December 5, 2016

Board Members Doug Tatum

Chairman of the Board for Newport Board Group

Doug serves as Chairman of the Board for Newport Board Group, a national partnership of CEO’s and senior executives who advise emerging middle market companies and assist private equity firms to invest in and grow portfolio companies. He also serves as an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship at Florida State University. He is Chairman of the Board for the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), a global not-for-profit organization with 58 Chapters and 14,000 members in the US and internationally, representing middle market private capital investors, intermediaries and the middle market deal community. Doug also serves as the Advisory Board Chairman for the Business Dynamics Research Consortium (formerly the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies), a national research institute-funded by the NASDAQ Foundation and the University of Wisconsin - Extension. Its mission is to study exceptional growth companies, the capital markets, and their impact on employment and economic growth. Doug has since 2002 been Chairman of The Co-investment Partnership, a firm that manages a pool of capital that co-invests with other private equity and venture capital investors. Previously, Doug was Chairman and CEO of Tatum LLC, which grew into a highly respected national professional services firm with 30 offices and over 1000 professionals and employees. The company was sold to Spherion in 2010. Prior to his role with Tatum LLC, Doug served a number of companies as a senior executive and/or board member.

BDRC is a project of the University of Wisconsin Extension Division 1 for Business and Entrepreneurship

December 5, 2016

Doug is a recognized expert on the capital markets and the entrepreneurial growth economy. He has testified before the U.S. Congress about the financing challenges growing companies face and about U.S. tax policy. He has been keynote speaker at the Securities Exchange Commission Forum. Doug speaks extensively to business groups throughout the world, presenting the research and frameworks included in his book No Man’s Land: Where Growing Companies Fail. The book, published in the U.S. in 2007, has received four national Best Business Book awards and has been published in China, Taiwan and South Korea and is slated for publication in Vietnam. The book was included in the recently updated edition of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. Doug’s insights about rapid growth companies, private equity and the capital markets have been cited in hundreds of media outlets including Inc. Magazine, The Financial Times and the New York Times online.

Mark Lange Mark Lange is the executive director of the Division for Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin Extension. The division fosters, supports and coordinates business and entrepreneurship development activities occurring at the University of Wisconsin System campuses and the communities they serve. This is done through partnerships with governmental entities, educational institutions, non-profit organizations and the business community.

Executive Director of the Division for Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin Extension

Prior to assuming his UW-Extension responsibilities Lange was the executive director for the Edward Lowe Foundation, a nonprofit organization seeking to accelerate entrepreneurship and its impact on community and economic development. He was responsible for day-to day operations and overseeing the foundation’s national advocacy for second-stage entrepreneurs, economic gardening, and the development of www.Youreconomy.org. Before his work at the foundation, Lange served as the director of the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship at the BDRC is a project of the University of Wisconsin Extension Division 2 for Business and Entrepreneurship

December 5, 2016

University of Oregon. He co-founded CVT Productions, a video-production and software-distribution company and has served as an adjunct faculty member in entrepreneurship at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.

Gregg Cole Gregg Cole is a research & technology innovator with the Business Dynamics Research Consortium (BDRC) at the University of Wisconsin - Extension Division for Business and Entrepreneurship, designing and developing national initiatives to visualize and apply large establishment time series data. Cole’s “apps” have become a leading resource for economic-development groups, policy makers, and researchers around the country.

Research & technology innovator with the Business Dynamics Research Consortium (BDRC)

By 2015, Cole had designed 5 large data driven websites conveniently displaying a broad range of economic data throughout the U.S. for anyone to access, and provided raw establishment data and services to more than 65 researchers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe. In fall 2011, Cole presented the economic data website YourEconomy.org to select House and Senate staffers and the White House's Office of Science and Technology Development in Washington D.C. Cole also participated in NASDAQ closing-bell ceremonies on Oct. 4, 2011 in New York, highlighting a research partnership with NASDAQ OMX Educational Foundation. In 1999, Cole started and ran Beanstalk Internet, a successful ISP focusing on supplying broadband wireless Internet access to rural areas. Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Cole worked in Silicon Valley specializing in the IC CAD (integrated circuit computer aided design) industry.

BDRC is a project of the University of Wisconsin Extension Division 3 for Business and Entrepreneurship

December 5, 2016

Gary LaBranch Gary LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, is the President & CEO of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG). Since he became CEO in 2008, ACG has expanded chapters and membership around the world, created an award-winning digital magazine, Middle Market Growth, started a European conference and launched efforts to educate policy-makers on private capital investment in the middle market, including the creation of the Congressional Caucus on Middle Market Growth and GrowthEconomy.org.

FASAE, CAE, is the President & CEO of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG)

An association professional for 32+ years, he was named a Fellow of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) in 1995. He was the ASAE Key Award winner for 2007, the highest award in the profession. ASSOCIATION TRENDS named him the 2012 Association Executive of the Year. He is also a member of the U.S. Chamber’s Association Committee of 100.

Research Fellows Gary Kunkle

PhD, Founder of Outlier LLC, and a leading expert on the drivers and impact of sustained growth for businesses and regional economies

Dr. Gary Kunkle is Founder of Outlier LLC, and a leading expert on the drivers and impact of sustained growth for businesses and regional economies. Outlier LLC was formed in 2005 to provide big-data analysis and field research to business-to-business (B2B) and economic development clients who seek a deeper understanding of market undercurrents that impact their operations. Over the past decade, Gary has served as Research Fellow at the Business Dynamics Research Consortium (formerly, the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies) and as Economist in Residence at INC Magazine and Summit Professional Networks. Outlier’s other clients have included Entrepreneur Magazine; the states of Virginia, Michigan, Louisiana, Indiana, and Pennsylvania; as well as GE Capital’s National Center for the Middle Market, BDRC is a project of the University of Wisconsin Extension Division 4 for Business and Entrepreneurship

December 5, 2016

Symantec, and the Principle Financial Group. Earlier, he worked on corporate expansion and economic development projects in more than 30 countries as Managing Director of the State of Maryland’s European Office in the Netherlands and as Senior Manager at KPMG’s International Trade and Investment Services Group in Washington D.C. Gary holds a PhD in Public Policy and Regional Economics from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte; an MBA and an MA in International Management from the University of Texas, Dallas; and a BA in Political Science from Texas A&M University, College Station.

Brent Hueth

Associate Professor, Department of Ag. and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin--Madison

Brent Hueth earned his Agricultural Economics Ph.D. at the University of Maryland in 1999, and then spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2001, he moved to Iowa State University as an assistant professor of Economics. After promotion to associate professor in 2006, Brent spent a year on leave at the National Institute for Agricultural Research in Toulouse, France before moving to his current position as Director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, with an appointment as associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. Brent has published in top economics journal including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Regulatory Economics, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Brent is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Exceptional Growth Companies, and Executive Director of the Census Bureau’s Research Data Center at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Brent’s research and teaching focus on agricultural markets, cooperative enterprise, and economic development. BDRC is a project of the University of Wisconsin Extension Division 5 for Business and Entrepreneurship