The LoCo Experience

Becky Ezzel is the founder of Smart Book Business Solutions, it is a bookkeeping service for small business owners, especially those under 20 employees or so. She's grown her team to be 10 employees strong and they have 170 clients thereabouts in Northern Colorado. She found herself a single mom of a two-and-a-half-year-old and a five-year-old with a job that was awesome and satisfying, but d...

My guest was Suzanne Miller. She is the Welcome Coordinator at the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. She's a wife and a mom and a grandma, and she's just a really neat lady. We talk a lot about leadership at every level, even if you're not the CEO or the president of a company, how you can still be a leader within the organization.  Suzanne is the founder also of a movement cal...

Mike is the founder of Prairie Rose Development and the former executive director of the Colorado Lending Source and is a candidate for the Colorado Secretary of State. He is from Australia and studied at the university of Melbourne, he got with Ford Motor company and later went back to school, got his MBA with an economics focus and found his way to America. We talk about all kinds of economic to...

In this month's blog, I’m going to dip into some business stories, including my own, and enter into an examination of the role that story and narrative play in our lives.  How do the stories we tell each other provide clarity and understanding, and how do the stories we tell ourselves impact our direction and habits?  Finally, I’ll share some tips and observations on how we can help ourselves...

My guests were Dr. Bobby and Jamie Cawthron, former owners of Aspen Grove Veterinary Care and The Cabins at Aspen Grove. Jamie is a LoCo facilitator and a former member of LoCo Think Tank, she's also the founder of Path Forward business consulting. Dr. Bobby remains as chief of staff for Aspen Grove veterinary. They sold their business last year and we talked about the purchase of that busine...

My guest on today's episode was Heidi Ganahl. Heidi is a Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado, a Regent at the University of Colorado and she's the founder of Camp Bow Wow, as well as other ventures. She's a mom of four and married to the top barbecue guy in the state.  We dig into Heidi's story with this one.  Before founding Camp Bow Wow, Heidi suffered the tragic lo...

My guest today was Hunter Wylie, Co-founder and CEO of Beyond Blue Media, a full service digital marketing agency here in Fort Collins. They've grown the business in five short years to 16 full-time employees, and have a full service spectrum, including SEO, web development, apps, videos, social media,. etc. Learn tips on how to do your own digital marketing, if you're not in a place yet...

My guest on this episode was Brad Piepenbrink, the Owner of Recycled Cycles in Fort Collins. He purchased the business in July of 2021. After 43 years of being owned by Dave Hudson, a long-time LoCo Think Tank member. Brad's had an interesting journey. He grew up in Illinois, went to college in Florida, and then really fell into politics. He moved into ever-increasing roles of responsibility,...

My guest was Sarah Lukemire, Founder and Lead Strategist at Brindle Digital Media. Sarah tells a lot about her story of getting into the marketing industry, where she earned her chops early after college. How her dad talked her out of dropping out of college to open a tanning salon. She shares her top four tips for self marketers. We share a good conversation about the most important things in lif...

In this month's blog, I go through a discussion and examination of how we can show love through time, talent, and treasure - in our homes and in our business, and in our community. I share the experiences in my life that added and lead to the creation of LoCo Think Tank. Learn more and register for the Community Grove Party Episode 36 with The Matthews House Founder Jerri Schmitz Episode 2 wi...

My guest today was Aaron Everitt. Aaron is a realtor at Resident Realty. He's a partner in a delivery services provider and he's the owner of a startup, a local delivery business called InMotion. He was educated in Canada and married a girl from up there. We spent a lot of time talking about the Freedom convoy, the trucker strikes up there. We talked a lot about real estate, water availa...

Today's episode was with Greg Petri, the founder of One Business Connection or 1BC. They have over 60 groups virtually meeting every week. Over 40 groups meeting live every month. And they've been in business for 25 years and have over 600 members. One BC is a networking and connections organization. And Greg does that better than anybody I've ever met. He recognizes me every time I...

My guest for this episode was Sean Nook. Sean is the Founder and Owner-Operator at Black Bottle Brewery, which recently celebrated its 9th anniversary!  Black Bottle was the very last business start-up loan that I funded before leaving a 15-year career in banking! Sean has grown a passion for homebrewing into one of the city’s favorite brewpubs.  We talked about the challenges of managing the brew...

My guest today was Stephen Morris. He is an EOS implementer and business coach, and a covid-transplant to Colorado. EOS is short for the entrepreneur's operating system, as first outlined in the book Traction by Gino Wickham. Stephen's journey includes a season as a designer and crewman in world-leading yachting teams and a design firm, and eventually ascended to be a second-generation l...

Bonus Episode #1 - In this episode, I read my monthly blog post from The LoCo Perspective Newsletter. I will take you on a high-level flyover on the topics of money and prices and supply and demand, finally zeroing in on inflation - what is it?, where does it come from and how does it behave?, and what actions can we take at the micro and macro levels to confront this dragon who consumes? If you p...

My guest today was Emily Kinkaid, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Elevate Energy Services.  She's a killer, managing a team of over 150 employees at the ripe young age of 33, and she's showing the old dogs some new tricks when it comes to innovation and customer service in the completion business.  She's a frackwater expert, and a natural leader, and I think you're going to...

On this episode of The LoCo Experience my guest was Jeff Jensen, multi-journey business veteran and among the newest LoCo Facilitators.  I would characterize Jeff as an engineer-type whose passion is making businesses work better through a focus on individual growth and team cohesion.  This episode is chock full of business tips, tricks, and deep nuggets.  We discussed Jeff’s journeys into and out...

My guest today was Elizabeth LeDoux,  the Founder, and CEO of Transition Strategists, an international succession and transition planning company headquartered right here in Fort Collins, Colorado.  We talked about her early days in business and relatively young transition to consultancy - where she now tallies more than 25 years of experience!  Elizabeth shares principles from her newest book, It...

This episode features Greg Roeder and Josh Guernsey, Founders and Managing Partners at Waypoint Real Estate in Fort Collins.  Josh and Greg founded the firm five short years ago, and have grown to become a leading full-service firm in the region, with a staff of 35 providing commercial and residential brokerage, property management, and investment services.  They attribute their success to attract...

On today’s episode of The LoCo Experience, I sat down with Alma Ferrer, our Everything Associate at LoCo Think Tank - master of most things digital, and my super-helper on the show.  Alma and I discuss some of the highlight moments from Season 1 of the podcast, and we share some of the changes coming up for Season 2 - as Little River Band would say, it’s time for a cool change.  The latter part of...

Jennifer Watson is the Founder of Jennifer Watson Leadership and Watson Wellness in Fort Collins, Colorado.  The businesses allow her to pursue her twin passions of wellness and leadership, and provide her the opportunity to help her clients become their best selves - at home and in the office.  Jennifer shares her journey of building a physical therapy practice starting right after college, and m...

Jeff Schuster is the Founder and owner of Mechanics & Mindset Business Coaching, and also the author of Business Mechanics & Mindset - How Your Thoughts Create or Sabotage Your Business Success.  In a previous chapter of life, Jeff founded and grew an energy services company called Ennovate. We discuss Jeff’s business journey with emphasis on key moments that empowered the growth of the company to...

Allison Seabeck is a bit of an enigma - and a most enjoyable enigma to be around.  She’s a linguist by education, met her husband while both were teaching and editing English in Japan, and moved to Fort Collins after researching “places we might really want to live” in 2007 - recently married and unattached in the world, save for family in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (Allison) and in Laramie...

A warm summer afternoon, Eric was looking for something to do while their son was napping. He and their 4-year-old daughter found some old scraps of wood and after a few hours of sawing, hammering, and nailing, the first-ever Porch Box® was created. The idea was to replace the ugly cooler on their front porch that was being used for dairy deliveries.  Now, a creative, innovative, hand-crafted box...

Betina Pflug is a difference-maker and has made amazing impacts at every station. Betina made her way to Fort Collins from her native Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2015 - with her husband’s transfer to the JBS offices in Greeley, along with their two daughters.  In the years before that, she worked in hotel management, brought the first Hooters to Brazil as part of the nuclear team, founded a food service...