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

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 became “Little John” when he started working at the shop in his high school days, there being three other Johns already on the team, and the nickname is the one he’s known by in nearly every circle today.  Houska has been growing ever since it started with two bays and only Chuck as the mechanic, and now includes a Tire & Lube Center, a Fleet Maintenance Division, and a Heavy Truck Center and a team of over 50 - all on one big campus near the intersection of Riverside and Lemay in Fort Collins.  LJ has been overseeing day-to-day operations for several years, and though Dennis still carries the President title - he’s not spotted around the shop too often.  Dennis’s wife Noreen, and LJ wife Jen both play key roles within the business too, and have for many years.  Service and Community are core values at Houska, and they treat their team like family - resulting in many long-term employees and customers over their 70+ years in business.  Please enjoy my conversation with Dennis and LJ Houska of Houska Automotive.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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

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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 an owner, and in the spring of 2021 he started looking for what’s next.  

In September of 2021, he shot his shot - asking 42-year owner/operator John Arnolfo if he could buy the Silver Grill Cafe.  “Absolutely not!” was John’s quick answer.  But - within a few weeks they had a back-of-the-napkin deal worked out, and by December Alan was the proud owner of Dish Up, LLC DBA Silver Grill Cafe.  In the meantime, Alan was approached by Val and Nick Lanteri, owners of Vern’s Place since 1990, to see if he was interested in stewarding their restaurant into its’ next chapter!  He pushed pause on that conversation in the moment, but by mid-summer of 2022, Alan and his wife Jackie started Dish Up II, LLC DBA Vern’s Place, and now operate two classic restaurant institutions, with a total of 167 years of history - 90 years at Silver Grill Cafe and 77 years at Vern’s Place!  

Alan got his start in the restaurant business as a teenager, and his mom drove him back and forth to Greeley from his hometown of Ault for a dishwashing job until he’d saved enough money to buy a car.  He moved to Fort Collins and got a job at Moot House in his early 20’s, and was soon the right-hand-man for Scott McCarthy and Steve Taylor, then-partners in their first restaurant.  His stories of restaurant launches and turnarounds and successes continues from there, and based on our conversation the successes at Silver Grill and Vern’s are very likely to continue.  So please tune and enjoy my inspiring conversation with Alan Jantzen.

Check out Vern's Place
Check out Silver Grill Cafe

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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 the impacts to new home inventory and pricing in various markets.  

From there, we get a business update from InMotion, and discuss a new LLC Aaron has recently formed, Best Craft - which handles distribution chores for several microbrewery enterprises along with craft distillers and even a soon-to-come THC water product.  We jump from there into some discussion around the Israel/Hamas situation  and into our usual liberty topics.  Aaron has been releasing a series of Video Essays on X.com - written essays transformed into storyboard-type videos, he’s been getting a lot of traction and engagement with titles such as INFLATION and THE GRIEVANCES and WHAT IF WE ARE THE BAD GUYS.  

As usual, it’s a no-topics-off-limits kind of conversation, and as always - I learned some new things and so will you! - so please join me for my most recent conversation with Aaron Everitt on The LoCo Experience! 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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, and Amazon Web Services, to name a few.  Jake is a recent transplant to Fort Collins, giving yet another example to Choice City status of my home community.  

Jake provides listeners a behind-the-scenes look at a high-growth agency, and shares many tips and latest techniques they use for their clients to grow podcast listenership and build community.  

Please tune in and meet yet another inspiring and entertaining Northern Colorado entrepreneur, my new friend and our latest guest - Jake Jorgovan.

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

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 love with the opportunity to co-found the venture, and is raising funds and building a team to reimagine composite materials technology.  From the website “Our advanced composite manufacturing technology utilizes a well-controlled, self-propagating, frontal polymerization process to cure high-performance composites quickly and effectively.”  For the lay-men and lay-women out there - they make a fancy resin stuff that hardens like a flame front, quickly and with minimal heat required to launch or cure, which could change industries ranging from natural gas pipeline repairs to on-site manufacturing of windmill blades and much, much more!  

More inspiring than the RapiCure opportunity is Heather’s journey to this point.  Raised in a working class family in Baltimore, Heather is a first-generation college student that found her initial inspiration in a Ben Carson scholarship when she was still in elementary school.  She’s an amazing example for female founders raising funds and building teams everywhere, and my sense is we’ve only seen the beginning of Heather’s impact on the world.  I’m excited to share her journey to this point, and to watch as her company and community impact scale from here, so please enjoy my inspiring and entertaining conversation with Dr. Heather Rubin, PhD and CEO.  

https://www.rapicuresolutions.com/

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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 Hut, Scott Jennings, and developed many of the systems and training processes that allowed the chain to grow and provide a consistent experience in new locations.  The stories of LoCo Think Tank and Cheba Hut are long intertwined - it was Scott that famously told your host in 2015 - “Bear, you should park that F&$%in’ food trailer in your backyard and go get a job”.  

A few years into his time with Cheba Hut, Marc got a DUI, and a year later - another one.  This began the “indentured servant” phase of his career, when Scott sent him to live and open a new location in Greeley - and where he reconnected with his now-wife.  He continued to bring value to the franchise, moving to Arizona for a few years to work on (mostly unsuccessful) West Coast expansion efforts, and then returning to Fort Collins as Director of Operations in 2010.  He became COO in 2014, and partnered with Scott and another franchisee to build an HQ-supported super-franchisee designed to open new locations and grow the brand and systems for further growth - and it’s been working.  They’ve recently been among the fastest-growing franchises in the industry; now boast 55 locations and expect to bring 5 more online before year-end, and open another 12-15 locations in 2024!   

Marc has been a LoCo Think Tank member almost as long as LoCo Think Tank has existed, originally part of the Thinkers Too chapter and a founding member of our first Next Level chapter.  He’s a driven and authentic leader, a first generation college graduate, and you’re going to love his heart - so please join as we share the special journey of Marc Torres and Cheba Hut “Toasted” Subs.

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain