Speakers

Chris Dixon is a health & fitness educator and wellness consultant in the Twin Cities, MN. His list of businesses include: Insider Training, Inc., Fitness and Sports Training, LLC. and the not-for-profit, Health Is Love Organization. As Golden Gopher alum, Chris holds degrees in sport management, coaching and applied kinesiology from the University of Minnesota. As an athlete, Chris competed as a horizontal jumper for the Gophers and was a NCAA provisional qualifier in the triple jump. Being involved in the health & fitness community since 2004 Dixon has held fitness certifications from the American Council on Exercise, American College of Sports Medicine, National Strength & Conditioning Association and USA Track & Field. As an entrepreneur Dixon has been honored by the Dakota County Regional Chamber of Commerce, awarded a Buckman Fellowship for Leadership in Philanthropy and selected as a “Rising Alumni” by the College of Education and Human Development in 2014. Chris also serves as director of the National Personal Training Institute of Minnesota (Edina, MN). Chris resides in Minneapolis, MN.

From racecars to restaurants, Luke Shimp is a master in some unusual industries. He started his career as a NASCAR championship mechanic for Roush Fenway Racing, and then worked with Joe Gibbs racing from 1998 until 2001. Shortly afterwards, Luke partnered with Blue Plate Restaurant Company and founders, Stephanie Shimp and David Burley, all of whom received the Restaurateurs of the Year Award from the Minnesota Restaurant Association.

In 2013, he parted ways with Blue Plate and opened Red Cow, a burger joint with a sophisticated twist that includes craft beer, mixology-driven cocktails, and a stellar list of 30 wines. With Red Cow, Luke has won several awards including Restaurateur of the Year, the MSP Business Journal Eureka! Award for Innovation, and the Twin Cities Burger Battle. USA Today also listed Red Cow’s Turkey Burger as one of the top 10 in the United States, and Jason DeRusha named Red Cow one of the 38 best burgers in St. Paul and Minneapolis. 

Today, Luke also owns Red Rabbit, and continues to grow his restaurant empire—one burger at a time.

Van Hong, a Cambodian immigrant. Son to Leth and Kim Hong, and brother to Jenny, Ty and Sarah. He is currently working at Deloitte & Touche within the Advisory practice. Also, he is currently the President of Spam FC Scholarship Foundation, a nonprofit that helps students pay for college. His passion include soccer, volunteering and traveling the world.

Jim Nelson serves as District 5950 Rotary Foundation Chair.   He  joined the Rotary Club of Minneapolis City of Lakes in 1999, served as club president in 2009-2010, and served as District Governor for Rotary District 5950 in 2014-2015.  Jim is also active in Rotary water and sanitation projects in Honduras.

Jim and his wife Ellen live in Edina.  Jim and Ellen’s daughter is a sophomore at Fordham University in New York, and Jim has two grown kids and 6 grandkids.  The family has served as host parents to three Rotary youth exchange students, from New Zealand, South Africa and Japan. 

Jim practiced law for 43 years, the last 32 of those years with the Minneapolis firm of Briggs and Morgan, where he specialized in commercial real estate law.  His retirement activities include his Rotary work, volunteering with the Minnesota Historical Society, and service as chair of the Edina Human Rights and Relations Commission. 

Bill has served as the City of Edina’s “Economic Development Manager” for five years.  In this role, Bill works on several business-related projects. His current focus is on commercial development projects and public improvements that bring long term value to the community.

With degrees in engineering and urban planning, Bill brings experience in both the private and public sectors to the City’s staff.

For the first ten-years of his career, Bill assisted real estate developers and architects to build exceptional projects throughout the U. S. Highlights include Triangle Town Center and Streets of Southpoint (North Carolina), Country Music Hall of Fame, Peabody Place, Detroit Orchestra Hall, City Place (West Palm Beach), Miami International Airport, and Four Seasons Hotel.

After obtaining his Master’s degree from the University of Illinois-Chicago, Bill focused on economic development strategies and revitalization of established neighborhoods and first-tier suburbs. His work with the City of Chicago yielded strong experience in the use of tax increment funding and other business incentives. Later as Director of Community & Economic Development for a first-ring suburb of Chicago, he completed a Development Framework Plan to guide the redevelopment of a 78-acre mixed use neighborhood and helped broker partnerships to secure growth commitments from local businesses.

Bill and his family moved to Edina in 2010.

Kathleen Motzenbecker is Senior Vice President of The Medical Alley Association (MAA).  By elevating Minnesota’s Medical Alley as the global epicenter of health innovation and care, her organization champions the most densely concentrated health technology cluster in the world, including industry leaders such as 3M, Medtronic and the Mayo Clinic.  Today, Medical Alley is home to biotechnology, pharmaceutical, diagnostics and digital health leaders. 

In 2015, the Minnesota Business Journal named Kathleen one of its “Top 50 Women in Business” when she was served as Executive Director of the Minnesota Trade Office.  She also previously served as the Asia Pacific Trade Director in Illinois.  In Washington, DC, Kathleen held senior positions with the UN Development Program and the Council on Foreign Relations.  She has monitored nearly 20 elections overseas, primarily in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.  She lives in south Minneapolis with her husband David, a landscape architect, and their six year old daughter.

Mark C. Gordon is the President and Dean of Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul. Prior to his arrival in the Twin Cities in July, 2015, Gordon served as President of Defiance College, a small, liberal-arts based undergraduate institution in rural Northwestern Ohio, and before that as Dean of University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in Detroit.

Gordon is originally from New York, where he worked as an aide to New York’s Governor Mario Cuomo in the mid-1980’s and then, during the first Clinton Administration, as Chief of Staff to Andrew Cuomo at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Gordon has also served as Associate Professor in the Practice of Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He received his B.A. and his Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Microsoft Technology Center Site Visit

February 19^th, 2019

Location: Centennial Lakes Plaza, 3601 West 76^th St, Suite 600, Edina, MN 55435

7:30-8:30 a.m. Bagels and Coffee, Tour and Microsoft Applications/Technology

This program requires pre-registration by 1/19/19 to attend. Sign up will be at our weekly meeting starting in December.

Bio: Bart Sneary

Bart Sneary is a Business Applications Architect at the Microsoft Technology Center in Edina.  He’s a veteran of this space, having worked professionally with CRM and ERP solutions for 25 years and the Microsoft one for the last 11.  As a technical architect, although he specializes in the business applications space, he enjoys working with a robust breadth of technologies that all play a part in helping ease business challenges.

Nicholas Legeros has a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota.  For over twenty years he was an Artist-in-residence and instructor at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts.  He also taught for Metropolitan State University, Breck Schools and the Edina Art Center.  Sixteen years ago Mr. Legeros left teaching to pursue a full-time career as a sculptor.  His recent large commissions include a statues that honor Donald Nyrop and the women and men of Northwest Airline at Centennial Lakes Park in Edina, MN, of Goldy Gopher for Coffman Union, Sid Hartman for the Target Center and a 17’ high statue of St. Joseph for St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, MN.  Mr. Legeros served on the board of the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA) for seven years (three as President) and five years on the board of the Northeast Community Development Corporation.

Business success is about making the right moves in times of upheaval, opportunity, or threat to the organization. Will your leaders know what to do in their next high stakes situation? Terry Moore shows decision makers how to lead their teams to not just survive, but to profit from crisis. His proven Strategic Prediction method takes strategic leadership to the next level, so that your audience will discover opportunities where others see only danger. In this talk, audiences will learn the methods and tactics to turn their next crisis into gold.

They will:

• Know how to predict what everyone else will do in any crisis situation

• Understand advanced levels of strategic thinking and leadership

• Seal their success with new and winning end-game tactics

Stela Center is the Director of Development with Wallin Education Partners. As a former Wallin Education Partners scholar, Stela brings a student perspective to the team and is able to speak to the impact of the program. Stela was a recipient of the Rotary Ambassador for Peace Scholarship in 2006. With this support from Rotary, she completed her Masters degree in International Peace Studies from the United Nations Mandated University for Peace, in Costa Rica. Stela is originally from Bosnia, but her family left Bosnia during the war that took place in the 1990s. After living in refugee camps for about a year and a half, Stela moved to Minnesota with her family. Because of the support of these two programs, Stela was able to pursue a career working in the non-profit sector in Minnesota. Through her work, she has supported organizations such as Global Volunteers, American Refugee Committee, and American Red Cross before joining the Wallin Education Partners team in December of 2015. Stela recently joined the University of Minnesota Rotary Club as a member. 

Angel Foundation’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Dave Becker as the organization’s new President and CEO. Dave has spent more than 18 years working in the nonprofit sector, most recently having served as vice president of the central territory for the American Diabetes Association where he was promoted from vice president of the Midwest region and Executive Director for MN, ND and WI. Dave joined Angel Foundation’s staff on August 20, 2018 and is excited to begin his new role, “I am elated about the opportunity to lead Angel Foundation. The Foundation provides amazing resources and services to those when they need them most. I am humbled to have the opportunity to serve in this manner and to bring the essential work of the Foundation to the communities we serve.” “We are excited to have Dave’s proven leadership experience to help grow and guide the organization into the future,” said Margie Sborov, Angel Foundation Founder and Board Member. “He brings extensive experience in strategic planning, operations, development and community relations as well as a passion for our mission to help families facing cancer to live in the now and celebrate everyday moments of joy.”

About Angel Foundation: Angel Foundation was founded in 2001 by Margie Sborov, a patient navigator who saw firsthand the issues that cancer patients face. Margie felt compelled to start a non-profit organization that would meet the needs of adults with cancer and their families. When cancer strikes, Angel Foundation offers two programs – Emergency Financial Assistance and Facing Cancer Together. The Emergency Financial Assistance program helps adults in active treatment for cancer, living or treated in the seven-county metro area with non-medical, basic living expenses such as food, housing, utilities and fuel. The Facing Cancer Together program provides free education and support programs to adults with cancer and their families. Through these services, Angel Foundation is able to help cancer patients reduce their stress and live in the now so they’re able to celebrate the everyday moments of joy in their life. Since its founding, Angel Foundation has provided more than $8 million in emergency financial assistance and 25,000 services to individuals in the community. 

Lisa Ovsak is blessed to be the mom of Sydney and Michael.  Sydney was born in February of 1999 and diagnosed with cancer when she was just 10 months old.  Lisa is currently the Vice President of Breanna’s Gift Board, an organization dedicated to bringing art programs to kids with cancer and other serious illnesses. 

 Previously, Lisa spent 16 years volunteering in many capacities within the Children’s Cancer Research Fund, the last six of which were spent serving on the Board.  Lisa lives in Bloomington, MN; she is the office manager for an IT consulting and cyber security company in downtown Minneapolis and considers it an honor to have been able to share her story with others for so many years. 

Officer Mike Seeger began his police career with the City of Edina in October 2000. Over the last 18 years, he has held a variety of roles with the department – most notably he was a K9 Officer with his partner K9 Diesel from 2006-2014.  Officer Seeger and K9 Diesel received multiple awards for their work together and K9 Diesel nationally certified numerous times in both Narcotics Detection and the Police Dog 1 Trials.  In the years since K9 Diesel retired, Officer Seeger has been a Commercial Crimes Investigator and is currently a Drug Task Force Detective.  Officer Seeger received the 2015 “Mike Siitari” Officer of the Year award.  In addition, he was the Junior Police Coordinator from 2000-2017 and was awarded with the 2017 Connecting with Kids Leadership Award for his dedication to the program.

In his spare time, he is an Edina Paid on Call Firefighter, volunteers with Secondhand Hounds animal rescue and is an active leader in his children’s local Boy Scout troop. 

C. Phifer Nicholson, MD, Vascular Surgeon

Specialties

Surgery

Vascular Surgery

Board Certifications

Surgery

Vascular Surgery

Education

Medical School

University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL

Mayo Clinic, Rochester,   MN

General Surgery

Site of Fellowship

Mayo Clinic, Rochester,   MN

General and Vascular Surgery

Philosophy of Care

“I realized I wanted to be a surgeon at five years of age while watching my father suture wounds in the emergency room. Now I know my job not only involves physical healing but emotional and spiritual healing as well. Surgery is my life's calling."  

Recognition

Charles E. Bradshaw Scholarship Award 1982

Pancreatic Transplant Research Fellow, Mayo Clinic 1989

Lizzie was born and raised in St. Paul MN. She holds her ungraduate degree in Biology from the U of M, Morris and her MBA from Augsburg University. Her professional career started with AmeriCorps and then in Healthcare. She now has been with the American Red Cross in Volunteer Services for about 1 ½ years.