Doug Stevenson is a professional speaker, trainer and speaking coach. He is the creator of The Story Theater Method for strategic storytelling in business, and is the author of Never Be Boring Again – Make Your Business Presentations Capture Attention, Inspire Action, and Produce Results.

At 22, Doug hitchhiked to Hollywood to pursue his dream of movie stardom, and acted on screen and stage in everything from Snoopy to Shakespeare. After 13 years, he escaped to Colorado Springs where he did what most undiscovered actors do – he became a Realtor. Real estate led to professional speaking where his acting skills and business knowledge coalesced.

With backgrounds in real estate, construction, and professional acting, Doug brings a salesman’s attitude and a performer’s instinct to all of his business presentations. He is dynamic, spontaneous, funny and thought provoking. He now speaks to thousands of people each year on Change, Leadership, Presentation Skills, Strategic Storytelling for Business and Strategic StorySelling for Sales.

An expert on building entrepreneurial companies with values centered leadership, Pam Watson-Korbel founded SmartGrowth, Inc. of Denver in 1996. The company serves over 100 clients and has doubled in size in the past year. SmartGrowth advises investors, owners and executives of rapidly growing firms on strategies to enhance their company’s value. SmartGrowth’s brand promise is that clients will make more money, work less hours and have more fun.

The former CEO of a rapidly growing integrated software firm, in 1993, Pam was a finalist for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the program sponsored by Inc. Magazine. She has also worked in strategic and sales positions in Fortune 200 and Inc. 500 companies.

In spring 2003, Pam published her first book More Money, Less Work, More Fun! 123 tips for smart growth in today’s business environment, which the Denver Business Journal called a “classic handbook for entrepreneurs.”

Pam’s mentoring extends as well to her volunteer work, which is focused on raising the self-esteem of women and children. Pam coaches girls’ softball and is certified by Positive Coaching and the American Sports Education Program.

In the business community, Pam is President of NAWBO-Denver (National Association of Women Business Owners) and serves on the national Member Services Council. In 2003, she was named women’s business advocate for Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Region by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In addition, in 2000, she was named Small Business Person of the Year by NAWBO. She has also been active with the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, which awarded her the Chamber Champion Award in 1998 for volunteer efforts to assist small, growing businesses.

Pam is a graduate of Creighton University, Omaha, NE, holding a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism and a Master of Business Administration Degree. She is married and has two children.

John Fischer is a lawyer and business consultant with more than 20 years of corporate development, transactional and regulatory experience relating to the global telecommunications industry. John is currently the Corporate Counsel at Qwest, where he focuses on regulatory, transactional and commercial matters. Prior to moving to Denver at the end of 2000, John spent 5-1/2 years in Brussels, Belgium, serving as Managing Partner, Telecoms of Logica Consulting, a leading management consultancy. In that position, he managed a broad range of telecom projects in 16 different countries. John’s previous legal experience includes consummating a broad range of acquisitions, joint ventures and public and private debt and equity investments in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

John Fischer is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University and holds Juris Doctor and MBA degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Dr. Louis Hornyak is a research scientist in the physics department at the University of Denver. He received his Ph.D. in materials chemistry at Colorado State University, spent a year at the University of Essen in Germany and was employed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden for 5 years. He joined DU last September.

Dr. Hornyak has been involved with nanothechnology for the past 14 years. With a team headed by Glenn Rhoades, Dr. Hornyak and five other team members founded the Colorado Nanotechnology Initiative (CNTI). The purpose of this movement is to get Colorado up to speed with respect to the burgeoning nanotech field. Nanotech is not cheap and he believes that Colorado has all the assets in place; it just needs to be better organized. Dr. Hornyak also has 12 years experience in the aerospace industry.

Russ Farmer is the President and founder of PBC, a firm with nationally recognized expertise in the $1 billion federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. He is currently the CEO of PBC and also functions as a Corporate Executive for clients. His client services include coaching/mentoring client CEOs and senior management, facilitation of 1st STOPP™ exercises, CFO services, and other senior management functions. Russ is the head of the leadership and management teams at PBC and helps direct the development of the firm in a way that provides many challenges, excitement and fun for members of PBC, now and for years to come.

Tyler Tysdal is a Managing Partner of TIVIS Ventures, a private equity and real estate development firm located in Denver, Colorado. Prior to Tivis Ventures, Mr. Tysdal was the CFO of Capitis China.

Prior to moving to Denver in 2002, Mr. Tysdal played an integral role in helping launch the first B2B e-commerce marketplace to go public, Chemdex. Mr. Tysdal and an investor he led to Chemdex obtained liquidity prior to the end of the life cycle of the $8 billion company and started making private equity investments. Mr. Tysdal typically moved on location as the CFO/CEO in the portfolio companies. Mr. Tysdal was also responsible for engineering the platform and roll-up of a $2 billion niche specialty pharmacy industry. He was also the CEO of an edutainment retail company and the CEO of a 30-person business development group creating an e-commerce business-to-business marketplace in the lumber and building materials industry for a public company partner, Ventro.

Mr. Tysdal also served as an investment banking financial analyst with Alex. Brown & Sons, the nation's oldest investment bank. In addition, he is on the Board of Trustees of the Colorado Chapter of National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Mr. Tysdal earned his BSBA in finance from Georgetown University, where he was student body president and continues as the chair of his alumni class, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he still serves as an Alumni Fundraising Chair and co-chair of the HBS Business Forum for the HBS Club of Colorado.

Don Salcito is a Partner at Perkins Coie, LLP and a specialist in working with startup ventures. Don's main areas of emphasis are corporate transactions, securities law, broker-dealer regulations, mergers and acquisitions.

He is the author of “Creative Legal Research: Business/Securities Law,” Legal Research Symposium, University of Denver Program for Advanced Development (1984) and a frequent lecturer on securities and broker dealer issues with the SEC and local bar associations.

Thomas Frey
Executive Director
The DaVinci Institute

Tom is also an internationally recognized futurist, author, and public speaker. His specialty is the future of technology and its impact on business and society. He is a 15-year veteran of IBM where he received more awards than any other engineer - over 270. His leading edge presentations have captivated people throughout the business world, including NASA, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies, Boeing, Ford Motor Company, Allied Signal, Hunter Douglas, Direct TV, and many more.

Tom is the author of "Inventions of Impact" and has written numerous articles on a wide range of futurist topics. He has also been a contributing writer for The Futurist Magazine and is the producer of the Impact Lab emerging technology online magazine.

During the past 17 years, Tom has launched 17 different businesses.