OK 15: Owners of Medium to Large Businesses
We are a team of rapidly growing businesses with twenty or more employees.
Moderators
Michele’s work is grounded in the creation of connections between brands and the people they serve. Through her passion, vision and leadership, she has earned a reputation as a brand leader and change agent. Michele most recently completed a brand turnaround for Zolo Media, a broadcast media group and helped launch news program, Central Oregon Daily. Past work included brand work for a hospitality group in the Bay Area, an NBA team and the American Red Cross. She has provided branding for several startup businesses as well as facilitating growth for brands ready to take their organization to the next level. Michele’s life mission is to inspire others to become their personal best. She is a public speaker and facilitates training in the area of business and personal branding and provides leadership development to organizations through her branding business, Luminous Brands.
Rod Ray, Ph.D., P.E. is the former CEO of Bend Research, Inc. Bend Research is a technology development company providing innovations for the agricultural, electronics, energy, and space industries. Through this progression from Research Engineer to CEO, Dr. Ray learned many Leadership lessons—the hard way. Upon retirement in 2014, Dr. Ray began developing and formalizing these Leadership lessons into a body-of-knowledge for use in consulting and for teaching courses in practical, useful leadership.
Team Members
Paula Floyd is the Founder and CEO of Headkount, Inc. an outsourced retail sales and education organization, helping beauty brands scale retail within North America.
A retail sales executive with over 30 years of experience within the prestige beauty industry working with brands and retailers such as Benefit (LVMH), MAC (Estee Lauder) Rare Beauty, Glossier, Sephora (LVMH) and many more. She's spent her career building lasting relationships to help drive sustainable growth for companies with revenues spanning from start up to $1.5B.
In 2019, when online selling was all the rage, she acted on her belief in the power of personal interaction in retail. She founded Headkount to elevate the brick-and-mortar experience for brands plus provide a career path for the beauty industry Makeup Artists and Educators.
She's first a mother to a beautiful daughter, and a wife who loves spending time with her horse, dog and community of gritty horsewomen.
As the Bend Chamber President, Katy Brooks works with Bend Chamber members and community leaders to build and maintain a business ecosystem that is diverse with incredible human talent to create a vibrant, resilient economy. Katy’s career features forging value-added partnerships and collaboration to secure public/private funding, create new business ecosystems and attract and retain diverse development. She directed economic development, public affairs and public/private partnerships for the ports of Portland and Vancouver, USA. During her time at the ports, Katy also accrued experience in transportation policy and planning, environmental management issues, and commercial/industrial development. She has served on the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board, led freight emissions reduction efforts and served on local and state business boards. Katy has been a public affairs and strategic planning consultant for public and private organizations in Oregon, Washington and Alaska.
Integrator, Mechanical Engineer, PMP certified Project and Program Manager, MBA. Public and privately held companies; start-up to Fortune 1,000 experience. Founder of a small consulting firm that drove business process re-engineering, alignment, accountability, as well as MRP and ERP system implementation for 12 years. Father and husband who loves the outdoors, reading, learning, spending time with family and friends, and helping others.
Business leader serving as President & CEO of EP Climbing Walls, with a proven 25+ year track record in building and motivating cross-functional teams ranging from 5 to 60 members through all management phases, including vision and strategy, anticipation, needs assessment, design and development, budgeting, execution and completion. Strong and effective communicator with a flexible mindset focused on the support and empowerment of teams to accomplish their individual and organizational goals. Extensive experience in consultative sales, manufacturing, and project management in the construction and climbing wall industries.
Division President at Embark Behavioral Health
In addition to overseeing all aspects of NVW, I serve as the Membership Committee Chair for the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Council (OBH), and as a member of the state of Oregon Outdoor Youth Program (OYP) Advisory Council. I have spoken at national conferences on topics ranging from wilderness risk management to mental health. I champion the strong culture at NVW, with a focus on empathy, leadership, and best in class services and practices. I am proud to collaborate with such an amazing team of professionals at NVW and consider it a privilege to serve children and families. When not at work, I enjoy spending time outdoors with my wonderful wife and two beautiful daughters.
Tyson holds a Bachelor of Science in Planning, Policy and Management from the University of Oregon. Co-Founder and CEO of SeQuential. Longest running commercial biodiesel producer on the west coast, producing one of the lowest carbon liquid transportation fuels in the market.
In addition to being a passionate dad of three, husband, rock climber and backcountry skier...I am a fourth generation developer, builder and real estate agent whose family has built over 5,000 homes since 1950. Since moving to Bend in 2010, I have focused on residential real estate sales and marketing and have become the top-selling broker in Bend and the leading Sotheby's agent in Oregon through selling over $125,000,000 per year. I shun the title of "realtor", as I am a data-driven residential businessman and marketer by training/education/passion.
Tannus is the CEO and co-founder of Vantage Clinical Solutions, a 22-employee, Bend based provider of consulting services to Physical Therapy companies across the U.S. Tannus holds an MBA from Duke University with an emphasis on marketing and finance. Tannus’s clinical experience spans a variety of healthcare settings including sports medicine, outpatient rehab, acute care physical therapy, impatient care and home health.
My experience is in leading change management, operations excellence and strategic sales and marketing execution. I have set and executed core strategies for successful launch and commercialization of forward-looking products, services and key initiatives. Collaboratively built positive, productive relationships with colleagues, staff members, external partners and community leaders. I have led companies from start-up to growth stage and acquisition.
I actively work to provide support and growth for technology companies as a board member of The Technology Association of Oregon. I am a community volunteer; I co-founded Women in STEAM of Central Oregon, a group focused on promoting career opportunities and delivering resources to local female women in STEAM, and working to create social equity and eliminate gender bias in STEM careers for girls.
Preston’s early career was spent in sales, marketing, business development and management for Hewlett Packard, Advanced Micro Devices, and Price Waterhouse Management Consulting Services. After that, he made the transition to Silicon Valley startups in such roles as business development, product development and information technology. Today Preston is the CEO of Five Talent Software, a Bend-based company focused on custom websites, mobile apps and custom enterprise application development.