The LoCo Experience

Becky Allsup is the owner of Becky’s Custom Interiors, which in turn holds  Niche Design House   and Rebecca Windsor & Associates.  Niche is primarily an upscale commercial and residential design center, and Rebecca Windsor provides national-scope design, procurement, and installation services - especially for rapidly growing retail franchise operations. Her business journey was a joy to uncover:...

Matt Shoup is a serial entrepreneur, author, inventor, real estate broker and investor.  He’s the President of M & E Painting and Roofing, Inventor of The Pirate Patch, and a realtor with C3 Real Estate.  Matt’s first book was “Become an Award-Winning Company” and his new book - just out - is “Painted Baby”.  He’s also a Professor and Partner at Northern Colorado Jiu Jitsu, and there’s more but no...

Nick Armstrong is among Fort Collins’ most interesting people!  He’s the Geek-in-Chief of WTF Marketing, the Pepper Pioneer of FTW Hot Sauce, and the Lead Organizer of both Founded in FoCo and Fort Collins Comic Con!  He’s also a freelance community organizer in various ancillary capacities, and a recently BARELY unsuccessful candidate for Fort Collins City Council.   In this episode, we zoom espe...

Dudley Brown is the Founder and President of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO), and the President of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), both based in Loveland, Colorado.  Ben Gates is a previous guest and longtime friend, President of NG Companies and CFO and Partner in Kinetic Research Group, a firearm manufacturing business based in Idaho that specializes in stocks for competitive lo...

Dr. Heidi Golding is the Founder and Practitioner at Living Well Chinese Medicine in Loveland, Colorado.  She’s an acupuncturist, an herbalist, and one of the most interesting health professionals I’ve become acquainted with.  Heidi likes to describe her practice as a fusion of traditional wisdom and modern technology.  She is a student of both Japanese and Chinese herbs and acupuncture, with a st...

Annie and Mike Griffith are fellow members of the Rotary Club of Fort Collins Breakfast - or, more commonly known - Breakfast Rotary.  We meet at 6:45 am at Ginger & Baker in Fort Collins, every Thursday morning - come and check it out sometime! Annie grew up in the travel industry, with her grandfather delivering sightseeing tours and her dad developing a healthy freight and people-moving bus ser...

Dan Anderson is the President and CEO of Kingdom Way Ministries, and a Strategic & Leadership Coach with Five Capitals.  Kingdom Way's mission is to help marketplace leaders thrive in business, life, and ministry.  They do this through peer advisory groups, coaching, and community events that, in his words, connect Sunday’s inspiration to Monday’s perspiration. His business offers a membershi...

Kent Obermann is the Founder of Tooth Zone Network, a pediatric dentistry enterprise that grew to include locations in Fort Collins, Loveland, and Longmont and as many as 60 employees.  Kent founded the practice in 1982, fresh out of dental school and intro practice, with a high-rate loan “from Vinny the Loan Shark” after banks turned him down.  Kent sold the business in 2017 after 35 years of cre...

In this episode you’ll get a glimpse behind-the-scenes of LoCo Headquarters in my conversation with LoCo Experience Producer Alma Ferrer and our new Marketing Manager Alisha Jeffers. We give focus especially to Alisha, her arts background and travels that eventually led her to LoCo. She talks a little about her introductory project with us to revamp our logo, and suggests reading her guest blog po...

Althea Hrdlichka is the Founder and Owner and Midwife at Tender Gifts Midwifery and Birth Center in Fort Collins.  After years of supporting Northern Colorado moms through at-home births, Althea took a leap of faith and opened her birth center in the fall of 2020, navigating an abundance of regulations - covid and otherwise - and finding strong market demand for their services from the beginning....

Hope Hartman is the Executive Director of the Larimer County Small Business Development Center, located on the Front Range Community College campus in Fort Collins. The Larimer SBDC provides education and connection to entrepreneurs across Larimer County.  In this episode, we explore the role of the SBDC in the business ecosystem, Hope’s “why” in pursuing the role, and the meandering journey of an...

Aaron Everitt is a regular guest of the LoCo Experience, with this being his fourth appearance. He’s well-connected in Fort Collins as a real estate broker for Resident Realty, operating a delivery service provider organization, and now adding a local commercial delivery service to the mix called InMotion. We’re happy to announce that InMotion is our first official outside sponsor of the the LoCo...

Bonus episode from the blog: Sharing gratitude for new additions to LoCo and new offerings just around the corner, the serendipitous path that led to this plate full of blessings, and exploring the meaning of the word fateful and the greater perspective it offers. The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by:  Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more 💡Learn about LoCo Think Tank Follow us to see...

Mandy Mullen is the Founder and Owner of the Run Windsor Race Series. She also founded and serves as  Executive Director of Windsor Gives, a non-profit extension providing fitness opportunities and education throughout the community. Mandy is a mom on a mission to be healthy and to encourage physical and mental fitness in youth and across entire communities.   In this episode, we talk about the be...

Bob Flynn is the co-founder of Green Ride Colorado, which sold in 2018 to become Groome Transportation here in Northern Colorado. Groome specializes in airport-to-city shuttling between Northern Colorado and Denver. Bob talks about the process, ethos and hard work behind building a transportation business that is environmentally friendly. The momentum that Green Ride created continues with Groome...

Ty Fulcher is the owner of four of the finest eating and drinking establishments in Old Town Fort Collins: Social, Union, the Melting Pot and Rodizio Grill. Ty came to Fort Collins in 2002 from Washington State and trained as a sommelier in Italy soon after. Upon his return, he applied what he learned at the Melting Pot and moved up to management. Ty soon expanded into the world of craft cocktails...

Margo is the Western Region President at Banner Health and has her PhD in Organizational Development from CSU. Margo shares her inspiring journey from frontline nursing into management, developing a passion for education and training that continued throughout her later executive career.  Margo pulls back the curtain on our healthcare system in this episode. She shares the challenges of the industr...

Richard Fagerlin is the founder and president of Peak Solutions Group and author of the book Trustology.  Richard is known across Northern Colorado - and the nation - for his keynote presentations and his team’s effective engagement in three key areas of management consulting: Customized internal leadership development Authentic and durable strategic planning Executive coaching + organizational en...

In this month’s blog, I’ll be taking a broad-scope view of the scary times we’re in - and sharing reflections and examples of why we should fear not - but plan and work hard instead. The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by:  Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more 💡Learn about LoCo Think Tank Follow us to see what we're up to: Instagram LinkedIn Facebook Music By: A Brother's Fou...

Kim O’Neil is the former Chief Operations Officer and current shareholder and Board Member of Encompass Technologies, and investor/advisor for a new startup: Beverage Distribution Consulting (BDC). In this episode, we talk a lot about the topic of scaling. From boot-strapping to private-equity assisted scaling, Kim has been a part of the growth of organizations throughout her career. Kim goes in-d...

My guest on today’s episode was Mark Weaver. Mark is the Founder of Open Door Organizational Solutions and has been serving businesses with Human Resource and Culture solutions for over 15 years. He’s had an influence on many of Northern Colorado’s finest and fastest growing organizations.   Mark got his start in consulting at Philip Crosby Associates, whose founder was a best-selling author and c...

My guest on today's episode is former mayor of Fort Collins, Wade Troxell. Wade continues to serve in a faculty role at CSU and in many high impact, low touch roles across our region. Wade's story is a fascinating one, solidly at the intersection of local government, university and the business communities. He was a standup football player at CSU, has been involved in multiple startup ve...

Today’s episode welcomes public speaking expert Tanis Roeder, founder and CEO of Elevate Your Communications in Fort Collins. We focus on best practices in the realm of public speaking, and take a look at an assessment tool used in her workshops called Emergenetics. Similar to the Hallos Relational Intelligence tool we’ve been using around LoCo Think Tank, Emergenetics examines the way you communi...

Seth is the Founder and Owner of Story On Media and Marketing. We went over industry analytics, best practices, and how to create a podcast as a small business. Seth also shared about the podcast movement conference where he interviewed Mark Cuban as moderator for one of the big keynote sessions! If you're interested in the podcast industry, you will learn a lot and Seth has a lot of insider...

Tom Lucero is a political consultant whose organization, L3, helps aspiring leaders of any political persuasion through a leadership journey into the field of politics. Tom’s understanding of different perspectives comes from his upbringing in a longtime political family. While his grandfather was the head of the Democratic party in New Mexico for many years, Tom became one of the first conservati...