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Senior Fellows

Karl Dakin - Senior Fellow

 Karl Dakin is a Senior Fellow for the Institute and President of DaVinci Quest. Previously he was the Principal at Karl Dakin LLC, a boutique law firm specializing in angel investment and business incubation. In this capacity he provided legal representation for emerging businesses, educational institutions, trade organizations and professional associations in a variety of legal matters including licensing, contracts, employment, intellectual property, litigation and dispute resolution on state, national and international transactions.

Mr. Dakin is the co-author of book: Technology Transfer: Financing and Commercializing the High Tech Product or Service–From Research to Roll Out.  Published in 1991 by Probus Publishing Ltd., the book became widely adopted as a primer on the subject of technology transfer. From 1995 through 1997, Mr. Dakin wrote the SoftLaw column for the IEEE Journal on Software.

Within the last five years, Mr. Dakin has participated in raising over $15 million in angel funding and grants for several small businesses and non-profit organizations.

Steve Baker - Senior Fellow - Co-Host of the Startup Junkie Underground

 Steve Baker is a founder of successful businesses, a corporate executive and business advisor. With proven leadership in every phase of business cycle from startup to exit, Steve has the unique ability to generate immediate and sustainable improvements in business. He directs strategic marketing and business development and has taken companies from startup to millions of dollars in revenues in such diverse industries as international travel, financial software, casinos, manufacturing, cosmetic surgery, and ergonomics.

Always the entrepreneur and Startup Junkie, Steve is a well known speaker and author of the award winning book PUSHING WATER UPHILL With A Rake.

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Allison Taylor - Senior Fellow - Chief Inspiration Officer - Co-Host of the Startup Junkie Underground

Allison Taylor is the co-host the Startup Junkie Underground, a Senior Fellow, and part of the core team leading the direction of the DaVinci Institute.  As a serial entrepreneur, she has a keen understanding of what it takes to create a business and grow it into a successful enterprise.

Allison is a Business Consultant and Marketing Strategist specializing in networking, sales training, word-of-mouth marketing, and executive skill development. Through her business, Paravox, she offers consulting and training in innovative marketing and performance tactics to significantly improve business growth and profitability. Additionally, Allison counsels corporate executives in understanding and overcoming subconscious barriers to ultimate success.  With a background in psychology and physics, Allison uses simple strategies to influence positive human behavior, and performance measurement principles to improve bottom-line results.

Allison is a Certified Instructor in the N.U.D.E. Model of Referral Marketing.  Before Paravox, Allison had a 10 year career in market research, and held multiple corporate executive positions in marketing and sales. Allison lives in Denver, Colorado, and can be reached at 303-956-2280 or allison@paravox.com.

Bert Vermeulen - Senior Fellow

Bert Vermeulen is a Senior Fellow at the DaVinci Institute, and the Founder of Corp21. Bert Vermeulen worked twenty years for manufacturing and technology companies including:
Over eight years with Hewlett Packard in Colorado, England and Russia as a senior manager in the marketing and quality functions, primarily for mass-storage technologies. This included managing the product strategy that generated a $150 million/year DDS tape drive business.
Over eight years with Plasco, Inc (a plastic injection molding business that is now part of Trend Technologies) as a business partner, vice president and general manager. Key experience included growing the business to $25 million in revenues, operating at world-class profitability, and selling the business to a strategic buyer. This included work in Colorado, Mexico and Hungary.
Shorter assignments with Incon (development of electrical connectors), Datametrics (development of optical shaft encoders) and the Boston Consulting Group (business strategy).
His academic background includes a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from Stanford University.

Michael Cushman - The Engaging Guru - Senior Fellow

Michael Cushman, The Engaging Guru, is a Senior Fellow at the DaVinci Institute who loves helping others create the future. Michael is an expert in business culture and change leadership. His approach towards engaging and managing group dynamics and non-verbal leadership has changed how others view branding, relationship development, and leading change.

He has successfully led cultural tune-ups, operational excellence, created award-winning products, and introduced profitable technology and process improvements at over 50 companies, including Verizon, BT, Holiday Hospitality, American Red Cross, Waste Management, Revlon, and Chevron.  Besides working on projects and writing for DaVinci, Michael blogs at engagingchange.com, coaches executives, and speaks on how to accelerate business results by engaging others.

Dave Taylor - Senior Fellow - Social Director

Dave Taylor is a Senior Fellow at the DaVinci Institute and has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is widely recognized as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written eighteen business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. Dave maintains three weblogs, one focused on business and industry analysis, the eponymously named Ask Dave Taylor devoted to tech and business Q&A and APparenting.com, discussing topics of interest to parents.

Dave is a highly-rated speaker, sought after workshop facilitator and frequent radio guest.

Dr. Paul Bauer - Senior Fellow

Paul Bauer is a Senior Fellow for the DaVinci Institute as well as a Clinical Professor of Information Technologies at the Daniels College of Business.

Paul Bauer teaches information and network technologies, innovation and social entrepreneurship at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. Prior to joining DU, Paul was the Director of Corporate Learning and IT with Netbeam, Inc., a startup company providing wireless Internet access in Summit County, Colorado. Before Netbeam, Paul held a faculty position with TRA (Telecommunications Research Associates), a training company providing state-of-the-art technology courses to communications professionals.  Paul was a Program Director with 3Com Corporation, directing development of the ATM-based data access platform and the development and customer testing of the deployment of a CDMA wireless data system. Prior to joining 3Com, Paul founded his own consulting company and held numerous positions with US West Advanced Technologies, Bell Communications Research and Bell Laboratories. Paul was chairman (1991-92) and a founding board member of the Colorado Advanced Software Institute and served on the boards of the Colorado Software and Internet Association and University Hills Rotary Club.   Paul holds a BS in Physics from Saint Louis University and a PhD in solid state physics from the University of Kansas.

Joy Milkowski - Senior Fellow for the Institute and Founder of Access Marketing Company

Joy Milkowski is a Senior Fellow for the Institute and Founder of Access Marketing Company. She specializes in bringing search engine marketing and web marketing intelligence to her clients in a way they can understand and measure. She has over a decade of marketing, sales and professional copywriting experience in a variety of areas including tech, industrial, direct to consumer sales, commercial real estate ventures, professional and collegiate athletics and Internet-based marketing.

With a background in Business Communications and News/Editorial Writing from the University of Kansas, Joy consults on overall sales and marketing strategy, tactical marketing programs and results-measurement for a range of companies from start-ups to established businesses. Joy works with companies to develop results-based search engine strategies and other marketing initiatives via the Internet. Through her work at Access Marketing, clients get surgical placement in paid search as well as actionable information from their statistics for marketing measurement and sales lead generation.

In addition, Joy trains small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to leverage the power of search engines as an advertising tool to reach their audiences. Students of her live seminars rave about her enthusiasm and spirit in addition to her knowledge of Google Adwords best practices. She holds the philosophy that “teaching small business owners to fish” instead of “giving them fish” empowers them to create results previously only enjoyed by companies with huge budgets.

Joy is a Certified Google AdWords Professional.

Contact:

The DaVinci Institute
Thomas J. Frey, Executive Director
PO Box 270315
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 666-4133
tom(at)davinciinstitute(dot)com