colorado. After facing challenges as a single mother with limited English skills, she found stability ...

Phil Pelto is the Co-Founder of Firestorm B2B Networking and Certus B2C Networking - The Power of Network Effect & How to Build Authentic Connections, both with an increasing number of chapters and members across the Colorado Front Range. Phil Co-Founded Firestorm while he was working as a suit salesman in Minnesota nearly 15 years ago, scaled rapidly and expanded to Florida, and then hired a professional manager to operate the business while he moved to Germany to pursue a girl he met at Oktobe...

Sean Godbey founded Old Town Spice Shop in Fort Collins, Colorado with his brother and parents in 2010, with an original plan to expand to five retail locations within just a few years. They found some retail success, but the overhead and staffing complexities of retail soon shifted the plan into a more wholesale-focused operation, supplying bulk and custom spices for restaurants, food manufacturers, breweries, and more! As the lockdown response to Covid destroyed demand for retail and wholesale...

Seth Coonrod is the Founder and Owner/Operator of Timberline Audio Video in Loveland, Colorado, and also a LoCo Think Tank member. He worked as a key employee of a similar company in North Carolina in his earlier years, and founded the company immediately after moving to Colorado. In this episode, we get into the nerdy stuff of luxury home audio video systems, talking tech trends and smart homes and more, and also get a bit nerdy on business - creating quality estimates, sourcing sometimes many...

Shelley Polansky has been on the team at BBB of NoCo and Wyoming since 2008, serving in Dispute Resolution, Education, Communications, and Outreach before ascending to the leadership role in 2019. LoCo Think Tank has been a BBB member since 2021, and they’ve hosted many chapter meetings and trainings in their amazing conference rooms!` My conversation with Shelley spends a lot of time on exploring the what of ethical business practice, alongside an examination of her own foundations and motivat...

Nathan Wilbanks and Alex Swanson are the Founders of BizOp Media, a content and strategy-driven marketing agency headquartered in Fort Collins. In 2021, Nathan departed Bizop to develop new ideas, and eventually founded Jaq n Jill, a subscription-based AI-powered writing tool, focused on the collaborative power of an AI tool and a thoughtful content creator. We get deep in this one - deep into the utility and limitations and dangers of Chat GPT and Open AI and various iterations, and deep into ...

My guest this week was Franklin Taggart - a fellow consultant with the Larimer County Small Business Development Center and founder of Franklin Taggart Coaching. Franklin was the first podcaster to feature me on his show! My story of going from banker to food trucker to LoCo Think Tank guy was a great fit for his Reset Podcast, and I’ve been blessed by dashes of his wisdom throughout our time together with Larimer SBDC. Franklin was a career musician “back East” for many years, until health cha...