SPEAKER: Dale Halling

Patent Attorney and Entrepreneur

Dale Halling is patent attorney and entrepreneur.  As a patent attorney, Mr. Halling, has represented numerous Fortune 500 companies including, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Motorola, Ameritech, SBC, MCI, Cypress, and numerous technology start-ups.  He has helped his clients obtain patents worldwide. 

Dale's technical background includes a BS in Electrical Engineering from Kansas State University, and a MS in Physics from the University of Texas at Dallas.  Mr. Halling spent several years performing research and development in free space laser communication systems at McDonnell Douglas.  After receiving his J.D. from Saint Louis University, Mr. Halling worked as patent/intellectual property counsel for Motorola.  He started his own patent law firm in Colorado Springs in 1995.  His firm performs patent and intellectual property work for Fortune 500 companies, high-technology start-ups and small business and individuals.

He is the author of the book “The Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur: How Little Known Laws are Killing Innovation.”

MODERATOR: Allison Taylor

Business Consultant

Allison Taylor is a Business Consultant specializing in relationship selling, referral marketing, customer and employee retention and non-traditional sales training.  Through her business, Paravox, she offers innovative marketing and performance tactics to significantly improve business growth and profitability.

PANELIST: Catharine Merigold

Co-Founder and General Partner of Vista Ventures

Catharine has worked with communications and information technology companies for twenty years, as an investor, as a board member and advisor, and as an entrepreneur. She started her venture career in 1992 with Centennial Ventures, the largest venture firm in the Rocky Mountain region. She was the founding CEO of a venture-backed company, a vice president at a Fortune 100 telecommunications company, and CEO of UTC, the company that manages all the technology developed at the four University of Colorado campuses. Catharine received her BS in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from Stanford University.

PANELIST: Gene Branch

Patent Attorney and Partner with the firm of Perkins Coie

Gene Branch is a partner at Perkins Coie in the Intellectual Property practice. With degrees in engineering, science, business and the law, Gene brings unique depth to clients and their intellectual property needs. Gene works diligently with clients to enhance their company's value through targeted innovation and strategic development of their patent portfolios. To that end, his practice focuses on patent prosecution in the electronics, software and mechanical arts, with a particular emphasis on business method and computer-implemented inventions in the financial services industry. Gene has drafted and prosecuted numerous US and international patent applications.

Prior to joining the firm, Gene was a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew. While there, he represented several large integrated financial services companies including Western Union and the United Services Automobile Association (USAA).

Gene began his legal career as a patent agent and in-house patent counsel for Displaytech, Inc., a start-up company founded on technology derived from research at the University of Colorado. While at Displaytech, Gene participated in building the company's patent portfolio to over 100 assets in numerous technology areas. Gene also served as an engineer for Lockheed Martin and as an officer in the United States Air Force. He is an active contributor to the Colorado School of Mines' 8th Continent Project, an organization founded for the purpose of commercializing space-derived technologies. In addition to being a licensed attorney, Gene is licensed as a Professional Engineer in Colorado.

PANELIST: Mike Schmidt

CEO at Ensemble Ventures, LLC, Director at Velocity Innovation Partners, LLC and Council Member at CIO Colorado

Mike Schmidt, Founder & CEO
Ensemble Ventures, LLC
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Overview:

Strategic Business Development and Tactical marketing and sales professional/ entrepreneur with integrated skills in both technology and marketing/sales disciplines. Twenty-five plus years of international start-up company experience and management-level consulting engagements with clients worldwide.  Currently engaged with a wide variety of small seed and development stage companies in Colorado in the areas of alternate energy, healthcare IT, and Internet/Telecom, Wireless, and SaaS Software and Cloud Services ventures.

Technical Skills include; new product design, development, project planning, software definition and creation, and product engineering prototype work, manufacturing support, and logistics.  Marketing/sales skills encompass; advertising, promotion, public relations, trade show coordination, publications design, direct mail campaigns, seminars, customer training, technical support, sales management, sales training, and account management  Management experience includes; management of company profit centers, project teams, forecasting, budgeting, and start-up of companies in the US, UK, and Asia. Comfortable with new start-up companies and product/service offerings. Have traveled extensively both domestically and internationally in the USA, Canada, Central and Latin America, UK, (Wales, Ireland, Scotland), Europe, Central and Latin America, Asia, and South Africa.

Specialties:

Fast Track Sales Experience: Eastern Regional Sales Growth Experience of 230% over quota managing instrumentation sales reps over 6 months that led to promotion to create and lead a new Industrial Computer Division in the factory automation and data acquisition marketplace to generate sales over $5 Million in 12 months as the National Sales Manager of a new Industrial PC division inside an existing $15M Data Acquisition & Controls Company.  Extensive ISP/Internet Service Experience:   Have owned and operated 2 separate ISP's from 1995 through 2008 offering ATM/Fiber-based broadband internet, intranet and extranet services, web-hosting, streaming audio and video services, audio and video web-streaming services, digital audio satellite-two-web streaming services (1996) as well as fixed licensed 39Ghz and unlicensed wireless WiFi services.

For a Detailed Bio on LInkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeschmidtev

Current Engagements/Projects:
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Ensemble Ventures, LLC.
Founder & CEO
Management Consulting industry
May 2001 to Present (10 years 1 month)

10+ Year old Business Development Venture Ventilator based in Colorado Springs assisting seed stage and development oriented companies with strategic business development and product/market positioning tactics, and services. Develop capital formation plans, solicit funding and partnership alliances for clients and company-owned ventures.
For more info: http://www.ensembleventuresinc.com

Also, Ensemble is the primary sponsor of the Colorado Springs Entrepreneurs Group, a growing local small business entrepreneurs group developing and supporting Colorado Small Businesses, and creating an Entrepreneurial Culture in the community. Mr. Schmidt is the Chairman of the CSE Group.
For more info: http://www.colospgsbiz.org

CIO Colorado
Council Member
Public Policy industry
November 2010 to Present (7 months)

One of the Founding Council Members of the organization. The mission of CIO Colorado is to optimize the environment for new businesses in Colorado to create new jobs resulting in a revitalization and growth of the Colorado economy. Collectively, the goal of all of the efforts of CIO Colorado is to make the State of Colorado the best state within the United States in which to form and grow a small business resulting in new employment to replace all jobs and wages lost since 2008. We are developing proposed small business legislation, developing capital formation initiatives for small business, and collaborating with constituent economic development groups at the local, regional and state levels.
For more info: http://www.ciocolorado.com

Velocity Innovation Partners, LLC
Director
Venture Capital & Private Equity industry
June 2009 to Present (2 years)

Denver-based company with seasoned executive management team developing new capital formation solutions for Colorado to create a number of alternative funding sources for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Looking to develop Direct To Public Offerings, (DPO's) local or regional stock exchanges, and pursue legislative changes to allow direct state investments into companies, (like the Texas model). Pursuing investment funds and strategic alliances with key Colorado-based partners.

HOST: Thomas Frey

Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute

Thomas Frey is Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute as well as Google top rated futurist speaker.

As part of the celebrity speaking circuit, Tom continually pushes the envelope of understanding, creating fascinating images of the world to come.  His keynote talks on futurist topics have captivated people ranging from high level government officials to executives in Fortune 500 companies including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, First Data, Boeing, Capital One, Bell Canada, Visa, Ford Motor Company, Qwest, Allied Signal, Hunter Douglas, Direct TV, International Council of Shopping Centers, National Association of Federal Credit Unions, Times of India, Leaders in Dubai, and many more.

Because of his work inspiring inventors and other revolutionary thinkers, Tom has been referred to as the modern "Father of Invention" and the "Dean of Futurists."  Before launching the DaVinci Institute, Tom spent 15 years at IBM as an engineer and designer where he received over 270 awards, more than any other IBM engineer.