Board of Directors

Mark Solon (Chairman of the Board) - Highway 12 Ventures

Mark is the founder and Managing Partner of Highway 12 Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in the most promising high-growth entrepreneurial companies in the Rocky Mountain region. Highway 12 Ventures is the only venture capital firm headquartered in Idaho. Prior to Highway 12 Ventures, he was a General Partner at Atlantic Capital Group, a private equity firm in Boston. 

Mark is a director of multiple Highway 12 portfolio companies and is also on the advisory board of the College of Engineering at Boise State University. Passionate about Boise and Idaho, he also currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Idaho Technology Council, the Idaho Business Coalition for Education Excellence and the Idaho Hockey Foundation, as well as co-chairing the Idaho Business Council. Mark is also formerly President of the Board of Directors of the Discovery Center of Idaho, Boise’s wonderful science museum. 

Brian Birk - Sun Mountain Capital

Brian Birk has over 20 years experience as an operating executive and investor.  Prior to forming Sun Mountain, Mr. Birk was a Vice President and Director of Private Equity at Fort Washington Capital Partners where he helped the firm establish and manage a number of private equity direct investment funds, secondary investment funds, and fund of funds programs.  Mr. Birk was a founder or senior executive at several high profile start-ups, including Applied Minds and BiosGroup and held a senior manager position at the Boston Consulting Group and finance manager positions at General Electric and GE Capital.  Mr. Birk has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BS in economics from Carleton College. Mr. Birk is a Board Member of Sun Mountain Capital portfolio companies Aspen Avionics, American Clay, Exagen Diagnostics, Lumidigm and Puente Partners.

Chris Cooper (Outreach) - Pelion Venture Partners

Chris Cooper joined Pelion Venture Partners in 2007.  He focuses on investments in networking, Internet services, software, open source and digital media. Chris has over seventeen years of operational experience in the software industry and has held senior positions in sales management, field marketing, business development, and engineering. Most recently he was Director of Partner Engineering and Developer Services at Novell, Inc. where he was responsible for the companies partner support and certification programs. Mr. Cooper also served as General Manager of Novell’s Strategic Alliances, and was both a business and technical advisor for Novell Ventures where he managed relationships between the fund’s portfolio companies and industry leaders.  Prior to joining Novell, Mr. Cooper served as East Coast Regional Sales Director for the WordPerfect Corporation. Chris serves on the board of Portfolio companies DotNetNuke Corp. and Replay Solutions and also serves on the board of directors of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association.

Bruce Dines - Liberty Global Ventures

Bruce Dines is currently serving as VP/Managing Director of Technology Investing for Liberty Global Ventures, the Corporate Venture Arm of Fortune 500 Company, Liberty Global, Inc.  In that role, he works closely with the CTO and Technology team, and has full responsibility for developing the LGI Technology Investment Portfolio. 

Bruce brings over 25 years of technology and telecommunications experience to Liberty Global.  Over half of those years have been spent in earlier stage environments, where Bruce has founded companies and led businesses from concept and model development, through the capital formation, revenue generation and team building phases, ultimately realizing successful exits on 3 different companies.  The other half of his career has been spent in mid-size and large corporations, where he has either served as President or Division President, including comCables as President, Northstar Exchange as COO (sold to Construction Software Technologies in 2007), EHPT as President (sold to Ericsson in 2002), and Ericsson Mobile Communications as Division President.

Bruce also leads the Office of Innovation within Liberty Global, which drives innovative thinking by applying innovation development principles to Liberty Global’s core operating companies.

Over the past 2 years at Liberty, he has sourced and led investments in 7 technology companies, and benchmarked, developed and launched the Liberty Innovation Initiative.

Harry George - Solstice Capital

Harry has more than 35 years experience in founding, operating and investing in successful rapid growth technology-related companies.  He co-founded Solstice Capital in 1995.  Solstice is a venture capital fund investing in early-stage life science, information technology and clean tech companies.  Solstice is currently managing its second fund ($57 Million) and has invested in a total of 44 companies since inception.

Previously, from 1981 to 1989, Mr. George was co-founder, Director, and Vice-President of Finance for Interleaf Inc.  During this time, Interleaf, a pioneer in electronic publishing, grew to be a publicly traded company with $100 million in annual revenue.  In January 2000, Interleaf was acquired by Broadvision in a stock merger that valued Interleaf at approximately $1 billion.  Prior to this, Harry was a co-founder, Director and Vice President of Finance of Kurzweil Computer Products, subsequently purchased by Xerox Imaging Systems in 1980. 

Harry has been a Director of 25 private and public companies and is currently a Director of Calimmune, High Throughput Genomics (where he serves as Chairman), Lumidigm, Medipacs, Rehnu, Syncardia, and Tempronics. He has been active with the Arizona Venture Capital Conference, and its successor, Invest SW, and served on their conference screening panels since 2000.  Harry was one of the founders of Tucson’s Desert Angels.  He is a member of the Arizona Technology Council Board, the BIO5 Advisory Board, Southern Arizona Leadership Council, and the Pima County Bond Advisory Committee. At the University of Arizona, he serves on the board of Arizona Center for Innovation and was a member of the advisory committee of the MBA program at the Eller School of Business for six years.  Harry is Chair of a TREO task force developing an entrepreneurial economic blueprint for Tucson.

From 1992 to 1999, he was a Trustee of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and served as its Treasurer.  From 2000-2005, Harry was Co-Chair of the Museum’s Treasure of the Desert Capital Campaign.   Since 2004, he has been a Trustee of the Tucson Museum of Art and serves as its treasurer.  He received an AB from Bowdoin College.

Seth Levine (Marketing Chair) - Foundry Group

Seth’s career spans venture capital investing as well as operational, transactional and advisory roles at both public and private companies. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Seth began his venture capital career at Mobius Venture Capital.

Prior to Mobius Venture Capital, Seth joined a restart of the data communications company, FirstWorld Communications. He was the third employee of a new management team with a goal to transition what had been a traditional competitive local exchange carrier (“CLEC”) into the data and Internet world. Seth was the corporate finance half of the CFO position where he started and led the finance, mergers and acquisitions and investor relations groups. Seth then led the IPO process for FirstWorld’s IPO in 2000 and negotiated simultaneous equity investments from Microsoft, SAIC and Lucent Technologies, eventually raising over $260 million from the IPO and these side-by-side equity transactions. When the company decided to focus on its data center and hosting business, Seth assumed operational control of the remainder of the business and led the Internet service provider, telephony and network integration portions of the company, representing in total approximately $40 million in revenue. He managed the sale of these lines of business in 2001.

Prior to joining FirstWorld, Seth joined the business development group of ICG Communications, a Colorado-based CLEC where he led their mergers and acquisitions practice and worked on strategic partnerships. Previously, he was an investment banker in Morgan Stanley’s telecommunications corporate finance practice, where Seth completed numerous equity, debt, restructurings, mergers and acquisitions assignments.

Previous investment successes in which Seth has been involved include Dante Group (acq. by WEBM), FeedBurner (acq. by GOOG), Feld Group (acq. by EDS) and ServiceMagic (acq. by IAC).

Seth is a summa cum laude graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is active throughout the entrepreneurial community in Colorado. Seth is a member of the board of CU Denver’s Bard Center for Entrepreneurship, chair of the award committee for the Boulder Chamber of Commerce ESPRIT Awards, and a member of the advisory board of High Country Ventures, a fund hired by the State of Colorado to invest money generated from certain tax credits in early stage companies across the state. Seth was previously a member of the board of the Denver chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth.

Seth is an avid outdoorsman and enjoys spending his free time mountain biking, snowboarding and mountaineering, as well as spending time with his family. He writes a blog on technology, investing and living in Colorado at www.sethlevine.com.

Chris Marks (VCIR Winter Co-Chair) - Tango Group

Chris is a Partner with the private investment company Tango, which invests primarily in private high growth companies in the technology sector. He is also a Principal at High Country Venture, LLC (HCV). HCV is the General Partner of Colorado Fund I and Colorado Fund II, venture capital funds that invest in early stage companies based in Colorado. Prior to joining Tango, Chris was a corporate attorney with the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. He serves on several Boards, including Lijit Networks, Victors & Spoils, Kapost, and Global Education Fund. Chris received his BA from The Colorado College and his JD from University of Colorado School of Law.  You can read his blog at www.chrisamarks.com and follow him on Twitter at @cmarks831.

John O’Donnell (VCIR Fall Chair) - Montlake Capital

John O’Donnell is a partner with the Seattle based private equity firm Montlake Capital. With $100M assets under management Montlake invests in growth stage companies in the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountain States and the west coast. John covers the Rocky Mountain region for investing and heads the firms fund raising activities. In addition John serves as a part time Executive Director of the Bozeman, MT based TechRanch; founded in 2000 by O’Donnell TechRanch leads innovative business development for Montana based entrepreneurs. O’Donnell is also the Trustee for a group of large family trusts based in Colorado.

Prior to these roles John was in Seattle for 13 years. For the majority of these years he worked for Anderson Chamberlain the in house broker at Costco Wholesale’s corporate Headquarters. O’Donnell was a key person in the development and launch of Costco’s private label program and their service based offerings. After Costco O’Donnell was part of the start up team at Onvia (NASDQ: ONVI) that raised over $50M from VC and had a 2000 IPO. O’Donnell led Business Development at Onvia.

O’Donnell is on the boards of New West Media, Fresca Mexican Foods, Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association, the KF Family Foundation, the CM Russell Foundation and the Montana State University College of Business.

John is a 5th generation Colorado native and a graduate from the University of Colorado (Econ 86); is married and has 3 children and lives in Bozeman, MT.

Chris Onan - Appian Ventures

Chris is a Managing Director with Appian Ventures.  He has extensive venture capital experience and enjoys working with entrepreneurial management teams to help sharpen their product definition and their marketing and financial strategies. Chris represents Appian on the board of directors of Tendril and Auctionpay and is a board observer of Thought Equity Motion.

Previously, Chris spent five years as an associate with Wolf Ventures and Roser Ventures, where he had the privilege of working with companies such as: Broadbus Technologies (acquired by Motorola) and NextAction Corporation. Prior to locating to Colorado, he worked as an associate with LEK Consulting, an international strategy consulting boutique.

Chris speaks frequently on entrepreneurial finance at both Denver University’s Daniels College of Business and the Leeds College of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He also serves on the board of directors of the Colorado Venture Capital Association. In addition, Chris works actively with the When I Grow Up Foundation and is Northwestern University’s alumni admissions council leader for Colorado.

Originally from Minnesota, Chris received a B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Scott Petty (Outreach) - vSpring Capital

Scott is a founding managing director of vSpring Capital.  Prior to vSpring Capital, Scott was COO and a Board Director of Zuka Juice, a retail organization selling nutritional products.  Under Scott’s leadership, Zuka Juice grew from its first store to 96 retail units and over 400 employees.  Zuka Juice was acquired by Jamba Juice (NASDAQ:JMBA), a venture backed competitor.  Before Zuka, as a consultant with Bain & Company for seven years, Scott worked with more than 16 IT and non-IT companies, re-engineering their strategies for optimum results.

Scott serves on the Board of Directors of the Lassonde New Venture Development Center at the University of Utah.  He also serves on the National Directors Council at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

Scott received a BS in Economics from Brigham Young University and a MBA from the Harvard Business School. Scott has led vSpring Capital’s investments in Alianza, Alpha Bay, Cerberian (acquired by Blue Coat Systems, Inc. NASDAQ:BCSI), comScore (NASDAQ:SCOR), Control4, CrimeReports, FamilyLink, Infusionsoft, LignUp, Matchbin, SwarmBuilder, and Zonder.

Ryan J. Pollock (VCIR Winter Selection Chair) - Meritage Funds

Ryan Pollock’s professional career spans 16 years in the asset management and venture capital industries. He has lived and worked in South Africa, England and the United States and today serves as a Managing Partner at Meritage Funds, a Denver-based venture capital firm. Ryan is a director of Miniweb Technologies in London, and a board observer of Perlego Systems in Seattle. Before joining Meritage, Ryan worked in both investment and business development roles at Investec Asset Management in South Africa and England.

Ryan completed his undergraduate studies in finance and economics at the University of Cape Town and earned a post-graduate diploma with distinction from the University of Oxford, England. He received his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated as a Venture Fellow.

Ryan is the founder and chairman of Starfish Greathearts Foundation USA, a charity dedicated to supporting AIDS orphans in South Africa. He also acts as an executive coach to students on the Executive MBA program at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. Ryan enjoys travelling with his wife, Amanda, playing guitar, cycling, golfing and surviving the occasional triathlon.

Peter Roshko (Treasurer) - Boulder Ventures

Peter Roshko, a General Partner with Boulder Ventures, has over 23 years of venture capital and investing expertise. Prior to joining Boulder Ventures in late 1998 Mr. Roshko was a General Partner at Mohr, Davidow Ventures (MDV) in Menlo Park, California for 9 years where he concentrated in software, medical devices and services. He was a Board member of Vantive Corporation for 9 years from its founding through its IPO and subsequent sale to PeopleSoft (NASDAQ: PSFT). Additionally, Mr. Roshko is currently a Board member of Trust Company of America (with Mr. Lefkoff), Xifin, Rally Software, ProStor, DatAvail, and Lijit.

Prior to joining MDV, Mr. Roshko was a Senior Consultant with Arthur Andersen & Co. in San Francisco where he planned, designed and implemented management information systems for a variety of client engagements.

Mr. Roshko holds an MBA from Harvard Business School (1984) and a Bachelor of Science degree (cum laude) in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University (1980).

Brian Smith - Grayhawk Capital

Brian is a Managing Member of Grayhawk Capital, a venture capital firm investing in early and growth stage technology-based companies.  Grayhawk is located in Phoenix, Arizona and Brian joined the firm at the end of 2010.

Brian is also a Managing Member of Peninsula Ventures, a venture capital firm that he co-founded in 2005 that is focused on early stage technology company investments.  Brian manages the Arizona office of Peninsula Ventures and he has extensive venture capital experience, over the past 20 years, investing across a broad spectrum of technology companies.

Prior to co-founding Peninsula Ventures, Brian was a Managing Member of Dominion Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that he joined in 1991.  Brian was responsible for managing Dominion Ventures’ Menlo Park, California, office.  Other relevant work experience includes working as an Entrepreneurial Fellow at CID Equity Partners and as an Emerging Business Services Consultant for Deloitte Haskin Sells.  Brian currently serves on the Board of Directors of several portfolio companies, including Intesource, Response Analytics and BroadHop.  Some of his successful prior investments include Quality Care Solutions, PowerQuest, Efficient Networks, Coinstar, P-Com,  Communispace, Horizon Organic Dairy and Myriad Genetics.

Brian holds a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Brigham Young University.  He helped co-found the Arizona Venture Capital Association, and served as the Chairman of the organization from 2007 to 2009.  Brian also chaired the 2009 Selection Committee for the Phoenix-based InvestSouthwest conference and is the vice chair for the 2010 InvestSouthwest conference.

Stephanie R. Spong - EPIC Ventures and Moksa Ventures

Stephanie has over twenty years professional experience in financial, operating and consulting roles and a passion for the digital media sector.  From her tenure at Goldman Sachs, Citibank, McKinsey and Monitor, she brings seasoned business judgment and financial skills.  As Managing Director of Razorfish’s Los Angeles office, she gained valuable operating experience and immersion in the digital media space. Prior to joining EPIC Ventures, Ms. Spong consulted with startups and corporate R&D groups on high technology innovation and commercialization projects through her consulting firm Greystone Management Consulting.  Most recently, in over five years at EPIC Ventures, a Salt Lake City-based venture capital firm, she has established a strong reputation in the region as an early stage technology investor.  Ms. Spong serves as a board member for four EPIC portfolio companies and is currently raising her own micro-venture fund, Moksa Ventures, focusing on the digital game industry and the application of game technologies and game mechanics to non-game sectors.

Ms. Spong serves as a board member of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association and the Arizona-based Invest Southwest conference and chaired the 2010 VCIR Fall Conference in Santa Fe and the 2010 Invest Southwest Conference in Scottsdale.  Ms. Spong earned her Economics and Asian Studies B.S. degree, with minors in physics and Japanese, from Brigham Young University and her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Brian Wallace (VCIR Winter Co-Chair) - Access Venture Partners

Brian Wallace is a Managing Director of Access Venture Partners, a venture capital fund investing in early stage technology companies. At Access, he leads fundraising and LP relations and interactive and digital media opportunities. Since 1992, Brian has worked extensively with early stage technology companies and in venture capital finance as an attorney, investor and venture capitalist. He has worked with the Access team since 1999, and joined Access Venture Partners in 2005.

Prior to joining Access Venture Partners, Brian was a partner with the law firm Fairfield and Woods in Denver, Colorado, where he chaired the firm’s corporate department and specialized in working with early stage companies in corporate and securities law and venture capital financings. Prior to embarking on his path of eternal enlightenment as a lawyer, Brian worked in corporate finance and accounting with Electronic Data Systems in Dallas, Texas and Frankfurt, Germany. Brian also had a brief stint in Washington, D.C., working on the Patent, Copyright and Trademark subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee for U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcinni from Arizona.

Brian serves on the Boards of Directors of Alces Technologies, Inc. (develops human-computer interface MEMS devices used in gaming, pico-projectors and computer detection/vision applications), Rebit, Inc. (back-up and restore software enabling local and cloud storage of information) and Trackvia, Inc. (a cloud application platform). Brian is a Board Observer (and was an original investor and legal counsel) at Thought Equity Motion, Inc. (the leading video content management and distribution platform). Brian was a Board Observer of Jabber, Inc. (IM and XMPP presence and communication platform), which was recently acquired by Cisco Systems, Inc. Brian also serves on the associate board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver. He received his law degree, magna cum laude, in 1992 from the University of Arizona and a B.S. degree in Business Finance, magna cum laude, in 1988 from the University of Arizona.

Brian is an avid golfer, fly-fisher and skier and excels against really bad squash players. In addition to constantly working on his deteriorating skills in these sports, he enjoys spending time with his family and coaching games he doesn’t understand like soccer.