Kelly McDonald

What does a blond haired, blue-eyed Irish girl know about diversity? Plenty!

Kelly McDonald is a marketing and advertising expert with more than 20 years of global advertising agency experience. She has deep experience in marketing to different generations, values, lifestyles, races and ethnicities.

Her client experience includes brands such as Toyota, Sherwin-Williams, Kimberly-Clark, Miller / Coors, Harley-Davidson, State Farm Insurance, Mattel, Ace Hardware and Nike.

Kelly was named one of “26 Hot Speakers” by Successful Meetings Magazine.

Her company has twice been named one of the top ad agencies in the U.S. by Advertising Age Magazine.

She has been featured in Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Fast Company, as well as on CNBC, CNNMoney.com and Sirius/XM Radio.

Her book, “How to Market to People Not Like You”, is a bestseller and was named one of the “Top 5 Best Business Books of 2011”.

Kelly Boon

Born in Manhattan...(Kansas), Kelly Boon grew up an Iowa girl. She wasn't born in a log cabin, but as soon as they could afford to...they moved into one.

As founder and director of pARTners Unlimited programming, a non-profit that transforms lives through the creative arts in prisons and youth facilities in Iowa, Kelly helped program participants develop self-worth giving them belief in themselves to live their dreams. It became clear to Kelly that all of us could benefit in finding the "fun" in dysfunction and become richer through laughter and creativity...and CHAOS was born!

A CHAOS Coach [Creativity Humor And Other Stuff], Kelly provides global presentations reviving the creative spirit and giving permission to laugh out-loud! Kelly's dream is to experience a vibrant world smiling and belly laughing together. Recognized internationally as a leader in employing art and humor in everyday living, she and her red noses have become somewhat of an icon...even in Kofu, Japan.

Kelly believes in taking herself lightly and her work seriously. She performs with "Off the Cuff" IMPROV group, and continues to Salsa dance around the world. She is a professional artist and shows her work nationally as White Feather Art.

Kelly's background includes being a firefighter, waste lab technician, ice-cream scooper, NY City street performer, shark cave diver, corn detasseler, mom, college running back, Karaoke finalist and rat exterminator. Ok, well only one rat [we think].

Wherever she goes, a trail of governors, presidential candidates, accountants, attorneys, correctional staff and inmates, administrators, doctors, professors, race-car drivers, ministers and other respectable people have been seen wearing bright, red clown noses!

Sue Pitts

Sue Pitts is the Regional Center Director of the Iowa Western Community College Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Sue has over 8 years experience as a co-owner/manager of a small business and 20 years experience in small business marketing, digital marketing, market research, and managing budgets. Through the SBDC, Sue has been providing professional, one-on-one business counseling to entrepreneurs, small businesses and people dreaming about starting businesses since March 2004. Although she works with businesses with all topics and issues, her expertise and passion is helping businesses with their internet marketing strategies, including website development, search engine optimization, local search and social networking. Sue shares ideas, advice, and opinions about owning and starting a business in Southwest Iowa regularly through the Iowa Western Community College Entrepreneurial Center and SBDC blog, which can be found at www.iowabiztalk.com. Sue’s Center was recognized in February 2011 by Inc.com as one of Americas most helpful SBDC’s for the centers work in digital marketing and helping small businesses master the art. http://www.inc.com/articles/201102/iowa-western-community-college-entrepreneurial-small-business-development-center.html.

She is a certified NDC Economic Development Finance Professional, a certified instructor for NX Level, Certified in Social Networking (Guerilla Marketing), Profit Mastery and Fast Trac Programs. Sue holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communications/Advertising from Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota.

Chris Sackett

Chris is the Managing Member of BrownWinick and is recognized by Chambers USA® as a leading practitioner in corporate/mergers and acquisitions and business law. He represents numerous and diverse clients in domestic and international business, transactional, corporate and securities matters, including: organization/formation/startup and management issues; debt and equity financings, including public and private securities offerings and private equity and venture capital transactions; mergers and acquisitions; joint ventures; licensing agreements; real estate; manufacturing and supply chain transactions; and franchise/dealer/distributor issues.

Chris frequently works with other BrownWinick attorneys to provide a full range of legal services. Whether working with the client’s in-house legal counsel or its management team, Chris prides himself on his ability to "partner" and add value by taking a proactive, results-oriented approach and viewing each engagement from the client’s specific business perspective. He believes the keys to providing the best legal representation are knowing the client’s specific business, industry and strategic plan and focusing on client service, creativity and results.

Amy Johnson

Amy is an associate attorney with BrownWinick. Amy provides legal services in the areas of corporate transactions, agricultural law, real estate, renewable fuels, taxation and estate planning.

Amy graduated, magna cum laude, from Central College in 2004, receiving her B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies: Spanish, Behavioral Science and Communication. She received her J.D., cum laude, in 2007 from Creighton University and was a member of the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity.

Amy is a member of the Polk County, Iowa State and American Bar Associations and the Polk County Women Attorneys. Amy was admitted to the Iowa bar in 2007.

Leisa Fox

Leisa Fox is Senior Vice President for Revenue and Programs for the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. She joined the organization in December of 2004.

Prior to her service at ABI, Leisa worked for LaMair, Mulock, Condon where she was a Commercial Property Casualty Consultant.

Fox has served on the board for Link and Associates, a full-services agency serving the adult mentally and physically challenged in Polk County. She is a former board member for JDRF, Leadership Iowa and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. She is a member of the State Society of Human Resources Managers (SHRM) Council, is a board member of the Association of State Chamber Professionals, a graduate of Leadership Iowa and the Iowa Society of Association Execs Leadership Program, and serves as guest speaker at business events across the state. Under her leadership, ABI has received numerous national awards for highest member retention, recruitment and revenue.

She is a graduate of Iowa State University with a degree in Interpersonal and Rhetorical Communication. Her primary focus is creating products and services that help Iowa companies grow and prosper.

Lori Young

Lori Young is the Marketing & Compliance Manager for the Targeted Small Business (TSB) Program at the Iowa Economic Development Authority. She spends time marketing the program across the state in a variety of ways. Lori is also responsible for monitoring how much spending state agencies do with targeted small businesses. Prior to joining the State of Iowa in December 2008, Lori had a 22-year career at Principal Financial Group® in various capacities, including instructional designer, facilitator, and marketing communications.

Adam Hohl

Kathy’s Pumpkin Patch is part of a 5th generation family farm located in southeast Iowa. We strive to be an ecologically friendly farm and firmly believe in being good stewards of the land. Our mission is to provide a fun, safe, educationally based rural experience for families by offering unique hands-on agricultural related activities, while also providing our freshest veggies, homegrown pumpkins, squash, and gourds, and offering all the trimmings for your home and family during the holidays.

Our family "agri-tainment" business began evolving in 2004 with our passion for pumpkins! Back in 1994, Adam started a small FFA project for school, by raising a few pumpkins. He grew two or three rows each year, and every fall we put a wagon of those pumpkins out by the highway with an honor system jar for payment. When Adam went on to college, his sister, Amber, continued the tradition for a few more years.

When both children left the “nest”, Greg and Kathy continued their diversified farm operation of corn, beans, hogs, and cattle, but always had fond memories of those “pumpkin years”. In 2003, after three neck surgeries, Greg needed to eliminate the livestock chores from his daily life. Our thoughts returned to pumpkins, and in 2004 we planted 5 acres and sold them from our farmstead. We were hooked!

Within two years Adam returned with his wife, Julie, after living in St. Louis for several years, to help the farm and "pumpkin business" grow. Throughout these past several years, Amber offers her support and graphic arts assistance as she attends grad-school, and Jacob, Adam and Julie's son, is our number one “tester” of new games and adventures.

Today we have expanded from a fall focused business, into a year round operation. During the spring/summer we sell fresh veggies and manage our CSA program, have over 40 acres of pumpkins, squash, and gourds during the fall, and have the f

John LaMarche

John is currently a principal in VentureNet Iowa, a company that connects ideas to resources, management and investors to create jobs and build businesses in Iowa. VentureNet’s focus is on early-stage innovative technology companies that include bio/life science, IT, value-added agriculture, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy opportunities. Working in conjunction with a wide array resources from around the state, VentureNet assists the companies in the evaluation of their market opportunity and helps them to identify mentors, advisors, consultants and management.

In addition, John serves on the board of 4 companies, is a part-time CFO for a technology startup and also serves as a mentor to several companies. He was previously involved with Emerging Growth Group and prior to that was COO with 2 start-ups: a medical device technology company and a health care IT venture.

Barry Groh

Barry Groh is the President of Mobile Media Innovation, a technology company focusing on the development of Smartphone Apps, QR Codes, and Mobile Marketing. Barry started the company in 2010, it is the 4th business in which he has had ownership capacity. The inspiration for creating Mobile Media Innovation was conceived while researching Multi-Channel Marketing during his involvement in the printing industry. This interest was a springboard into exploring other emerging technologies.

Barry has a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Administration from Iowa State University. He has been active in politics for 16 years serving as City Councilman and serves as a Director on several Boards and Commissions.

Barry has been married for 30 years to his wife Kimberly and they have 4 children.

Beth Trejo

Beth Trejo is co-founder of Chatterkick, a technology start-up company aiming to provide businesses with simple, social, online solutions for their business. Chatterkick provides a digital boost to those companies by sharing their stories and monitoring their brands on the internet and through mobile phones.

Through her previous role as the Director of Investor Relations for the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce, Beth Trejo acted as an advocate and educator on social media. This passion of online tools and desire to create low cost marketing strategies for businesses led her to incorporate technology into membership benefits at the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce. Beth's blog at the Chamber became nationally recognized among Chambers and used as an example of a successful social media platform. In addition to new media, Beth has worked with national media outlets such as “The Today Show, CNN, Telemundo, ABC Evening News and has appeared on “CBS This Morning”, Public Radio International, and the BBC.

Outside her role at Chatterkick, Beth is very active in the local community, and has served as the President for the Sioux City Young Professional's Group and on various boards and committees. She spends any spare time she can find food gawking and chasing after her 1 year-old son.

Craig Downs

Craig Downs is IFMCV President and Senior Loan Administrator and has 27 years of commercial banking experience in a variety of roles with large and small banking institutions in various regions of Iowa. Areas of special expertise include financial analysis, staff supervision, loan policy and administration, investments, regulatory reporting and compliance. Downs has experience with a variety of entrepreneurial lending situations and was brought in to improve performance for several lending institutions facing emerging issues. He has added experience in managing accounting and vendor contracts for the ISU Department of Dining/Vending Services and has leadership experience with several nonprofit organizations during challenging times. He has served as President of Boone County Transportation; President of Boone Rotary Club, Trustee for S.L. Moore Charitable Trust, President of Boone County Work Activity Center, the Boone County Red Cross Board and Boone Planning and Zoning Board. Downs hold a Bachelors of Science Degree in Agricultural Business and Economics from Iowa State University and has graduated from several Banking Schools including the Graduate School of Banking in Colorado, American Institute of Banking, Iowa School of Banking, American Bankers Association National Compliance School and others. He was hired by IFMCV in 2008.

Christian Renaud

Christian Renaud is the CEO of Present.io, as well as a Mentor-in-residence at StartupCity Des Moines, Central Iowa’s technology startup incubator. Christian was previously CEO of Palisade Systems, CEO of the Technology Intelligence Group, Vice President of Business Development for Windmill Networks, and Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for Cisco Systems. In addition, Christian holds advisory and board positions with venture funds, European Commission projects, and a number of technology startups.

Linda Gobberdiel, MA RD LD

Linda has a passion for food and health and is fortunate to focus her work on my passion. She supports and implements programs and projects that connect Iowans to healthy local food. She has been involved in several segments of the local food system from production and processing, to marketing and retail sales. Her focus on projects that build and sustain our local food system. Her initiation of a grassroots effort to open a retail coop for local food became a reality on September 15, 2011. Tallgrass Grocery Coop is thriving in Historic Valley Junction and she continues to serve on the Board of Directors. She also served as Past-President of the Iowa Food Systems Council Board of Directors as well as a founding board member of the Iowa Food Coop. In her 20+ years working and managing in the fields of nutrition, healthcare and education her diverse experience includes counseling individuals, directing nutrition programs in hospitals, nursing homes and wellness, negotiating group purchasing contracts, directing a Montessori preschool for nine years and serving in board leadership positions. Her newest business is Health Discovered, LLC which focuses on food, fitness, and support all with an underlying emphasis on taking care of our environment.

Bryan Ziegler

Bryan Ziegler has helped small businesses implement marketing and sales strategy as the director of the Indian Hills Community College Small Business Development Center for 26 years. Bryan has been teaching for Buena Vista University Ottumwa Center since 1986 and provides instruction for business mangers in several seminar topic areas. Bryan managed the sales for a construction company and earned an MBA from Western Illinois University.

Josh Fleming

As the Digital Director for Lessing-Flynn Advertising, a 15-person marketing communications firm headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, Josh is responsible for web strategy, design/development, social media marketing, search engine optimization, online advertising, mobile marketing, web analytics and other interactive services for the agency’s clients. Josh is known in the social media space as “AdMaverick,” one of his twitter handles and the name for Lessing-Flynn’s award winning blog, AdMavericks.com.

Josh has worked in digital marketing for over a decade and his knowledge of social media and interactive strategy has led to national and local speaking appearances. Josh served as Director of Business Development for Dice.com the nation’s leading online job board for technology professionals. While at Dice, Josh increased site traffic from 1M to 2M monthly visitors in less than two years and created a site advertising program that continues to generate seven figures annually. Prior to Lessing-Flynn, Josh served as Interactive Director at The Integer Group, a TBWA/Omnicom company and Iowa’s largest ad agency. At Integer, Josh lead digital, social and direct marketing strategies and promotions for large global brands.

Josh has also spent time at Gannett, Pulitzer and Tribune Publishing and is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in English. Originally from Miami, Florida, the father of four and husband of one is happy to call Iowa his home.

Randy Dean

Randy Dean, the "Totally Obsessed" Time Management/PDA Guy and E-mail Sanity Expert, and author of the recent Amazon e-mail bestseller, Taming the E-mail Beast: 45 Key Strategies for Managing Your E-mail Overload (Sortis Publishing 2009), is your preferred source for speaking and training programs on advanced time management using technology, managing the mess of e-mail and information overload, and related topics including managing great meetings and ending office clutter. Randall Dean, MBA, has more than 20 years of experience using and teaching advanced principles of time and project management and personal organization. His popular keynote/breakout programs, "Finding an Extra Hour Every Day" and "Taming the E-mail Beast: Managing the Mess of E-mail and Info Overload" are great sessions for conference and association meetings, combining humor with extraordinarily relevant and useful content and providing strategy-rich information on finding and saving time and taming the e-mail beast both at home and work.

Rob Williams

Rob Williams is a Business Analyst at the University of Northern Iowa Regional Business Center and the Business Concierge at MyEntre.Net, Iowa’s online community for small business and entrepreneurs. He conducts complex secondary market research for Iowa’s small business community, serves as the online host of MyEntre.Net’s bi-monthly business webinars and delivers classroom and online workshops on business and technology topics. Since 2010, he has managed the search engine optimization and social media marketing at MyEntre.Net which has grown its membership to 11,000 during that time.

Prior to his current role, Williams served as a small business consultant for the UNI Small Business Development Center. As an SBDC consultant, Rob met regularly with small and mid-sized business owners and pre-venture entrepreneurs, providing technical assistance on a variety of business topics, including marketing, sales, finance and core business strategy.

Williams attended the University of Northern Iowa, earning a BA in Public Administration in 2008. He is one of only a handful of individuals certified by the National Economic Gardening Institute. He is a 2010 graduate of the Heartland Economic Development Course and is a member of the Professional Developers of Iowa (PDI).

To learn more, visit http://www.rob-williams.biz.