Scott Fulbright, PhD
Living Ink Technologies

About Living Ink Technologies:
Living Ink Technologies transforms algae and other plant-based materials into sustainable ink. Living Ink is developing algae and plant-based ink formulations that can be used for printing on packaging, stationary, marketing material and business cards.  Living Ink replaces petroleum-based printing ink containing pigments made from unsustainable, non-renewable and toxic minerals, thus making a more sustainable, renewable, and recyclable eco-friendly ink.

About Scott Fulbright, PhD:
Scott co-founded Living Ink Technologies during his 3rd year of his PhD program in Cell and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University.  Prior to Living Ink and his PhD, Scott spent the last 10 years in the algae bioproducts industry, where he led research and development projects in both industry and academia. While at CSU, Scott’s research was directed at understanding the scale-up process in algae cultivation for biofuels and bioproducts. In industry he was a laboratory manager and participated in product and business development for an algae biofuels venture that raised $17 M.

Scott was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow throughout his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Colorado State University, which he received in 2015, and earned a B.S. from Michigan State University.

Chris Petersen
Co-Founder and CTO of LogRhythm

Chris Petersen co-founded LogRhythm in March 2003 and has served as a member of our board of directors since our inception. Mr. Petersen currently serves as LogRhythm’s Senior Vice President of Customer Care and Chief Technology Officer. Prior to his current role, Mr. Petersen served as Senior Vice President of Product through 2015 and the launch of LogRhythm 7.

Immediately before co-founding LogRhythm, he led Product Marketing for the Dragon Intrusion Detection product line as part of Enterasys Networks. He was also a faculty member at the Institute for Applied Network Security, providing expert advice on Intrusion Detection and Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) to Fortune 500 clients across North America.

Mr. Petersen’s 20 years of cyber security experience began at Price Waterhouse, serving as a Sr. Consultant and developing a proprietary Governance Risk & Compliance (GRC) solution. Mr. Petersen later joined Ernst & Young’s National Information Security & Risk Management practice where he held a management role and was responsible for leading the development of software solutions, including eSecurityOnline.com, an Internet information security portal and managed vulnerability service. In 1999, Mr. Petersen was an early employee at Counterpane Internet Security, a pioneering Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP). At Counterpane he served as an engineering manager leading threat intelligence research and supporting the development of Socrates, their back-end SIEM technology. Mr. Petersen is a sought after expert in cyber security and is often quoted in media publications. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from Colorado State University.

Frank Mendicino
Managing Director of Access Venture Partners

Frank Mendicino III co-founded Access Venture Partners in 1999. Access is a seed and early stage, high technology venture capital fund. Frank has been a venture capitalist for 18 years successfully investing in, and helping to grow exciting businesses.

Through his work with early stage companies, Frank has built a large network of deal referral sources and value added resources for portfolio companies. Frank was a founding board member of The Contra Costa County Incubator in San Francisco. He is a former board member of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association. Frank has a deep understanding of product development and sales and marketing processes which allows him to help entrepreneurial management teams accelerate the growth of the companies in which Access Venture Partners invests.

Prior to co-founding Access Venture Partners, Frank worked for Woodside Fund, a Silicon Valley venture fund, for 10 years where he helped build and exit a successful portfolio of 29 early stage companies.

Frank is on the Board of Directors of several private companies. He received his B.A. degree in Political Science from The University of California at Berkeley in 1989. Frank lives in Louisville, Colorado, and in his spare time, he enjoys playing golf and spending time with his family.

Syed Raza
President and Founder, Nexus Bioenergy

Nexus Bioenergy helps the food and beverage industry recover energy and nutrients from organic waste for sustainable food production. Nexus has developed an advanced, modular, food digester that accepts raw, unsorted food waste and rapidly converts into organic fertilizer, and methane fuel.  Using Nexus’s Bio1 system a typical food manufacturer will save more than $150K/year in disposal costs and self-generate renewable energy for accelerated payback of less than 2 years. Nexus is partnered with a beef processor in NE Colorado to demonstrate the process at a commercial scale.

Ian Skor
CEO and Co-Founder, Sandbox Solar

Sandbox Solar is a bootstrapped Fort Collins solar energy developer who has completed projects ranging from off-grid integrated energy systems to commercial solar carports with electrical vehicle charging stations. Ian Skor and Andrew Lyle are engineers with a combined 10+ years experience in solar energy and energy efficiency. Strategic partners specialize in utility software, web development, application integration, and database management. The company has been active with local utilities, and advocating for new cooperative solar projects since 2014. Sandbox Solar is passionate about increasing solar energy savings and leading a community to fulfill its Climate Action Plan goals by creating a platform that engages community members to crowdfund and crowdsource cooperative solar projects.

Susan Coyne
Sales and Marketing Director, E-Flux

E-Flux provides a service that informs the global bioremediation market about the mapped footprint of a petroleum based spills and then quantifies the rate at which the spill is naturally disappearing. This information is obtained by placing our patented trap technology in the ground above the spill where it absorbs naturally occurring carbon dioxide gases from the soil. Through testing two isotopic carbons, 12C and 14C, we provide the market with the most accurate site information in order for them to manage their sites more efficiently. 

Kevin Maher
President and Founder, VetMeasure

VetMeasure is an animal health technology business focused on development and validation of a remote 24/7 key animal health metric monitoring system; MeasureON!™  Our product not only provides round-the-clock monitoring of an animal’s health status, but also generates real-time alerts when it detects a complication. Our current technology measures core body temperature, ambient temperature, ambient humidity, and movement activity, which provides a health risk warning, as well as heat stress notification. The above metric measurements are supported by a 2014 issued patent, which VetMeasure licensed from CSU. MeasureON!™ will allow veterinarians, as well as animal owners, to objectively monitor an individual, or group of animals, providing earlier detection of health-threatening conditions. VetMeasure plans its first commercial product to be launched by late 2017.  

Kat Boehle is a PhD candidate in the department of Chemistry. Kat will discuss Antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections, which are predicted to be the number one cause of death worldwide by 2050. Her work focuses on a rapid diagnostic device to help slow the spread of resistant bacteria by diagnosing resistant infections quicker and cheaper at the point of care. 

Ariel Schnee is a Master’s candidate in the History Department.  Ariel will discuss concerns with education budgets shrinking, which result in fewer traditional field trips. With all these challenges in mind, how can schools continue to offer their students with the quality, interdisciplinary, multimedia learning experiences they would get on a field trip, but without the hassle? Her solution is a Museum Trunk. Museum Trunks takes the public history ethic of making history relevant, engaging and fun, applies it to a business, and translates it into a marketable product. Each trunk contains three interdisciplinary lesson plans with additional pre and post-lesson activities, a comprehensive teaching manual, and a selection of museum-quality artifacts preserved in archival-grade materials.

Emily Cain is a Master’s candidate in the Professional Science Master’s in Zoo, Aquarium, and Animal Shelter Management, or PZAAZM for short.  Emily will discuss animals which under human care often exhibit signs of stress and boredom due to a lack of stimulation. The Animal Vending Machine provides animals with a constant and ever-changing outlet for mental and physical activity. The Animal Vending Machine has the potential to enrich the lives of animals under human care, and can be modified for use with domestic dogs and cats, laboratory animals, small mammals, various primates, rodents, elephants, and more.

Zach Asher is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the CSU Powerhouse Campus.  Zach is studying the effects from low fuel economy vehicles, and how this includes threats to human life and increased government spending. To combat this, Zach and his team demonstrate a technique that can significantly increase fuel economy on modern hybrid vehicles using only currently available data. Further, this research is supported by automotive companies such as Toyota, General Motors, and Honda and the team are seeking to implement these ideas in the near future.