The LoCo Experience

I was introduced to Ian Simkiss at a very interesting time in his career journey - as the soon-to-be-announced and newly appointed Executive Vice President of Centennial Management, Inc., overseeing Centennial Leasing & Sales locations in Windsor and Englewood in Colorado and in Phoenix, Arizona.  They also offer fleet leasing and sales operations nationwide, and a relationship buying services to AAA members in Colorado.  All in all, Ian now oversees over 70 independent sales consultants finding cars, trucks, SUV’s, fleet vehicles, classic cars and more!  He represents the foundation for the second generation of leadership for this 40+ year enterprise.  

Previous to this new role, Ian had served CLS NoCo for 9 years as the GM of the NoCo location and 6 years as an independent consultant.  They didn’t have a manager those first 6 years and when they were threatened with a manager to help improve a low-performing group, Ian’s wife and work associates told him - it should be you!  

It’s clear in talking with Ian that he’s a different kind of car guy, focused on the culture of his team, the experience of their clients, and the integrity of the process.  Ian was raised in Chipeta Park in the Colorado Springs region, and attended Manitou Springs High School.  He’s been a standout baseball player, a college dropout, a restaurant worker and a professional hip hop DJ along the journey.  I’ve come to know him as an excellent community connector, a strong advocate for vocational education and for integrity in business. It’s not a stretch to say we’ve become fast friends since our initial introduction, and I’m pleased to share with you my conversation with Ian Simkiss. 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I met Mike O’Connell in the fall of 2013, early into his final career stop, when he became Director of the Larimer Small Business Development Center in Fort Collins - and soon before I left my banking career!  The organization had struggled for all the years of my volunteer involvement going back to 2008, and Mike was the 3rd or maybe 4th Director to serve.  From July 2013 through December of 2021, Mike engineered a great transformation of the organization, built many partnerships and coalitions, and became arguably the highest-performing SBDC office in the State of Colorado by the end of his tenure.  LoCo Think Tank was just getting started in those years, and Mike saw the value of peer collaboration and partnership from the beginning.  

The SBDC Mike I know well, but his business and personal journey toward the role, and what he’s been up to since retirement were lesser known.  Mike had a high achieving career in sales and then in management, and eventually purchased a business - Mountain Woods Furniture in Laramie, WY.  Mike shares many lessons learned from his journey into, and then out of, a small business enterprise, and also shares his love for music, his disdain for Donald Trump, and his passion to bring to light the “squeeze on the average American”.  He’s a good friend and a great conversationalist, and I’m pleased to share my conversation with Mike O’Connell.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Tami Parker had a long career in corporate HR, but 7 years ago, with a leap of faith and a supportive husband, she founded UNIcycle Business Consulting.  As with most of us, her early years were spent staying alive financially and doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but her growing firm has found its sweet spot as an off-site HR department for our region's small business enterprises.  It’s often expensive for small businesses to have an HR expert on the team, so the office manager or the owner or the bookkeeper do the best they can - which can sometimes also be expensive!  Tami and her team help their clients do everything HR, from creating employee handbooks and onboarding processes, to placing ads and vetting candidates from Indeed and other platforms, all on a contract basis based on team size!  

At present time, our employee handbook at LoCo Think Tank is a 3-page Google document - which is about 3 pages more robust than it was a year ago!  As one of those small business owners who tries to do his best - but knows he’s got some gaps - this was a fun conversation ranging from the basics of a sound onboarding process to open discussion around recent DEI controversies to the biggest pitfalls that employers MUST avoid. Tami was recommended to the show by a couple of my favorite members - her clients - and I’m excited to share my conversation with Tami Parker, Founder and CEO of UNIcycle Business Consulting.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I first met Mat Dinsmore during my banking career, perhaps at the Salt N Pepper Lunch Club.  Wilbur’s Total Beverage has been my go-to special occasion retail liquor store ever since, and Mat my often-last-minute wine guide!  This November, after he’d secured us a nice Prosecco Rose as the centerpiece of our LoCo Think Tank member gifts, we got to talking about the impacts of Proposition 125 on his business, and his anticipations for the future, and he agreed to share more on the show!

Mat and his father started Wilbur’s Total Beverage in Fort Collins in September of 2000, while Mat was still in college at CSU, and he’s been working to create great customer and employee experiences ever since, including getting his MBA from UW.  His father retired, and later un-retired to start Wyatt’s Wet Goods in Longmont; and in recent years retired again when Colorado laws changed and allowed Mat to be the Managing Partner of both.  Mat’s staffing has decreased by about 35% since Proposition 125 went into effect, and we talked about morale and communication during a shrinking-team environment, and we talked about the broader ethics of the alcohol industry.  

Mat is a wonderful conversationalist and a broad supporter of community causes.  And, he gifted me a bottle of Blanton’s for us to sip and to share with my near-future guests - which I might be sipping as I record this intro!  It was fun to get to know Mat’s and learn about his business journey, and share it with you’all here, on this latest episode of The LoCo Experience.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

My guests on today’s podcast were Justin & Eugene Boling, father and son.  Justin and I became acquainted this summer, and at a LoCo Think Tank event this fall I asked attendees as part of their introduction who was their hero.  After Justin answered “my dad, Gene Boling” we started a conversation that resulted in this podcast.  

Gene was born and raised in rural Nebraska, and attended a one-room country school from 1st through 8th grade - in a school with only 12-14 total students!  He became a Marine soon after high school, and served in Vietnam for nearly 2 years.  He returned to Nebraska and his high school girlfriend, made her his fiance, and later shared his plans to move to Colorado.  She said “I’m not going to move!” and he said “I’ll take my ring back!”.  After landing in Colorado he found a different pretty girl and made her his wife, got a few construction jobs, and soon moved to Fort Collins and started Boling Remodel, and worked in that business for the rest of his career.  

Justin was born and raised in Fort Collins, in the aforementioned entrepreneurial family, and wanted nothing to do with business as a young man.  He ventured into ministry and shoe sales after high school, went to Europe for a year, and later returned to Front Range and then CSU. He worked in Marketing and Nonprofit leadership, and after a season moved to a young company called PetDine, first in Marketing and then in Operations.  PetDine was just starting to run EOS - the Entrepreneurs Operation System, Justin and the company had a fantastic run of growth.  When his journey with PetDine was concluded Justin became our region's newest EOS Implementer.  

This is a fun episode full of contrasting journeys, long standing principles, old family stories, and more.  This father and son enjoyed a wonderful interaction with one another and with your host, and you’ll be glad you tuned in for my conversation Justin and Eugene Boling.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I met Anika Sawni at the Unstoppable Women’s Conference in October of 2023, where she was an inspiring keynote speaker - in what I learned in this podcast was her very first keynote!  She’d recently been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and I was captivated by her talk and her brand and market and culture-changing opportunity.  At the conference, I was able to sample Gruvi’s Juicy IPA, Rose, and Dry Secco - and I loved them all!  And - none of them have any alcohol!  Whaat?!  Anika joined me for her first in-person podcast recording session during the Christmas season, and I’m happy to share it as our first episode of Season 4 of The LoCo Experience!

Anika was in her fourth year of university in Montreal when the seeds for Grüvi were sowed.  After a healthy lifestyle in her earlier years, she’d drifted into binge drinking (like most of her friends) during her undergraduate, but gave up alcohol when she saw it impacting her mood and performance, and threatened her acceptance at medical school.  She was on a neurosurgery path, but when that path was disrupted - she opted out of medical school and pitched the idea of a cool, countercultural - and non-alcoholic special times beverage to her brother Niki.  Niki had gained strong experience in business and finance at Salesforce, but had an entrepreneurial itch to scratch too, and soon after, Gruvi was born.  

Finding their path to revenue largely blocked in their native Canada, the pair soon moved themselves, their parents (out of retirement), and shortly thereafter, Anika’s boyfriend! - to Denver, Colorado - epicenter of tasty beers and healthy lifestyles in the American West - to work on Gruvi.  This is the story of a young company making its’ mark with fresh and tasty and low-calorie and alcohol-free beverages, and the young lady’s vision that started it all.  It’s a Gruvi episode, and I hope you’ll enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Anika Sawni.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

This episode is a recap of Season 3 with the team at LoCo Headquarters, Colin Jones, Director of Business Development, and Alma Arellano, Operations Manager & Podcast Producer. We go through many of the podcast highlight episodes of the season and talk about our recent acquisition of Tank, the mobile podcast studio, as well as some of our plans for Loco Think Tank in the year ahead.

So, if you're curious about what we think are some of our favorite episodes from 2023, You should pop into this one for sure. And then jump back and catch some of these highlight episodes. Thanks for listening. And we love you from the Loco experience. Happy New Year!

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Timiry McCaskell is the Founder and Owner of Dora Grace Bridal, named after her two grandmothers.  Dora Grace has been fitting brides and prom dates and more in Fort Collins since 2011, and opened a second location in Windsor in January of 2023.  The second location came along as an unplanned opportunity of sorts, and has allowed Dora Grace to expand their design offerings and demographics.  

Timiry wasn’t a bride looking for a better experience for future brides, nor was she a retail expert looking for a niche, nor instinctively entrepreneurial - but she did notice an opportunity after the failure of Mountain Avenue Bridal in 2009.  There was no longer a cool and local bridal store for the every-woman!  You could have a super-expensive boutique experience, or the David’s Bridal corporate experience, but really nothing in between!  

She soon started telling friends about this problem, and later engaged a bit with the SBDC, started working on a business plan, and before she knew it she was talking to bankers and landlords and then bada bing, bada boom - she’s got a location and an SBA loan and and quits her job and she’s a business owner!  After a couple years of bumps and bruises, her super powers of curiosity and tenacity helped her find traction in the business, and she’s evolved over the years to be a light-touch, systems-building, employee empowering lady boss - but she’d cringe at those labels and that’s why she’s fun.  

Timiry is a former - and I hope, future - member of LoCo Think Tank, and every conversation we’ve shared has been full of dynamic learning and idea-chasing - and this one is no different.  She pulls back the curtain on the bridal industry, envy-criticizes the Best of NOCO awards, and shares many lessons the journey, so please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Timiry McCaskell.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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 through their retail location and their network of nonprofits.  40% of all created food is wasted in the United States, and Nathan is on a mission to structurally change the food system and rescue more and more food from landfills.  

The Vindeket story started over 10 years ago, when Nathan began dumpster diving as a way to stretch his budget.  He was soon overwhelmed with the quality and quantity of food that was destined for the landfill, and hosted community dinners and filled friends’ freezers to try to divert this channel that was turning food into waste.  Not long after, Nathan connected with Ben, who carries a strong business background, and together the pair, along with a small board, minimal staff, and maximal volunteers (over 150!), have grown the operation to rescue nearly 2,000,000 pounds of food in 2023! 

This is an inspiring journey already, and it seems certain to unfold into something far greater as the seasons go by.  Vindeket has recently launched a campaign called Root Bound - seeking funding and skills and connections in pursuit of their next (and larger) location.  We love to talk about win-win-win-win solutions at LoCo Think Tank, and Ben and Nathan share the same everybody wins mentality.  This was a super-interesting topic I knew very little about, and you’re sure to be inspired, as I was, by my conversation with Nathan Shaw and Ben Jewell of Vindeket Foods.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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 2018.  Today I’m joined by Aaron and Shauna to share  the journey to this point, and the vision for the nearest years ahead.  

The Climbing Collective now consists of three major properties:  1. Longmont - State of the art, 25,000+ sq. ft. roped-wall, plus a bouldering gym, and yoga and fitness.  2. Loveland - former Wooden Mountain bouldering gym, recently and happily merged to be part of the Collective.  3. Greeley - former movie theater in downtown Greeley, currently owned by Climbing Collective and under redevelopment plan.  These properties together, and with their members, represent the most comprehensive climbing community in Northern Colorado!

This is a story of 3 couples, working together and letting it all hang out!  Getting big bank loans to build leading edge climbing gyms, fostering community, and in 2024, they’ll be opening their 3rd location and hosting the Ice Climbing Championship at their flagship location in Longmont.  This was a super-fun conversation, and I learned a lot - and I know you’ll enjoy getting to know - as I did - Shauna Hylenski and Aaron Tellier. 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain