Kickstand Blog

Kickstand is proud to welcome three new members to its board for 2010, led by new President Becky Gates.
Becky Gates has more than 24 years experience in the executive search industry and currently serves as the Vice President and the General Manager of OCM Lee Hecht Harrison, responsible for developing and managing the career transitions and organizational development business. She came to Boise from Austin where she was active in TeXchange "the premier networking organization for business executives and entrepreneurs to meet, exchange ideas, and share experiences."

Joining Gates are three new board members:
Mark Gilbreath, VengaVentures
Gilbreath is the founder and CEO of VengaWorks Venture Centers and Chairman of Freedom Storage Centers, both founded and operating in the Treasure Valley. He moved to Idaho in 2003 from northern California, where he held multiple sales, marketing and general management roles with technology companies including founder/CEO of Toolwire, Inc an eLearning technology company and President Altera, Japan a maker of programmable semiconductor devices.  Mark holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Virginia.

Brice Sloan, Sloan Security Group

Brice Sloan is a serial (or cereal) entrepreneur, starting his first company at 19 years of age with a forestry company, an handicrafts importing company, a fencing company, and now finally most recently a security technology company.  Inc. magazine named Sloan Security Fencing to its “5000 fastest growing companies” list in 2007 and 2008 with 187% average growth.  By day, he is the Chief Financial Officer of Sloan Security Group.  

In 2005, he was recognized by Boise State University as one of three "Star Entrepreneurs" in Idaho. In 2006, the Boise Chamber of Commerce named Brice (and his brothers) as entrepreneurs of the year for companies with less than 30 employees and the SBA named Brice as runner-up business person of the year for Idaho. In the 2007, the TWIGA Foundation recognized Brice for contributions to workforce flexibility.  Recently, Sloan Security Group was nominated for the Better Business Bureau’s “Integrity Counts!” award.  

He currently serves on the AGC benefit trust board and the Boise Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Board of Directors. From 2000-2004, he was a Foreign Service Officer with the US State Dept.  He was award the Meritorious Honor award in 2002 for mediation work in Romania.  

Brice has a B.S. in History from the University of Idaho and has taken Advanced Economics, Security and Consular Courses from the Foreign Service Institute in Virginia, as well as graduate coursework at Boise State University. His interests include languages (Romanian/Hungarian) walking, reading, coffee, architecture, traveling, and parenting two young children with his wife.

Don Bush, CradlePoint
Bush is the Director of Marketing for CradlePoint Technology, the national leader in 3G and 4G mobile broadband network solutions. Bush is known as '...one of those unique individuals who can take complex technologies and distill it into the essence the target customer wants to understand.' Prior to his time as VP at both Foerstel and The Resource Center in Boise, Bush was a partner at The Launch Group, VP at Creative Source and Channel Marketing Manager at WordPerfect/Novell.

The Meg Carlson Leadership Award was recently created in honor of retiring board member Meg Carlson for her five years of exemplary service, which took Kickstand to new levels of membership, outreach and influence.  Carlson is cofounder of Carlson Hall, a business intermediary firm in Boise that assists clients in business merger, acquisition and business consulting services.

“Meg helped us evolve from a clutch of cronies to a vital element in our entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Chris Volk, immediate past President of Kickstand. “Her corporate experience, professionalism and vision for the future deserve to be acknowledged each year as we also recognize the board member who makes an outsized contribution to Kickstand and our mission, which is to help entrepreneurs network, learn and grow.”

This year’s award goes to Ben Quintana, Director of Public Relations and Leadership Development at Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce and founder of The Boise Young Professionals.

“Ben really stepped up to lead a couple of major initiatives and did a masterful job of directing a couple teams of busy volunteers,” Volk said. “We’ll keep him on the board as long as we can, but you will be hearing more about him in the months and years to come as we know he’s headed for bigger endeavors.”

Quintana will receive a copy of a new book by Boise leadership coach Phil Eastman of Leadership Advisors titled The Character of Leadership: An Ancient Model for a Quantum Age.  He will also receive a personal leadership assessment based on the book and a one-hour coaching session to create a character and leadership development plan.