Speaker Bios

Mr. Jason Bourque of Common Grounds

Jason Bourque was born in McLeansboro, IL. He was home-schooled through fifth grade and graduated from Kewanee High School in 1993. He furthered his education by obtaining an Associates degree in Automotive Technology from Black Hawk East College and a Bachelors degree in Automotive Technology from Southern Illinois University of Carbondale. After college, Jason worked in the automotive field for six years and then moved on the telecommunications industry for four years. These employment opportunities provided him with both corporate and small business management experience. Jason has put his experience to work by opening and managing Common Grounds Coffee House, which has been operating for five years. In his free time, he does volunteer work at his church and spends time with his wife and children. Jason has lived in Carbondale for twelve years and plans to make it his permanent home.
Jason understands the obstacles of owning a small business and wants to be an advocate for current and future small businesses in Carbondale.

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Mr. Travis Clem of Alliance Services Group LLC

Travis Clem is the President of Alliance Services Group, a financial services organization located in Marion, IL that provides commercial lending support for financial institutions in several states. Travis has been in the financial services industry for 15 years, 10 of which have been spent in the commercial lending area.
Alliance provides a menu of services including underwriting, accounting and loan servicing, and offers a variety of program loan packaging including SBA and USDA.

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Mr. Adrian Miller of Tropical Sno

Adrian Miller was born October 22nd, 1991 and has lived in Carbondale 18 years. Adrian Currently attends Carbondale Community High School. Adrian is very active in his school and community. As a student of CCHS he serves as his Class President and has done so for all four year. Adrian also is very active in Student Council. Within the Community Adrian serves on the Sustainability Commission upon which he was appointed by Mayor Brad Cole. Adrian also serves on the SIRRS Committee. At the age of fifteen Adrian started his own business, a small Tropical Sno Cone Stand. He has owned and operated the stand for the past three years along with holding a job at Barnes and Noble where he serves as the Community Relations Contact. As a young student Adrian truly understands the challenges of owning his own business. He hopes he can help others in establishing their businesses.

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Dr. Suzanne Nasco of SIUC Department of Marketing

http://www.business.siuc.edu/mktg/faculty/nasco/

Dr. Suzanne Nasco joined the SIUC faculty in 2002. Her teaching experience also includes previous positions at University of Florida, Indiana University and University of Notre Dame. Dr. Nasco's educational background includes a bachelor's degree in psychology from University of Florida (1993) and a doctorate in social psychology from University of Notre Dame (1999). The College of Business presented Dr. Nasco with a Faculty Scholar Award in 2005 and an Outstanding Quality in Research Award in 2003. She has also been nominated for either Outstanding Undergraduate or Graduate Teacher of the Year every year since 2004.

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Mr. Robert Patino, J.D., Director of Technology Transfer of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

http://www.siumed.edu/adrfa/techtransfer.html

Robert Patino is the Director of Technology Transfer at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. In this capacity, he serves to evaluate the patentable and commercial merit of discoveries by faculty and staff at the School of Medicine and dedicates his efforts to advancing those discoveries through the commercialization pipeline. He received his BSE in Chemical Engineering from the University of Iowa in 1998 and received his Juris Doctor from DePaul University in 2003. He is a registered patent attorney and has extensive experience in prosecuting intellectual property rights and managing complex licensing agreements. He is also the president of the Illinois Government Bar Association, founder of INVINT, Chairman of the Jamie Patino Math and Science Scholarship, and is an active member with several organizations

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Mr. Michael Philip of Rover Enterprises, LLC

http://www.rovercard.com/

Michael Robert Philip was born in Wheaton, IL. and is an Information Systems Technologies Senior at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the Co-Founder of Rover Enterprises, LLC, an innovative marketing company serving 65+ local businesses. Rover Enterprises, LLC was started in June 2009 with two fellow classmates out of his bedroom. Michael graduated Operation Bootstrap in December 2009 and earned a $3,000 seed grant for Rover Enterprises. Today he is the sole owner and CEO of Rover Enterprises. His company is a client of the small business incubator and its headquarters is the Dunn- Richmond Center. Rover Enterprises has grown dramatically since 2009 and currently employs 8 interns.

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Mr. Jeff Rose, CFP, Certified Financial Planner of Alliance Investment Planning Group

www.jeffrosefinancial.com

Jeff Rose is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional and co-founder of Alliance Investment Planning Group. He is also the founder of the personal finance blog Good Financial Cents. He's a father of 2, husband, avid Crosffitter, and In-N-Out Burger addict.

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Mrs. Kate Sensmeier, Owner of Starview Vineyards

http://starviewvineyards.com/

Kate Sensmeier owns StarView Vineyards in Cobden, IL with her husband Scott. In 2005, they purchased a "fixer upper" business that included a vineyard, winemaking facility and retail store. During the first year of ownership, the wines were re-evaluated and new vintages were planned. Scott has overseen all vineyard and winemaking operations and Kate is responsible for defining the product mix, marketing the venue and and wine sales. The first harvest under the direction of the Sensmeiers produced 6 award winning wines, with the Vignoles taking the coveted award, "Best White Wine in the State." Since then, Kate has continued define and establish the brand, market the business and sell direct to consumers and wholesale accounts. Today as a result of their superior wine quality and marketing efforts, StarView Vineyards is one of the premiere destinations for locals and tourists who want to experience Southern Illinois Wines. The vineyard hosts numerous private events, public fund raisers, and entertainment throughout the year. The wines are now distributed throughout the state of Illinois, from Cario to Chicago with numerous accounts in between.

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Mr. Nathan Stooke of Wisper ISP, Inc.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2005/07/18/focus30.html

Nathan started his technology journey by using a computer to read to him in High School and College. With Dyslexia, reading and spelling are very difficult, but computers come very easy. Only really getting into computers in 1996 Nathan quickly saw an opportunity and started selling computers out of his dorm room, while attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale. This model worked great until everyone saw how much money you could make selling computers. He then changed his focus to database design and programming. After writing several full lifecycle software programs for a few small business in the St Louis area, he wrote the recruiting software for the US Coast Guard. While programming was great, it always seemed to be feast or famine on available projects. Nathan wanted to make money while he was sleeping and with programming you could only bill the hours you worked. Working in the service industry was the answer, so Nathan starting looking. He thought about starting a restaurant, but 95% of those fail and he did not like to cook. One night his neighbor was complaining about being able to get DSL and Cable at his house, but only a $1,200/month T1 at his office, which was about 2 miles down the road. Nathan saw an opportunity to help him get internet where no one else could. After 6 months of research, wireless had beaten out all other options for getting the office connectivity. That was in Oct 2003, and Nathan has never looked back. Wisper has grown from a 1 man, and a bucket truck, operation to a company with 21 employees, and over 118 broadcast points. In 7 short years, Wisper has grown to be larger than all of its St Louis WISP competitors combined.

Wisper offers, residential, commercial and custom wireless connectivity solutions to its clients. Wisper stands behind its team of great employees and its slogan "Wireless is what we do. service is our passion". Nathan has tried to instill his fanatical customer service philosophy in each of Wisper's employees. This dedication to support has allowed Wisper to be the most expensive ISP in the St Louis market, yet continue to produce more demand for Wisper's service then they can keep up with, averaging 60 to 80 installs a month on just satisfied client referrals.

Nathan is now concentrating on how to add value to the great service Wisper already provides to its client. VOIP, security solutions, and wide area networking are just a few areas Nathan sees great demand from his customers.

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Mrs. Aimee Wigfall, Certified Business Specialist of Southern Illinois Small Business Development Center

http://www.southernillinois.biz/

Aimee is well versed in several areas of business management, specializing in policies and procedures, work flow efficiency, data/information systems, and network marketing. She has over 18 years of both corporate and small business experience.
She enjoys working with clients in a variety of industries, including Restaurant, Retail Sales, Technology and Service-based businesses. She has developed and taught several workshops in Microsoft Office software, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access, as well as a workshop on Social Network Marketing.
Aimee earned her Bachelor's degree in Business Management, specializing in Management Information Systems. She is a Certified Business Specialist through the Illinois Entrepreneurship and Small Business Growth Association, and is a member of the National Association of Professional Women.

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Mrs. Angela Williams- Barke of SIU Credit Union

Angela received her Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration from Maryville University, St. Louis in 2004. She has worked in the financial services industry for 4 years, the majority of her experience is in both consumer and commercial lending. Currently she is the Business Services Manager at SIU Credit Union where she handles all the Commercial Lending and oversees the Commercial Deposit accounts.

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