Playing to Win: Betting on an Investment
Friday, October 16 @ 1:30 pm
Vernon Davis
Super Bowl Champion, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and actor
Vernon Davis is a former American football tight end. The 15-year NFL veteran was selected by the San Francisco 49ers sixth overall in the 2006 NFL Draft and played his first 10 seasons with the 49ers. He landed with the Denver Broncos in 2015 during their Super Bowl 50 run. He joined his hometown team, the Washington Redskins, in 2016 and spent four seasons there before retiring after the 2019-2020 season. Off the field, Vernon is a budding entrepreneur, dedicated philanthropist and actor.
Vernon owns multiple Jamba Juice franchises in Northern California and is committed to opening six more stores in the Washington, D.C. metro area with Mohamed Sanu of the New England Patriots. He also has his very own supplement company, Timeless; is the co-owner of Q-Collar Innovations, a developer of innovative products intended to reduce traumatic brain injury; and the co-owner and marketing advisor for Pescavor Jerky, a sustainable seafood jerky company. In addition, he is partnered in PathWater, a new concept in bottled water that was created as a solution to help end single-use plastic pollution, as well as RASA, an Indian fast-casual restaurant in Washington, D.C. Vernon is also a Limited Partner of Next Play Capital, a venture capital investment platform structured to provide specialized investors access to top venture capital funds and companies.
Navigating the business world is only a portion of his off-the-field endeavors. He also founded the Vernon Davis Foundation, which services at-risk youth of all interests and demographics, and is an aspiring actor who has shared the big screen with the likes of Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, among others. He has also founded two production companies, Reel 85 and Between the Lines Productions.
Paul Evers
Co-Founder & CEO Riff Cold Brewed
A celebrated veteran in brand strategy, design and advertising, Paul Evers led the teams behind the creative development of craft beverage brands such as Humm Kombucha, 21st Amendment, Deschutes Brewery, Odell Brewing, and Crux Fermentation Project – which he co-founded, and served as President and CMO. In 2017, Paul co-founded Riff Cold Brewed along with veterans from Stumptown and LinkedIn. Paul is also a long-time active community member, having played a significant role in launching both the Bend Volunteer Corps and TEDxBend.
The Board Game: Assembling the Pieces to Complete The Best Team
Friday, October 16 @ 10:30 am
Betsey Nelson
CFO & Investor
Betsey is an experienced public company CFO, board member and investor with a passion for helping entrepreneurs scale their operations and build great companies. She currently serves on the boards of three public companies – Berkeley Lights, Nokia and Upwork – as well as several private companies. She has experience on the boards of leading SaaS companies like Autodesk, SuccessFactors and Zendesk, as well as digital media pioneers Pandora Media, Ancestry and CNET. Betsey spent ten years as CFO of Macromedia where she was responsible for leading the finance, IT and ops teams. She earned her MBA in Finance from the Wharton School and her BS Magna Cum Laude from Georgetown University.
Sarah Smith & Kevin Long | Co-Founders of The Dyrt
Sarah Smith is the Co-Founder of The Dyrt and an active member of the Oregon startup community. She developed her love of camping while growing up in northern Minnesota. Before founding The Dyrt, Sarah had a long career in international higher education, living, working (and sometimes camping!) in Japan, England and India. She has a masters degree in Intercultural Management from the School for International Training in Vermont.
Kevin Long is the Co-founder of The Dyrt and a two-time exited entrepreneur as co-founder of Justmeans, a sustainable news distribution platform, and as VP of Marketing at CrowdCompass, an event management mobile app software company. Prior to that, Kevin was the Founder of Global Deaf Education (GDC) which created self-sustaining Deaf Education systems in developing countries. Kevin’s work with GDC won him the Ashoka Fellowship and Reinhard Mohn Bertelsmann Fellowship.
The Dyrt is the largest online camping community and top-ranked camping app with over 1 million campground reviews, photos and tips, helping campers make the most of their camping experiences.
Down to the Wire: Saving and Redistributing Food Waste During a Pandemic & Beyond
Thursday, October 15 @ 1:00 pm
Aidan Reilly, Co-Founder of The Farmlink Project
The Farmlink Project is a not-for-profit grassroots movement that connects farms with food banks to feed thousands in need while supporting essential jobs. Co-founder Aidan Reilly is a rising senior at Brown University studying Political Science with a concentration in comparative politics. Born in Los Angeles, Aidan’s primary interests have largely centered around documentary filmmaking. As reflected in his past work covering the 2018 Nicaraguan Civil Crisis and the ongoing Syrian Refugee Crisis, Aidan has a passion for finding ways the everyday person can resonate with seemingly vast and unsolvable problems. This interest manifested at the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic with his co-creation of The FarmLink Project, an initiative aiming to motivate everyday Americans to fight both food waste and food insecurity in the United States.
Since its beginnings in April of 2020, Farmlink has grown from a small network of college students to a nationwide movement to fix the broken food system in the United States. In the last 6 months, the project has utilized the help of 200 full-time volunteers (average age of 21) to save 13 million pounds of produce from going to waste, and instead get it to communities in need across 40 states. In addition, the project has been able to pay nearly $1 million in wages to farmworkers. The ultimate goal of Farmlink is to democratize access to fresh produce to underserved communities for years to come.
Megan Bolt, OSU-Cascades Student, Founder of Raddr
Local entrepreneur and OSU-Cascades student, Megan Bolt is currently a Business Administration student at OSU-Cascades where she works as both the Student Outreach Coordinator for the Career Development Center and as a Student Consultant for the Innovation Co-Lab. When not studying, she is rock climbing, fishing, hiking, or working towards developing her own business, Raddr – a company that blends the passion for fishing with the desire for quality, fitting, and fun gear that aims to fit the needs of fishing women everywhere.