Winners of the OEN Tom Holce Entrepreneurship Awards will be announced on September 21st at Portland’s Downtown Hilton
Portland, Ore., July 14, 2011— The Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) today announced that Gerry Langeler, Managing Director at OVP Venture Partners is the deserving recipient of the 2011 OEN Lifetime Achievement Award. OEN also announced the 12 finalists—from the 40 nominees—for the 2011 OEN Tom Holce Entrepreneurship Awards. All winners will be announced and honored on September 21st during the 18th annual awards ceremony at the Portland downtown Hilton.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is given at the discretion of the OEN Board of Directors to an Oregon or SW Washington-based individual who has had a long career of entrepreneurial achievements that place them in the top echelon amongst their peers. Finalists for the 2011 OEN Tom Holce Entrepreneurship Awards will be presented in four categories: 1) OEN Development Stage Company of the Year, 2) OEN Working Capital Stage Company of the Year, 3) OEN Growth Stage Company of the Year, and 4) the OEN Entrepreneurship Award for Individual Achievement. Earlybird pricing for the award ceremony will be available online at http://www.oen.org until August 15th.
“Each year I am impressed by the caliber of the companies and entrepreneurs that are nominated. This event serves to highlight the creativity and innovation of Oregon’s and SW Washington’s emerging companies,” commented Scott Davidson, chair of this year’s OEN Tom Holce Entrepreneurship Awards.
“Gerry Langeler is very deserving of the OEN Lifetime Achievement Award,” said Linda Weston, President and Executive Director of OEN, “Gerry was co-founder of Mentor Graphics where he served as President. He helped lead Mentor to become one of the most profitable of all U.S. companies founded in the 1980s. In his role as managing director at OVP, Gerry has shared his wealth of expertise, coaching and mentorship to the entrepreneurs. This support has been tremendous for the vibrancy of the entire entrepreneurial community.
The Finalists from Each Respective Category – See bios and descriptions at the end of the release.
Lifetime Achievement Recipient
Gerry Langeler, OVP Venture Partners – www.ovp.com – Portland, OR
Managing Director
1) OEN Development Stage Company Category
Expressive Labels – www.noskinny.com – Portland, OR
Noskinny provides a unique social shopping experience for bigger teens unlike any other in the mall that makes them the envy of their skinny peers.
Gamma Therapeutics, Inc. – www.gamma-therapeutics.com – Portland, OR
Gamma Therapeutics is an early stage biotechnology venture developing a novel class of solutions for cardiovascular disease diagnostic testing, surgical therapy and military medicine.
Good Clean Love – www.GoodCleanLove.com – Eugene, OR
Good Clean Love is a sexual health company that designs and sells premium quality organic/natural intimacy products and provides educational resources for building healthy relationships.
2) Working Capital Stage Company Category
Elemental Technologies – www.elementaltechnologies.com – Portland, OR
Elemental Technologies is the leading provider of video processing solutions that help content programmers, service providers and broadcasters deliver video to TVs, PCs, tablets and mobile phones.
Jama Software – www.jamasoftware.com – Portland, OR
Jama Software helps companies build great products - from space rockets to healthcare systems to innovative software. Teams at Fortune 500 companies use Jama’s Web application, Contour, to collaborate on big projects.
Pulse Health – www.myrevelar.com – Portland, OR
Pulse Health, established in 2006, delivers breakthrough breath technologies that can better identify health risks through the superior measurement of key biomarkers. Pulse Health’s Revelar™ is the first non-invasive device that measures aldehydes, known indicators of free radical damage. Revelar helps healthcare professionals test for damage caused by aldehydes and provides people insight to better impact their health and wellness.
3) Growth Stage Company Category
Avnera Corp. – www.avnera.com – Beaverton, OR
Avnera is a pioneer in Analog Systems-on-Chip technology, achieving the highest levels of integration on silicon, to enable powerful, high-fidelity audio products at affordable prices.
EthicsPoint – www.ethicspoint.com – Lake Oswego, OR
EthicsPoint is a leading provider of enterprise risk awareness solutions that help organizations align their governance, risk and compliance processes with overall business strategy.
Full Sail Brewing Company – www.fullsailbrewing.com – Hood River, OR
The independent and employee-owned Full Sail brewery is perched on a bluff in Hood River, Oregon, overlooking the most epic wind and kite surfing spot in the world.
Grape Solar – www.grapesolar.com – Eugene, OR
Grape Solar provides solar panels and its related products and services to American consumers through national retail chain stores and leading on line retailers.
4) Individual Achievement Category
Sam Blackman, Elemental Technologies – www.elementaltechnologies.com - Portland, OR
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Co-founder
Robert Judge, Wellpartner, Inc. – www.wellpartner.com - Portland, OR
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Wellpartner Contract Pharmacy Services
Chris Marsh, Pulse Health LLC - www.myrevelar.com - Portland, OR
CEO and co-founder
Merritt Paulson, Portland Timbers – www.portlandtimbers.com - Portland, OR
Owner and President
About Oregon Entrepreneurs Network
Founded in 1991, celebrating 20 years of service to entrepreneurs, the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) is a 501c3 non-profit corporation and the largest entrepreneur assistance organization in Oregon and Southwest Washington. OEN fosters the flow of entrepreneurial ideas, services, and capital to entrepreneurs and helps connect emerging Northwest businesses to growth-stimulating expertise and valuable resources.
OEN is a people-oriented network that helps cultivate, nurture and develop emerging businesses and entrepreneurs. Our network of members and breadth of services, offers business education, access to capital networks, support and contacts who can mentor and nurture startup companies’ growth and development. OEN also helps small and midsized companies develop and implement strategies for community involvement that jointly meet the goals of the company, the passions of the employees and the needs of the community via its program, EFNW. For more information on OEN and its programs visit www.oen.org.
ADDENDUM FOR BIOS OF LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT & INDIVIDUAL CANDIDATES FOLLOWING
Lifetime Achievement Recipient
Gerry Langeler, OVP Venture Partners – www.ovp.com – Portland, OR
Managing Director
For almost 20 years, Gerry has served as a Managing Director with OVP Venture Partners, the most experienced venture capital firm in the Pacific Northwest. OVP was formed in 1983, and has raised seven venture capital funds, the most recent at $250 million. The firm has over $750 million of capital under management and focuses on early-stage companies in clean tech, digital biology, and information technology. Since its founding, OVP has backed over 125 start-ups – and seen 53 liquidity events including 23 IPOs, and 30 others being acquired by public companies.
From 1981 to 1992, Gerry was co-founder of Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) where he served as President. He helped lead Mentor to over $400 million in sales and $1 billion in market capitalization, ranking it as one of the largest and most profitable of all U.S. companies founded in the 1980s. The company remains the fastest growing public software company to $200 million (in constant dollars) in US history. Currently at about $1 billion in revenues, Mentor continues to rank as the second largest software company in the Pacific Northwest, behind only Microsoft.
He started his career in Oregon in 1977 at Tektronix, initially as part of a group called “New Ventures” – an early player in corporate venture capital, and then later he became one of the founding team members for Tek’s printer division.
His service as a board member covers the range from digital media, energy, enterprise software, network security, and wireless communications to biotechnology. He is the author of Take the Money and Run! An Insider’s Guide to Venture Capital (Smashwords.com & Lulu.com, 2011) as well as The Vision Trap (Harvard Business Review, March 1992), which continues to be widely used in business schools and corporate training sessions. He also authored a chapter in Venture Capital Best Practices, Aspatore Books, 2005 and a chapter in Great Patents, Logos Books, 2011. His next book, The Success Matrix, is under development.
He has served on the Board of Directors of companies such as Captivate Network, Collaborative Software, Carbonflow, CradlePoint, Elekom, EnerG2, Foundstone, Max-Viz, Mentor Graphics, Preview Systems, Surplus Direct, Vascular Solutions, Viral Logic Systems and Webridge.
Gerry served in the US Air Force Reserves. He also was elected to and served as School Board Chair of the Riverdale Public School District. He previously chaired the Riverdale School Foundation. He served as Chair of the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) Board of Trustees, and Chair of the State of Oregon Facilities Authority – a bonding agency for not-for-profits.
He holds an AB, Chemistry from Cornell University, and a MBA from Harvard.
Individual Achievement Category
Sam Blackman, Elemental Technologies – www.elementaltechnologies.com - Portland, OR
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Co-founder
Sam brings extensive management experience and video processing expertise to the Elemental team as chief executive officer. He has grown Elemental into the leading provider of video processing solutions that enable multi-screen content delivery, building innovative products used by leading video content owners and distributors. Prior to co-founding Elemental in 2006, Sam designed integrated circuit products for Pixelworks. Prior to joining Pixelworks in 2000, Sam held engineering positions at Silicon Graphics and Intel Corporation. He is a frequent presenter and source for leading trade and news organizations given his deep industry knowledge. Sam holds an M.B.A from University of Oregon, an M.S. in electrical engineering from University of California at Berkeley and a B.S in electrical engineering from Brown University. Sam is an avid Ultimate Frisbee player and passionate about protecting Oregon’s environment. For his work on this issue he has been recognized by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters as the 2006 Volunteer of the Year, by 1000 Friends of Oregon as one of “35 Innovators Under 35" and by Portland Business Journal as one of forty outstanding leaders under forty.
Robert Judge, Wellpartner, Inc. – www.wellpartner.com - Portland, OR
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Wellpartner Contract Pharmacy Services
Robert Judge is a co-founder of Wellpartner, Inc. He oversees the Company's Contract Pharmacy line of business. In less than 10 years, Wellpartner has grown into a $100 million Oregon-based business with over 100 new, high paying jobs, and serves as a major teaching point for Oregon’s schools of pharmacy.
Robert’s vision for Wellpartner was to create a company that is recognized for lowering the cost of pharmacy care without sacrificing the quality of that care. Wellpartner serves the most vulnerable patients, including a number of state Medicaid plans. The State of Oregon estimated that Wellpartner saves the State’s Medicaid programan average 10% on the cost of medication for its most needy patients.
Through Wellpartner, Robert is also an active member in a number of professional and industry organizations that share his goal of providing a better patient experience and greater access to quality cared for the underserved. Affiliations include: Safety Net Hospitals for Pharcay Access (SNHPA): National Council for Prescription Drug Policies (NCPDP), Oregon State Pharmacy Association (OSPA), and Oregon Primary care Association (OPCA).
Previously, Robert served in senior positions at several high technology companies. He was Director of Product management at InFocus Systems, an Oregon-based manufacturer of digital and liquid crystal projection technology. Additionally, he spent 13 years at IBM Corporation serving in a variety of sales and product management executive positions. Robert’s last 5 years with IBM included running IBM’s product management efforts in IBM’s Commercial Desktop and Wide Area Networking Divisions.
Robert received B.A. degrees in Political Science and Economics from California State University San Bernardino.
Chris Marsh, Pulse Health LLC - www.myrevelar.com - Portland, OR
CEO and co-founder
Chris Marsh is the CEO and co-founder of Pulse Health LLC, a pioneer in delivering breath technologies that can measure several key human biomarkers that provide early detection of a variety of diseases. Pulse’s flagship product, Revelar™ is the first non-invasive device that measures aldehydes, known indicators of free radical damage.
Chris actively serves on the board of three companies where he has been involved since their early formation: Hubcast, Boston; Aisle 7, Portland; and I4CP, Seattle. He is also the cofounder and Board Chairman of Auctionpay which sold successfully two years ago. Chris also shares his time supporting entrepreneurs via Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, Oregon Bioscience Association and YPO.
Prior to Pulse Health, Chris was Chief Executive Officer at Unicru. He joined Unicru in April 2001 and under Chris' leadership, Unicru grew from 40 to 350 employees and was recognized in three of the last four years as one of the 500 fastest growing and most successful companies in the U.S. by Inc. Magazine and Deloitte & Touche.
In July 2006, Unicru was sold to Kronos, Inc. for $170 million, a four-times revenue multiple. Thereafter, Chris was appointed President of Kronos’s Talent Management Division, where within 10 months Kronos sold to a private equity fund for $1.8 billion.
Prior to Unicru, Chris was the EVP of E*Trade, the leading online financial brokerage firm and independent provider of ATMs. Prior to E*Trade, he was a CFO and COO for Card Capture Services (CCS) where he played an instrumental role in the sale of CCS to E*Trade. Prior to CCS, he was CEO of Superior Transportation Logistics, a company with over $75M in revenues, which he sold to The Greenbrier Companies. After the acquisition, he served as the EVP and Director of Greenbrier Logistic Companies until he left to join CCS.
Merritt Paulson, Portland Timbers – www.portlandtimbers.com - Portland, OR
Owner and President
Merritt Paulson is the Owner and President of the Portland Timbers and has reshaped the sports landscape in Portland and in the State of Oregon. On March 20, 2009, Major League Soccer (MLS) announced that the Timbers would become the league’s 18th franchise, starting play in 2011.
Before assuming ownership of the team in 2007, he was the Senior Director of Marketing and Business Development at NBA Entertainment in New York.
After completing his MBA at Harvard, Paulson was part of a joint venture in Palo Alto, Calif., that focused on building high-speed wireless networks. He then moved to New York to become the manager of HBO on Demand and was part of the team that launched the first premium subscription video on-demand service. After HBO, Paulson moved to NBA Entertainment and served as the Senior Director of Marketing and Business Development at NBA Entertainment for five years. In that role, he helped launch and develop NBA-TV and had responsibility for both marketing and business development efforts of NBA-TV and NBA LEAGUE PASS.
From a personal standpoint, Paulson, his wife and daughter are thrilled to live in the Portland area and are passionate outdoor enthusiasts. Paulson is on the boards of the Oregon Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, the Oregon Sports Authority and the Wildlife Conservation Society.