The LoCo Experience

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 installed for Matt’s friends and neighbors and irrigation clients - including yours truly.  Lightning Mini Golf now boasts a total of 10 holes, and Matt and Ray would like to build 8 more to bring it to a full 18 by the end of next summer!  

Matt’s business journey has been primarily that of a solo-prenuer.  He builds fences and decks, installs and maintains landscaping and irrigation systems, and now - builds mini golf holes and courses using recycled materials!  He’s an imaginative fellow, an amazing drummer - and a great community citizen.  This summer he went viral - with a clip on 9 News, interviews with radio stations, and even an editorial and interview in a national golf magazine!  In today’s episode we’ll hear the story of developing a community movement, and Matt’s dreams of where to take Lightning Mini Golf from here, so please join me in enjoying my conversation with Matt Gettig.   

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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.  

Sean’s mentor in the craft is Chris McGoff, Founder of The Clearing, Inc. and author of the book “The Primes - How Any Group Can Solve Any Problem”.  Sean’s practice is built on the foundations outlined in The Primes, and enhanced by their upfront data collection with clients, mostly professional services businesses.  We delve into the fundamentals of strategic planning in this episode, which overlaps significantly with conflict resolution, and I explore with Sean his work with a non-profit based in Haiti which has assembled the most important and influential business leaders of the nation.  Representing over 60% of the GDP, the hope for this group is to forge a new vision for Haiti, and lead the way to renewal of law and order and functional governance.  

Sean and I were only recently introduced, but we’ve enjoyed every minute, and I’m excited to see where his significant skills might impact our LoCommunity in the months and years ahead.  We went almost 3 hours in this episode, but there’s loads of great business insight, and many great stories.  And, we put a nice dent in a fresh bottle of tequila, so the conversation flows freely and sometimes gets silly, so please tune in and enjoy my conversation with Sean Follin.  

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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 soon departed.

Jennifer journeyed through a high-impact career in the years to follow, with breaks for lifestyle and marriage and children, and after some time away from the industry she joined another fast-growing formal wear company with her previous boss and mentor.  She ascended to the VP of Sales role as the company continued to grow through a season of industry decline.   A later career stop was leading sales for a consulting and training company that was utilizing the Entrepreneurial Operating System - and she quickly fell in love with the framework!  Now 20 months into her own entrepreneurial journey, Jennifer has been helping companies as an EOS Implementer, driven by a heart for people and strong experience leading sales and building relationships.  I’m certain you’ll love her story and heart, and be blessed by the many business insights she shares in this episode, so please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Jennifer Lewis.  

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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 built the foundation for that growth, and represents well Colin’s special sauce throughout his career.  

Colin’s entrepreneurial journey started early, with a computer sales and service company called PC Pros in Wichita, Kansas while he was still in college.  After a 3 year run the market had changed, Dell had arisen as a powerful force in the industry, and Colin exited the business and moved into his professional career as a Systems Administrator for IMA Insurance in Denver, and later to Flood and Peterson in Northern Colorado.  As a Director in the firm, Colin was at the table for all technology decisions, but also came to understand the entire client journey, and built a comprehensive understanding of the business model.  He applied those skills and learned many more at WeldWerks, has transitioned out of the company and is investigating his next adventure.  

Do you love beer, business, and people? - then you’ll love this episode, and I hope you’ll tune in for my conversation with Colin Jones, and share it with your beer-loving friends! 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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 sharing more about the conference and their respective SBDC’s areas and manner of service.  

Kat’s parents served in the non-profit community in Weld County, and her mom was a visible and notable Hhispanic woman leader.  She started with the Larimer SBDC as an intern but soon joined the team full-time, and later moved out of state.  A short season later, Kat was recruited to the Loveland BDC role by the departing Director, a role she has now served for 4 years.  

Likewise, Lisa came to the East Colorado SBDC as an intern but grew quickly in role and responsibilities, and spent years as the Associate Director before taking on the lead role.  She’s been with the organization for 13 years now and led the group for 7.  

The spirit of community and collaboration in the room was almost overwhelming during this conversation, and you’ll love getting to better know these leading ladies.  So please join me for this latest episode - and if you’re a woman in business - or know one - make sure to share this episode and attend the Unstoppable Women’s Conference on October 10!  

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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 Garvin purchased Nelson Metals in Fort Collins, and renamed the business Colorado Iron & Metal.  Dan Garvin - Kent’s nephew - came to Fort Collins to work for a season after high school - and he fell in love.  Dan fell in love with metal recycling, fell in love with business, and fell in love with Northern Colorado, and in 2003 he moved to Fort Collins to be a part of Kent’s team, with hopes of becoming the transition plan - but no promises.  In 2014, he and his brother purchased the business from Kent and have subsequently grown the operations and team and added a second location.  Unless you’re already in the industry you’ll learn all kinda of things about metal recycling in this one, plus lessons on business and team and family and trust - so I hope you’ll make time for my very interesting conversation with Dan Garvin. 

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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.  

Tilt has been on a fantastic run of growth in recent years, growing from a core team of four and a dozen clients in early 2020 to a team of over eighty and over two hundred clients at current time. They are approaching a fifth round of funding, have a much-improved platform to build upon, and expectations of continued growth. Jen’s journey is an inspiring one, Tilt mixes empathy with technology in a way that helps companies of all sizes excel at making leave not suck.  So - please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Jen Henderson.  

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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 states and 12 European countries - and service projects in each of 70 cities!  This role is emblematic of Nathan’s later and constant career - making an impact while having fun!  He currently serves as a Community Relations Specialist for Foothills Gateway, and as an instructor at Front Range Community College, and spends extensive time in volunteer service as a superconnector - spawning many hundreds of new relationships annually in our region.  Nathan’s a fun guy, and we had a wide-ranging conversation - so tune in and enjoy!  

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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 after facilitating her first chapter meeting (I was available as backup!), and has overcome early learning challenges and life circumstances to have an amazingly impactful career, earn her Ph.D. in Human and Organizational Development, and has changed the trajectories of many hundreds of participants through her team coaching programs - which emphasize outdoor experiences to get people out of their comfort zones.  You’ll learn a lot about people in this one, and that’s what life is all about, so please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Dr. Kristen Truman-Allen.  

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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 speech and AI and the nature of truth. 

After those deep topics, Aaron shares some thoughts on his LoCo Think Tank experience after ~5 months as a member of our newest Next Level chapter.  This one is a shorter conversation than some of our rambling episodes, so be sure to tune in and enjoy my most recent - and 6th overall - conversation with Aaron Everitt on The LoCo Experience!  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain