Seth Miller, President & CEO, is a specialist in managing consumer service & product businesses. He has worked with shoe manufacturing and retail at U.S. Shoe Corporation, in shoe catalog and e-tail sales as Chief Operating Officer at The Mark Group (now known as Boston Proper, Inc.), and has served as a member of the Advisory Board of Abacus-Direct, the largest cooperative database of catalog companies in the United States. He is a 1989 graduate of Harvard Business School and received his BA in Economics at Tufts University in 1980.
Stephanie Sparkman, CFO, is a rare blend of a financial executive, CPA and a driven entrepreneur. She has been an investor in Angel Oregon, a member of the Oregon Entrepreneurs’ Network and has founded multiple businesses. Most recently, she founded a shoe business for women’s large size shoes called BigShoEnvy. She has served as VP-Finance for Airborne Integrations and as an accounting and internal control consultant for numerous companies such as Daimler, NIKE, and SPARQ. She received her MBA in Global Management from the University of Phoenix and a BS in Accounting from California State University’s Fullerton College of Business and Economics.
Jay Hemmady, CIO, has served in executive IT leadership roles in the Supply Chain, Finance, Healthcare, Consulting, Integration Services and Technology sectors. Most recently, Jay served as Regional CIO at Market Transport, the North American transportation and logistics division of a $4B global supply chain services company. Jay received his MBA in Finance and MIS in 1978 from Southern Illinois University and a BTech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.
Kristine Koneck, Systems Programming, has spent her career in software development and hosting support. Prior to moving to Oregon, Kristine was responsible for global technology services for Tyco Fire & Security, where she was involved in strategic planning, process innovation, business development, sales, operations, quality control, and service delivery. She developed and managed a team as large as 70 staff and a $7 million IT budget. Prior to this, she was VP, Factory Systems for Output Technology Solutions, where she managed a 100 person staff and a $16 million budget for lifecycle development and maintenance of software systems (including real-time, web-enabled applications.)
Peter Danner, Fit Specialist is a fourth generation shoe maker from Portland, He most recently spent the past 12 years at Nike as a pattern engineer and senior last engineer. At Nike, he designed and documented upper components for new footwear in all categories. He also developed a system for using last specific CAD software to build a digital last library, making concurrent development of uppers and bottoms possible. Peter is a graduate of Lewis & Clark College.
Daniel Kidd, Brand/Manufacturer Relations , has spent his career as an executive in the Athletic Apparel, Footwear and Equipment Industry. He has a clear understanding of, and contacts in, the B2B and B2C supply chain, with a proven ability to translate their needs into positive results and actions. For the past 22 years, he has worked for Nike in Sales and Operations. He received a BA in Economics from Coe College.
Andrea Stevens, Sales/Database Monetizing, has spent more than 25 years in the direct marketing industry, including seven years managing Client Services for Abacus Direct. At Abacus, she oversaw a team of 14 sales executives who were responsible for monetizing the Abacus database by selling the data generated to member companies. Subsequently, Andrea was a founding partner of Next Action, another cooperative database company where she ran the sales function for an additional five years. Andrea went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she majored in fine art and minored in English.
Mark Allen, Marketing, is deeply experienced in promoting products and services through the efficient application of graphic design principals. He is passionate about creating compelling business advantages by favorably positioning compelling ideas before discriminating audiences. He currently runs his own visual business communications business called Visual Translations. Earlier he worked at XPLANE, Mercer Delta, and Arthur Andersen in various communications and marketing management roles. Mark received a BS in Business, and BFA in Visual Communications from the University of Kansas.
Debbie Johnson, Human Resources, is a human resources professional who has worked in the footwear industry in Portland at both Adidas as Senior Human Resources Manager and at Keen Footwear as Human Resources Director. She received her M.A. in Public Administration with an emphasis in Human Resources at Northern Illinois University, and her BA in Business Administration from Augustana College.
Michael Long, General Counsel, is a sole practitioner attorney specializing in Intellectual Property, Copyrights, Trademarks, Unfair Competition, Anti-Counterfeiting, Brand Enforcement, Business Organization, Contracts, Negotiations, Dispute Resolution, and Litigation. He has been practicing law since 1989 when he received his J.D. in Law from Willamette University College of Law. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Willamette University in 1985.