Go Local, Grow Local Presenter Biographies

Alan Buckman
is Vice President of Sales for Local Thunder. Alan has more than 25 years in broadcasting sales, sales management, station management and new media with TV stations, including the largest Asian language broadcaster in the US, in several major markets via his position at Group W/CBS and individually. Alan has served as strategic advisor to a number of new media companies including egotv.com and Local Thunder. Alan was a pioneer in Internet sales, heading up sales for kpix.com, the first television station website to generate over $1 million in ad revenue. He is a member of NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives).

Betsy Burton
is co-founder and co-owner of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, where she also co-founded and served on the board of Salt Lake’s Vest Pocket Business Alliance, and co-founded and co-chairs the board of Local First Utah.  She is active in the independent American Booksellers Association and passionate about issues facing local independent businesses and leveling the playing field for them.  Betsy also has been an AMIBA board member.

Bill Brunelle
of the Meridian Group is the project manager for Independent We Stand, a cause marketing campaign sponsored by Stihl USA which is dedicated to educating communities about the importance of supporting locally owned businesses. Bill has been working in the marketing communications industry for almost 25 years and has had the unique opportunity to see from both sides the struggles and challenges that small business owners have competing against the big national chains.

Franzi Charen
directs the Asheville Grown Business Alliance and has been an independent business owner in Asheville, North Carolina for 10 years, co-owning  Hip Replacements clothing store. From manufacturing, retail, festival and non-profit work, she is well versed in the diversity needed for a community to thrive.  As founder and director Asheville Grown of the she assembled a team that promotes the independent spirit of Asheville through design, social networking and public events. Under her leadership, Asheville's alliance has created a remarkable level of community-wide awareness and engagement.

Matt Cunningham
brings a wealth of specialized research tools and knowledge of best practices. As a partner in Civic Economics, Matt has performed numerous economic development studies that provided empirical evidence of hoe local business ownership help drive job creation and local economic prosperity. Matt previously served as Research Manager national technology-led economic development firm, performing economic impact studies for real estate projects and complete economic, demographic, and land use analyses for economic development projects.

Jonathan Erwin
is CEO and Founder of Red e App. Jonathan has built a successful 21-year career in technology sales and marketing in startup and re-engineered businesses. He led Hosting.com from $4 million to $20 million in revenue in less than 5 years and assisted with its sale to a private equity firm. Jonathan’s experience, coupled with his vision and dedication to service and thoughtful business to consumer communications, led him to create, develop and bring the Red e App mobile service to market. The Red e App team he assembled excels in enterprise-class and scale with regard to platform and application development, creative brand and graphic design, product management, and cloud infrastructure.

George F. Farah
is an attorney at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, one of the nation’s premier law firms representing small businesses in antitrust lawsuits. Farah has represented tens of thousands of small businesses and farmers injured by unlawful conspiracies to fix prices and monopolize markets. His team has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for small businesses injured by antitrust conspiracies. He has litigated class- action suits against corporations which have artificially inflated and depressed prices, among others. Farah has authored, "No Debate," a book on U.S. presidential debates, and his legal and electoral issue articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. 

Leah Ferguson
is a nonprofit professional with more than 12 year experience in marketing, fundraising, and nonprofit organizational development.  She is currently Co-Director of the Asheville City Schools Foundation.  She developed the Go Local card program with founder of the Asheville Grown Business Alliance Franzi Charen in response to finding an established corporate coupon book fundraiser that didn't reflect the her values or the values of the community.  http://acsf.org/get-involved/go-local-card.php

Brett Goldberg
is CEO of SYNQWARE, a software company specializing in helping manufacturers connect better with their trading partners. Clients include leading manufacturers in the Gift, Natural Products, and Personal Care industry. Goldberg also founded QRSYNQ, a division of SYNQWARE, which is a mobile technology platform utilizing a QR scanning app. linked to a web back-end to help consumers receive ongoing updates from merchants of their choice. 

Josh Hafer
director of Corporate Communications, has been with Heaven Hill Distilleries for eight years with experience in Bourbon history and mixology.  Heaven Hill is one of the largest independent businesses in the spirits business and a model for family-ownership.  In his time with the company, he has been an unofficial apprentice in the Bourbon industry without distilling a drop of white dog and is an expert at enjoying a well-crafted cocktail.

Laury Hammel
founded the Longfellow Clubs in 1980, now a group of health and sports clubs, holistic health centers, children's centers, and camps that serve 12,000 members. In 1991 he founded Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). In 2001, Laury co-founded the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Boston (now SBN Massachusetts) and the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), where he served as the co-chair for its first six years. He also is a leader of the New England Local Business Forum, a regional collaborative network among AMIBA, BALLE and other pro-local business alliances. Finally, Laury is the author of Growing Local Value: How to Build Business Partnerships that Strengthen Your Community.

Amy Huerta
is the Local Business Initiatives Manager for the City of Fresno's Development and Resource Management Department. In this capacity Huerta is responsible for the City’s economic development program, based on strategic initiatives to help grow locally owned businesses. Huerta helped launch the Fresno Regional IBA. She is a graduate of Leadership Fresno, the San Joaquin Political Academy and a 2010 "40 under 40" recipient. Through these programs, Huerta has found her passion in public service, local government and working to improve a community that is thriving, diverse, and captures the entrepreneurial spirit. 

Carla Jimenez practiced labor and employment law for the U. of South Florida before opening Inkwood Books in Tampa, Florida in 1991. She founded the Tampa Independent Business Alliance in 2003 and helped pioneer the now-national Independents Week campaign.  She is currently working with the Florida Alliance for Main Street Fairness on internet sales tax fairness. Community involvement includes participation in the Survivors Teaching Students program of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance. Carla also serves on AMIBA's board.

David Levine
is co-founder and Executive Director of the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC). ASBC is a growing coalition of business networks and businesses committed to advancing a new vision, framework and policies supporting a vibrant, equitable and sustainable economy. Today, ASBC’s partner organizations represent over 100,000 businesses and social enterprises owners. These diverse business organizations cover the gamut of local and state chambers of commerce, microenterprise, social enterprise, green and sustainable business groups, economic development organizations and more.

Andy R. Loving
is widely recognized in the financial advising world as a leading expert in community investing. He has won multiple awards for the many ways he helps clients put capital into financial institutions that serve poor people, both domestically and around the world.  Andy is a Certified Financial Planner® with his company, Just Money Advisors in Louisville, specializing in socially responsive and community investing. 

Ellen McGeeney
is president of Grasshoppers Distribution, providing the Louisville area with locally grown produce, meats, dairy and more from over 60 local family farms in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. She also sits on Louisville Mayor Fischer’s Food Policy Advisory Council.  Under Ellen’s leadership, Grasshoppers surpassed $1.5 million in payments to area family farmers; improved the purchasing experience through Grasshoppers; eliminated the upfront consumer cost; and shifted to a year-round, online grocery service. Ellen’s extensive business background includes an MBA from Yale, international consulting and engineering successful turn-arounds for small and mid-sized businesses in diverse business realms.

Rebecca Melançon
was a founding member of the Austin IBA, has served on its board, and now is Executive Director.  She serves on Austin’s Comprehensive Plan Task Force and the Travis County Economic Development Subcommittee. AIBA won the Liveable City 2010 Vision Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Area of Economy. The IBIZ Districts, a program of AIBA, won the 2011 International Economic Development Council Program Award.  Rebecca has more than 28 years in publishing and has won regional and national awards for publication design, graphic design and advertising.

Jeff Milchen  
pioneered the IBA organizing model now used by 100+ communities by founding the Boulder Independent Business Alliance in Colorado in 1998, directing it for 3.5 years before going on to co-found the AMIBA. He has provided trainings for 70 community alliances, trade groups and municipalities and his articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Business Week, Chicago Tribune, and The Ecologist, among others. He started and ran a successful landscaping business for many years before beginning his non-profit ventures.

Stacy Mitchell
is senior researcher with the New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance that advances policies that support strong local economies and vibrant communities. Mitchell has served as an advisor to numerous small business groups, elected officials, and community organizations, and has helped dozens of cities and towns implement new land use and economic development policies that limit  sprawl and strengthen locally owned businesses. Her book, Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses is one of the seminal books of the Localization Movement. The tools and model policies offered by New Rules have provided essential guidance to grassroots groups around the continent. Stacy also is a board member of the Portland Buy Local.  She just concluded a decade of service on AMIBA's board.

Jatin Patro
is the Founder and owner of Common People Services, LLC, and the visionary behind SharedMall^®, a fundamental shift in online e-commerce, that makes online shopping truly local, green, and community-centric. Always an overachiever, Jatin holds graduate degrees in Environmental Engineering and Computer Science. He excelled in the corporate world in technical and non-technical roles, at Federal Express Corp. and Intel Corp., and his current passion is to make a positive difference in the lives of people through innovative, affordable, and practical solutions that promote social progress.

Derrick Rhayn
is the Chief Catalyst at Rhayn Collaborative Consulting, a Tacoma, Washington, based consulting firm that works with start-up and emerging nonprofit organizations and businesses on capacity building, strategic planning, board development, and fund development strategies with the goal of catalyzing change and dynamic, sustainable growth. Derrick has ten years of experience working in the nonprofit sector at various levels, and has both  Fundraising Management and Project Management certificates. He currently serves as Board President of Go Local Tacoma, and as the Chief Operating Officer for CU Strategic Planning. 

Jen Risley
is the Education Coordinator at the Hannah Grimes Center, a business incubator located in Keene, NH. At Hannah Grimes, Jen is heavily involved in marketing and communication initiatives, including the design and execution of the organization’s social media and online marketing strategy. Jen also coordinates the marketing efforts for Monadnock Buy Local, designs and maintains the social media and online portions of the Monadnock Community Market Co-op’s marketing work and is also starting a new business called Watershed Marketing, LLC.

Jennifer Rubenstein
spent 8 years in the recruitment advertising industry before moving into the non-profit world, where she previously directed EarthSave Louisville. She is currently the Director of the Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA), also widely identified by its public awareness campaign, “keep Louisville weird. Since she began in 2008, LIBA has grown from 60 to over 450 business members. LIBA educates the public about the advantages of buying from locally-owned, independent businesses, and holds the Holiday Passport Contest and Brewfest annually in addition to other campaigns. Jennifer holds a Bachelor’s degree from the U. of Louisville with a major in Marketing.

Steve Russ
is the founder and Chief Technology Officer at AdXplore. Combining over 15 years in internet technologies, including 5 years at Apple, and a desire to establish a competitive advantage for locally-owned businesses, Steve has launched a Search-Local mobile solution exclusively for locals. AdXplore mobile applications allow people to tell their smart phones "this is where I am and this is what I want to buy... show me the closest independent businesses meeting my search criteria, when they're open, how to call and how to get there."

Ares Saldaña
runs Phidev Inc, a company specializing in web applications and mobile software development. His aim is to help businesses grow by allowing them to get the most out of technology. He has a strong interest in connecting businesses with their customers through the use of mobile technologies. Phidev is also a founding member of Homegrown El Paso, on the board of which Ares serves. He is also an occasional writer in web and mobile development sites.  

Michael Scotto di Carlo
is the Co-Founder of Supportland, a collaborative platform exclusively for locally-owned businesses. In his role at Supportland, Michael is the chief architect of Supportland's economic system and technology base. With over 20 years in the technology sector and experience ranging from tenured professor to entrepreneur, Michael brings a fascinating perspective to the independent business movement. Plus his wife (who presented at our Tampa conference) thinks he's hilarious and she's the one writing this bio. 

Lindsey Shorthouse
has guided many small-mid size companies and non-profits to realize their goals. Lindsey recently received the Summit IBA’s 2012 Leadership Award, serves on the Organizational Advancement Committee for the Continental Divide Land Trust, and Co-chairs the Urban Land Institute. She has found her stride working with ReachPeople developing marketing and sales strategies.

Nancy Stephen
is communications manager for the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau., where her focus includes project coordination, in-house liaison to the tourism development department, fielding media requests, promoting Louisville, and serving on the Kentucky Derby Festival’s AT&T Morning Line committee. She is a 1998 Focus Louisville and 2004 Ignite Louisville graduate – both programs by Leadership Louisville.

Andrew Thomas, PhD
is Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business at the University of Akron and a New York Times bestselling business writer. He co-authored the The Distribution Trap: Keeping Your Innovations from Becoming Commodities, which won Best Book of 2010 from the American Marketing Association. His work focuses on the intersection of global business, innovation, and security. Thomas’ many books include The Rise of Women Entrepreneurs, Growing Your Business in Emerging Markets, and Direct Marketing in Action. Stihl USA has sponsored Dr. Thomas to join the conference.

Lesley Tweedie
is co-owner of Roscoe Village Bikes in Chicago and the founder of Little Independent. Lesley has been an independent retailer since 2007 and created Little Independent to fill a need she saw in her own store as well as that of neighbors to address slow-turning merchandise.  Prior to opening the bike shop, she was the Manager of Children's Programs at the Greater Chicago Food Depository and served as a World Teach Volunteer English Teacher in Mexico. Passionate about community improvement, Lesley enjoys working with retailers to keep their stores thriving and their neighborhoods vibrant.  

Mark Weldon
is a lifelong enthusiast for local businesses - everywhere! Mark currently serves as Board Vice President of Shop Local Raleigh, and hosts daily music & community programs on listener-supported WSHA 88.9FM. It's all about community, so Mark is fully invested into the AMIBA mission to level the playing field for our Independents, and to think LOCAL first!

Theresa Zawacki
holds a masters degree in community planning and a law degree from the University of Cincinnati.  She spent three years practicing planning, zoning and environmental law at a large law firm, and six years at the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office representing boards, commissions, the Louisville Metro Council, and all associated staff members in planning, zoning, land use and historic preservation matters.  Ms. Zawacki currently is the Food Policy Advisor and Brownfields Program Manager in the Louisville Metro Office of Economic Growth and Innovation.

Go to main conference page