The LoCo Experience

Today's episode features regular guest Aaron Everitt, along with his 17 year old son, Emerson, discussing the election coverage and election season of 2024.  We started at 7:30ish PM MT, and called it a night by 9:30 PM MT as it became obvious Trump was going to be #47.   Aaron is a highly-acclaimed X.com creator of independent material, including a series of 100 essays on philosophical and e...

In my early years of LoCo Think Tank, when I was just getting out of the mobile food catering game, everyone was talking about the wonderful new caterers in town, Juli & Juan!  Soon after, we had the chance to get acquainted, and they catered one of our most successful events during LoCo’s strongest expansion year of 2019 - Tips, Tacos, & Tequila - featuring business tips, a tequila talk and tasti...

The business journey we’re featuring in today’s episode started when Garrett fell in love with Andrew’s sister (and later married), and took a great leap forward during the Covid pandemic when Garrett became the owner-operator of a standalone Anthony’s Pizza & Pasta location in the Central Park area of Denver.  He was working a full-time job in the automotive industry, raising young children, and...

I met Christine Forster at a big fun business event of some sort (we both can’t remember!) - circa 2022 - and we had a short but lovely conversation, and she was super interested in what LoCo Think Tank was all about, and gave me her card with encouragement to connect.  And then - her card got lost in the shuffle and we didn’t connect proper until this podcast conversation!   As much as I love sha...

John Arnolfo operated the Silver Grill Cafe for 42 years, and found his exit plan through my guest on Episode 143, Alan Jantzen.  John and partner Mike Gress purchased Silver Grill on Valentines Day of 1979 as an unheated one-room diner.  The business had been established by Leonidas “Flossie” Widger in 1933, and mostly served the blue collar workforce of early downtown Fort Collins.  Though the p...

Ben Aste is a conservationist, first and foremost, also an Eagle Scout and the son of a Swiss immigrant.  Ben started Uncle Benny’s Building Supplies from a small rented shed, because he couldn’t stand to see the waste in the lumber supply industry in which he’d been working for some years.  Uncle Benny’s grew quickly, and is growing still, despite an interruption in retail operations you’ll hear...

Noah and Alli Hutchison met during their college years at Baylor, and grew a friendship through their shared involvement in a church community - Antioch Waco.  Alli started doing interior design work for friends and their friends soon after college, and eventually they worked in church ministry, with Noah as the Childrens & Family Director.  They moved to Fort Collins in 2015 where Noah was the Ex...

Julie Ulstrup began her career in admissions counseling, soon transitioned to school counseling, and was a School Counselor for Poudre School District for 13 years.  Like many of the purpose-driven, she began to experience burnout after about 10 years - and made a leap in 2016 - transforming her hobby business of photography into a vibrant full-time enterprise.  In just a few years, she had more t...

Tom Trimmer, Jr. spent his growing up years in the Northern Suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, and was disappointed when his father got rid of the family powerboat (about the time he was old enough to start skiing…) and bought a sailboat instead.  The sailboat sparked a love of sailing however, that carries through to today, and spurred Tom’s first significant entrepreneurial venture - Bachelorette Par...

Trish Bowen-Bannister started her career in education, grew quickly in the field, and spent many years as the Director of Education for Weston Distance Learning in Fort Collins - a role very similar to the role my wife currently fills for the same organization!  She later became Campus President of another local education organization, but was keen to leave after a new CEO created a less-than-enjo...

I was joined by my longtime friend Jennifer Watson in studio this week, while she was in Colorado for the first stop of her Chemistry of Resilience Fall Tour.  It’d been a few years since we’d seen one another, as Jennifer moved to Greenville, South Carolina to be closer to her twin sister and growing family a couple years back.   Jennifer’s journey is inspiring in both achievements and authentici...

Amber Quann joined me in the studio this week to share her business journey, which started at the age of 13 after she’d built notoriety since she was 10 by winning many local and regional competitions in the 4 H community for her dog training skills!  Several neighbors and family friends got puppies around the same time, and so Amber started group training lessons in her front yard!  She’s been tr...

Don’t judge her for it, but Kelly Evans is and will forever be a Jayhawk.  Born and raised in and around Lawrence, Kansas, Kelly got her Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Kansas and soon after began a front-line role with a local non-profit.  Two-and-a-half years in, the board made the decision to depart the Executive Director, and asked Kelly if she would take the job!  Kelly is a na...

Don Cooper was referred to me by a mutual friend, Carolyn Strauss, in my search for a chapter speaker who would bring an innovative approach to sales training.  He brought his most popular workshop, The Myth of Price, and got great reviews from every attendee.  And - thankfully for our listeners, he made time to come by The LoCo Experience studios and share some of his principles for creative thin...

I met Matt Heath at our LoCo Social at Cheba Hut in April, where he had just finished up meeting with Marc Torres, Cheba’s  CEO and my guest on Experience #139.  We had an awesome and interesting conversation, which led to a zoom and then booking this podcast, and I look forward to the day when LoCo Think Tank can hire his creative team to create a clever campaign - as their stuff is just so fun! ...

A few weeks ago, longtime friend and local musician Max Mackey joined me in studio for a wonderfully authentic conversation (Episode 174), and afterward he mentioned that I really should have his girlfriend on my show because she’s so smart and experienced and I would just love her - and she was coming to visit in a couple weeks!  And so I did - and I’m smarter for it, and glad to add another frie...

I popped into William Oliver’s Publick House a few weeks ago at the end of the day, to grab a quick beer and a snack - and ran into the owner whom I remembered from their early days - Ryan Wallace.  William Oliver’s had been a regular lunch-spot for me when I worked at Capital West Bank - a top choice because the staff was always great and they served locally sourced fare in a non-pretentious fash...

In today’s episode of The LoCo Experience podcast, I had the pleasure of getting to know Kevin Fiske and Brittany McCahan from Fiske Electric.  Fiske is an electrical design and contracting business with a homebase just outside Loveland, and clients all across Northern Colorado, the Western US, and occasionally, internationally.  They have a highly diversified service offering, ranging from adding...

By scanning Jill Simonds’ LinkedIn profile, one can see that she is achievement-oriented.  Coordinator to Manager at her first career stop, and then Manager to Director at the next, and then Director of Marketing & Operations to Chief Operating Officer & Integrator.  That last stop is where Jill earned her EOS stripes and Integrator Certification, and in 2023 she started her own firm, Savvy Strate...

I met Max Mackey soon after he opened Moto Haus Coffee in South Fort Collins off College Avenue.  I’d recently become the proud owner of a 1976 BMW R75/6, and the former owner told me of a group of old (and some younger mostly BMW guys that met regularly for evening coffee and riding.  It was the coolest spot in town for the riding community for several years, but was ultimately killed by the Grea...

In April of 2020, in the early days of the lockdowns and pandemic threat response - we got new neighbors. Days after, we invited them to our then-12th annual backyard Cinco de Mayo party. Thinking “Oh, great, we’ve moved in next door to crazy people” they politely declined our invitation, but did accept some leftover pork carnitas and cilantro-lime coleslaw I set on the fence. But after eating tha...

This week on The LoCo Experience, we welcomed back Aaron Everitt, our sponsor through his business, Logistics Co-op, and regular guest of the show for real estate updates and real talk on national and local politics.  Aaron has been creating content on X the past year or so as @loanly_hipster, some of which has been supportive of RFK’s Presidential run, and he caught the attention of the campaign...

A few years into their marriage, Autumn Fleck and her husband, Trevor, made the decision that they wanted to budget well, save hard, and retire early so they could travel the world and live a life set apart.  And then one day - she had a cockroach run down her arm! - and the next day she found a cockroach in her daughter’s bed! - and of course informed her husband they needed to call for pest cont...

Diego Rago Vega is a chef, a writer, a philosopher, and a permanent resident here on political asylum - but he came to America long before it was trendy.  He and his family operated an import/export business in Venezuela, and as the nation’s economic fortunes crumbled under first Chavez and then Moralez, the enterprise became unsustainable - in part because the family wasn’t aligned with the gover...

I first learned about Toddy, LLC circa 2013, during the twilight of my banking career.  The story I heard was that the owners of a local marketing agency, Clay Pot Creative, had purchased a manufacturing business in Texas, and moved it up to Loveland!  The company made cold brew coffee systems (whatever that was), and seemed to have a strong product in a niche market - a banker’s dream client!  I...