EDC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Commercial Services Loan Officer VP, GreenState Credit Union
Aaron graduated from the University of Iowa in 2010 with a BBA in Finance as well as completing the Entrepreneurship Certificate. For the last 10 years, Aaron has worked at GreenState Credit Union with various roles in the Commercial Services department and contributed to the department growth from 5 employees to more than 60 and over $2 billion in loans. Specializing in investment real estate lending, Aaron has been involved with many types of development throughout the Corridor. When he isn't in the office, Aaron enjoys spending time with his wife, Kelly and three children.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Attorney, President, Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, P.L.C
Brian D. Bergstrom is a corporate attorney with Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, president of the firm, and chair of the firm's mergers and acquisitions practice group. Brian's work focuses on equity finance; securities; sales and acquisitions of businesses; mergers; and business contracts, consulting and planning. Brian has represented private companies, development stage companies, public companies, mature late stage companies, joint ventures, venture capital firms, private equity firms and investment banks. Brian's additional administrative functions at the firm include serving as a member of the firm's board of directors.
Brian practiced law for several years in Chicago, Illinois before joining Shuttleworth & Ingersoll in 1998. He is a 2006 inductee into the Iowa High School Athletic Association Football Hall of Fame. Brian was raised on his family farm in southeast Iowa and earned his undergraduate degree in economics at Harvard College and was a 1st team Academic All-American in football and a member of the National Football Foundation Academic All-American team. He was the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar to Cambridge University in Cambridge, England in 1985-1986 and completed his Juris Doctorate at Harvard Law School in 1989. Brian currently serves on the Board of Directors for the EDC, Inc.; is on the Board of Trustees for Brucemore, Inc.; and on the Board of Directors for Tanager Place Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Founder & CEO, Involta
Bruce Lehrman is the CEO of Involta, an award-winning, hybrid IT solutions provider offering cloud, consulting, and data center services to help clients undertake powerful digital transformation. Lehrman founded Involta in 2007, seizing an opportunity to bring modern IT solutions to the forefront of business strategy. His vision to blend colocation data center solutions with expert IT services has grown Involta from a local tech services company to a nationally recognized hybrid solutions provider serving six markets across the U.S.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the State Bird Capital
Bryant Andrus has dedicated his professional life to assisting clients accomplish their financial goals. Bryant's career covers 13 years of finance, wealth management, consulting, and general advisory services.
Previously, Bryant led his former company's expansion into Canada, helping grow the firm's revenues. Eventually becoming the President of the company. After parting ways with this firm in 2018, Bryant joined US Bank Wealth Management. After taking the helm of a multi-business line wealth management team, he took the team from the middle of the pack and turned the team into the number 2 producing team in the US Bank Community Footprint in a manner of 12 months.
Realizing that his true passion was in the international finance world and knowing he had gaps in his educational background, he applied and was accepted into a Master of Finance program at Georgetown University in Washington DC. There he has worked on projects with the International Finance Corporation and others analyzing, researching, performing due diligence, on Private Debt and Private Equity investments around the world, in addition to capital markets, accounting, derivatives and private real estate.
In March of 2020, he joined State Bird Corp Global Financial consultants to fulfill the vision of what he and Saul talked about at lunch in 2014, how to create better results for cross border and international clients. As part of the transition, he started SBC Investment Management, LLC an Arizona Registered Investment Advisory Firm that provides discretionary money management services within the financial markets.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Business Development Manager, Ahmann Companies
Chad graduated from the University of Iowa in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering and became a registered Professional Engineer in 2006. Over a 19-year tenure, Chad has fulfilled project management duties on numerous land development projects throughout the Corridor. Chad has a strong background in master planning of large scale mixed use developments.
Chad joined Ahmann Companies in August 2013 as Business Development Manager for both Fusion Architects, Inc. and Compass Commercial Services. His background and experience in civil engineering affords Ahmann Companies the capacity to manage each project from the ground up, making Ahmann Companies the only firm in the area with this capability under one roof.
Chad has managed projects that include comprehensive mixed-use residential, commercial and industrial developments. His broad range of experience and relationships with local government entities enables him to assist our clients with all aspects of the development process from the initial concept phase through final construction completion.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- President, King 's Materials
With over 40 years of experience with King's Material, Inc., the work Charlie Rohde does runs through his blood. Throughout the years, Rohde has served on numerous ready mix association boards. He is a current board member with the National Ready Mix Concrete Association, actively promoting his industry, while educating many others through speaking engagements, volunteerism and leadership throughout the State of Iowa and beyond.
Rohde's leadership, commitment and generosity is an inspiration to others! Currently serving on the Mount Mercy University Board of Trustees, as well as the Mercy Hospital Board of Trustees. He has embraced quality health care and a commitment to higher education. Rohde often tells stories about his father and/or his father's colleagues and reflects on the life lessons of strong integrity in dealing with others. He takes great pride in his volunteerism and takes it more seriously than most. He truly wears the hat of the institution he is representing and is always looking for how to accomplish the "greater good". Rohde is also currently active on the Boards of Brucemore & Indian Creek Nature Center.
With over thirty-five years of successful national and international business creation and leadership experience, Curtis Nelson has directed the development and successful launch of over 100 new businesses and more than 500 new products for the communications, IT, military, transportation, medical, health, food, and gardening industries worldwide. Nelson is a seasoned public speaker, entrepreneur, investor, consultant, and three-time veteran of Inc. Magazine's 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies® list (#48, #67, #225).
A 1974 graduate from the University of Iowa, Nelson holds a BBA in Marketing. He has been an active U of I alumnus, served seven years on the U of I Research Foundation BOD, is a director and officer on multiple private and public boards, and is also the author of The Recipe for Business Success®.
Nelson currently serves as President & CEO of EDC, Inc., a nationally recognized business accelerator which he founded in 2003. He is the President & CEO of CRN LLC, a business consulting organization, and AccelerateIT, LLC; manager of Iowa Seed Fund, LLC and Iowa Seed Fund II, LLC both seed-stage investment funds. Nelson is also co-founder and current President of the Iowa Venture Capital Association.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Executive Director and Clinical Professor, John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center
- Executive Director of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center
David K. Hensley is the Executive Director of the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center and a Clinical Professor in the Henry B. Tippie College of Business at The University of Iowa. David provides strategic leadership for entrepreneurship activities across the UI campus, teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and is actively engaged in providing business and technology commercialization consulting services to UI students, faculty and community entrepreneurs. Outside of his university activities, David has over 30 years' experience in new ventures, financial consulting, and strategic management. He also serves on several university and community entrepreneurship, venture financing and economic development boards. David is President of his own company and has been involved in several Iowa start-ups over the past two decades. He earned his B.S. degree in Economics and Political Science from The University of Iowa and holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Director of Customer, Community, and Economic Development, at Alliant Energy
Dennis Jordan Position: Director of Customer, Community, and Economic Development, at Alliant Energy
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- President of the Board of Directors
- President of Kirkwood Community College
Dr. Lori Sundberg is the 5th president of Kirkwood Community College and the first female to
serve in that role. Sundberg holds a Doctor of Business Administration in Management from St.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Operations Manager, Skogman Realty
Hunter Skogman is a Cedar Rapids native. He attended the University of Iowa where he majored in marketing. He began working for Skogman in 2003 as a Project Manager for new construction homes. In 2019, he became President of Skogman Development, which handles all land purchases and product development for Skogman. He also oversees Skogman's commercial/multifamily division, which has built two apartment buildings and a 90-unit self-storage facility in the last two years. In addition to being on EDC's Board of Directors, Hunter is involved in 4 Oaks, Affordable Housing Network, Housing Fund of Linn County and the Homebuilders Association. He has four children and enjoys spending time outdoors.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Managing Director at Hillcrest Holdings
- Vice President, Hillcrest Holdings
Ian is currently Managing Director at Hillcrest Holdings, a private, family-owned investment company, spearheading the family's diversification strategy through acquisitions and direct investments. Ian received his MBA and graduated with distinction from Cornell University's Johnson Business School, where he concentrated on finance and strategy. He received his B.A. in economics from Wesleyan University.
Job Titles:
- VP of Operations and Program Funding
With over 25 years of operations experience, Jane Burroughs currently serves as VP of Operations and Program Funding for the Entrepreneurial Development Center. Jane provides EDC clients with operations mentoring and guidance from contracts and sourcing to materials management and procurement. Most recently, Jane was Director of Operations for RepelIT LLC, a start-up manufacturer of retail deer repellent distributed nationally. At RepelIT, she was responsible for setting up and managing the entire procurement, manufacturing and materials management process.
Prior to RepelIT, Jane was the Director of Materials for Crystal Group Inc., a designer/manufacturer for PC based server architecture specifically tailored for mission critical telecommunications, military and industrial deployment on a worldwide basis. At Crystal Group, Jane was responsible for purchasing, MRP, supplier identification and relationship management, production staging, and shipping and receiving. She tracked and reported on material COGS, inventory turns, obsolete inventory, and on-time delivery metrics on an annual basis.
Jane also previously worked at Rockwell as a Net Requirement Analyst and focused on inventory control and planning functions in the Materials/Purchasing Department.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- CEO of Haddad Consulting
- Haddad Consulting Services ( past Chair, Secretary, Treasurer )
Jim is CEO of Haddad Consulting and sits on many local for-profit and non-profit Boards. He previously was CFO of YellowBook, which was a nationwide directory publisher. He started with a predecessor of YellowBook in 1986 when it was a start up; through organic growth and acquisitions the Company grew to a publicly-held $2B entity in the US. He was primarily involved in finance, but also oversaw operations as COO for a period of time. He left YellowBook in 2010 and his focus has been on assisting small businesses and being involved in the community (he is a Cedar Rapids native).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Vice President of Business Development, Alliant Energy
Prior to his current role as Vice President of Business Development, Joel served as Vice President - Regulatory Affairs. Prior roles also include Vice President - Regulatory and Financial Planning, Director - Financial Planning and Analysis, Regional Director - Customer Service Operations, Chief Audit, Ethics and Compliance Officer, Managing Director - Business and Financial Performance and Managing Director - China Alliant Energy International. Before joining Alliant Energy, Joel worked at IES Industries as Manager - Finance, and at Arthur Andersen in a number of audit and accounting roles.
Joel believes strongly in giving back within the company and community. At Alliant Energy, he champions Employee Resource Groups and is currently executive sponsor of the Multi-cultural Network. His career is also marked with service on local and state boards, including the Alzheimer's Association of East Central Iowa, Iowa Sister States and Iowa Jobs for America's Graduates. Joel currently serves on the Horizons Board of Trustees, Hawkeye Council Boy Scouts of America Board of Trustees, Junior Achievement Board of Trustees, Cedar Rapids Public Library Foundation Board of Directors, Entrepreneurial Development Center Board and the Iowa Energy Center Board.
Joel is a CPA who received a bachelor's degree in Accounting in 1985 and an MBA in 1998 - both from the University of Iowa. He is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Green belt.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- President & CEO, Armstrong Development
Jon is an Iowa-based commercial and residential real estate developer who focuses on the re-development of urban commercial/ office space as well as the development of office, retail, warehouse properties and residential subdivisions.
Jon is currently developing four single-home residential communities, one duplex-condo project , a 50-acre business park and a 30-acre office park.
Job Titles:
- VP of Marketing and Strategy -
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Chief Financial Officer for EdgeData
- EdgeData
- Kris G. Gulick CPA / EdgeData
Kris Gulick is currently the Chief Financial Officer for EdgeData. He's responsible for the advancement of the organization's financial and business strategy, including the planning and implementation of processes to scale the company for growth. An entrepreneur at heart, prior to EdgeData, Kris was owner and CFO of Entrepreneurial Services Group LLC, a Cedar Rapids-based consulting firm which he started in 2005. His background as a CPA includes over three decades of experience in finance and consulting. Kris holds a BA in Accounting from Coe College. He served as a Cedar Rapids City Council Member from 2006 to 2017 and was President of the Iowa League of Cities and Board Member from 2007 to 2017.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Founder
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Founder and CEO of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust
- President & CEO, Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust
Larry Helling is the founder and CEO of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust. He is also the CEO of CRBT's parent company, QCR Holdings, since 2019. Larry is a graduate of Iowa State University and has more than 35 years of commercial banking experience. In his role as CEO of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust, Larry oversees all operations of the Bank.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Vice President of the Board of Directors
- Vice President of Commercial Banking at USBank
Nancy Lowenberg is a Vice President of Commercial Banking at USBank, N.A. Cedar Rapids. She has over 30 years of banking and finance experience. Her career has primarily focused on middle market companies and business owners in Eastern Iowa. Nancy is a graduate of Iowa State University with a bachelor's degree in economics and finance. An Iowa native, Nancy lives in Cedar Rapids. She is a committed community volunteer and currently participates in several local and regional organizations, including the EDC board of directors.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Banking Consultant, Deignan Consulting
- Community Banking Executive
Pat Deignan is an experienced community banking executive with a demonstrated history of attracting and growing talent in order to grow market share and build community banks. Pat possesses strong analytical and financial skills with an MA in Applied Economics from Marquette University and an Economics undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame. Pat is currently consulting in the banking industry and was previously with Bankers Trust for more than 16 years.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- AVP & Director - Claims Administration - Strategy at UFG Insurance
With over 28 years of experience in Finance and Administration, Stacey Paoli currently serves as the Office Manager for EDC. Her focus is to manage office operations, human resources, internal bookkeeping and accounting and vendor relationships for EDC. Additionally, she assists EDC entrepreneur clients with their bookkeeping and accounting needs. Stacey has been with EDC for more than 11 years.
Stacey's past experience includes serving as the Administrative Supervisor in the Marion, Iowa, customer care center for US Cellular. During her tenure, she worked with executive management, developed training plans for the administrative staff, and created new database programs to track care center and industry trends. Prior to her employment with US Cellular, Stacey worked at Heartland Investments in the Operations department assisting brokers with trading and other financial operations.
In addition, she also served as the treasurer of the Arthur Elementary Parent Teacher Association for eight terms, served as the team treasurer for the Cedar Rapids Youth Hockey Association for five years and served on the Board of Directors of the Cedar Rapids High School Hockey Association in the capacity of Treasurer for three terms.
Stacey has attended courses at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse and Western Wisconsin Technical College both located in La Crosse, Wisconsin. In addition, Stacey is a QuickBooks™ certified user and a Notary Public.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- General Manager / CEO, Linn County REC
Terry Sullivan joined Linn County Rural Electric Cooperative (LCREC) as CEO on February 1, 2016. Prior to joining LCREC, Mr. Sullivan served as the Chief Financial for Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO) and its affiliate companies in 2001. During his time at CIPCO he also served as Vice President of CMA, an affiliate company that had a venture capital fund investing in start-up and early stage companies. Prior to CIPCO, he spent 11 years with KPMG as a Senior Manager in Audit and Assurance Services in the Des Moines area. He worked with early stage companies to large publicly held companies in a variety of industries while at KPMG.
Mr. Sullivan serves on the Board of Directors of, The Entrepreneurial Development Center, and is on the Investment Committee of Iowa Seed Fund I and II and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Iowa Society of Certified Public Accountants.
Mr. Sullivan earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Accounting from the University of Northern Iowa, graduating with High Honors in 1990 and passing the CPA exam that year.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Attorney, Member, Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman PLC
Thomas DeBoom is a business and transactional attorney with Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman PLC, where he has practiced for over 20 years. DeBoom's work focuses on representing clients in mergers, acquisitions and sales, securities, equity finance, business contracts and consulting, and employee benefits. DeBoom graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law, JD, with distinction.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- President of the Board of Directors
- President of Ohnward Bank & Trust
- President, Ohnward Bank & Trust Chief Strategy Officer, Ohnward Bancshares
Tim Kintner serves as President of Ohnward Bank & Trust and Chief Strategy Officer for Ohnward Bancshares. Ohnward Bancshares, Inc. is an Iowa-based financial services company with over $1.4 billion in banking assets and 18 branch locations in Eastern Iowa. Kintner returned to Cedar Rapids last Fall with Ohnward, having most recently served as South Dakota regional president for Great Western Bank in Sioux Falls, SD. Kintner has more than 30 years of commercial, corporate, and investment banking experience. Before joining Great Western, Kintner served as executive vice president - regional banking markets and community relations for Bankers Trust Co. in Des Moines, after having joined Bankers Trust in 2002, as Founder and CEO of Bankers Trust in Cedar Rapids. Prior to 2002, he was the president and CEO of Marquette Bank in Cedar Rapids for seven years and also served on Marquette's senior management committee for the four-state Midwest banking region. Tim has a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Michigan State University
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Partner, RSM US LLP ( Chair )
As a leader in RSM's Local Market Group, Travis Fell partners with clients as a trusted business advisor, focusing on strategic decision making and tax efficiency. Travis works with family-owned businesses and other closely-held organizations in Eastern Iowa, specializing in real estate and construction, succession planning, exit strategies and other income tax credits and incentives. Travis also helps clients with a variety of complex issues related to technology, security, human resources and state and local taxes through a network of McGladrey specialists based in Eastern Iowa.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Shareholder, Bradley & Riley PC
William T. McCartan is a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He earned his B.A. from Creighton University in 1987, and his J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1991. Mr. McCartan joined Bradley & Riley PC in 1994 after three years with a law firm in Chicago, Illinois. He practices in the area of securities and corporate law. Mr. McCartan has served as the President of Bradley & Riley PC since January of 2019. In the community, he has previously served as the Chairman of the Boards of Directors of Junior Achievement of East Central Iowa, Entrepreneurial Development Center, Kids First Law Center, and the Xavier High School Foundation, and has served as a board member and volunteer for many other community organizations. Mr. McCartan is married to Mary Lou McCartan and they have four children.