The LoCo Experience

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 ente...

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 hi...

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...

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,...

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&apo...

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.   Timi...

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 s...

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 b...

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 too...

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 Check out LoCo Think Tank The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: ...

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 w...

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 -, an...

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...

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 j...

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 t...

Greg Roeder is a 2nd time guest on The LoCo Experience, and was my guest with then-partner and co-founder Josh Guernsey of Waypoint Real Estate, in Episode 45.  They were celebrating their 5th anniversary and had already grown to a staff of over 30 - focused on commercial brokerage, market data, and property management.  Greg, however, was increasingly focused on residential real estate, and provi...

I was introduced to Cameron Singh by our mutual friend, Fort Collins Mayor Emeritus Wade Troxell, and we’ve enjoyed some wonderful conversations in the few short weeks since.  During the first, Cameron shared his experiences in the aviation industry, how he’d come to Northern Colorado, and the vision of creating a world-class private plane services company with Discovery Air - a Water Valley Compa...

Kristin Todd joined the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado in April of 2021, continuing a career of impact in the realm of philanthropy.  Prior to joining the Community Foundation, she spent over 15 years with Daniels Fund based in Denver but serving much of the Rocky Mountain Region, and before that was with El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs.   In this episode, you will learn all abo...

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 w...

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 work...

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....

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 prod...

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...

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 o...

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 decid...