Barry has 36 years’ experience enabling organizations to enter & scale & new markets, become the industry go to brand, and improve sales and customer retention by executing best in class customer care. He has a BS degree in Business/MIS from Cal Poly SLO and an MBA from Chapman University.

Becky’s 30+ years of communications experience has allowed her to do a little bit of everything. But, writing, editing, content creation and brainstorming with clients are her passions. She is an astute researcher and intuitive listener, which allow her to learn various industries quickly and craft effective messaging to get brands noticed in a crowded marketplace.

In the past, Becky has managed her successful consulting practice since 2002. As a contractor with the Small Business Development Center in Eureka, C.A for eight years she has worked with more than fifty businesses across dozens of industries.

Honored for teaching excellence and club advising, I have held positions in a broad range of industries, including nonprofits, sole proprietorships, and a major corporation. As the driver behind Cal Poly’s new Sales Minor, I act as a liaison between industry and Orfalea College of Business, coach competitors in the Orfalea College of Business Sales Competition and National Collegiate Sales Competition, advise the student marketing club (AMA – American Marketing Association), and coordinate Cal Poly’s Marketing Career Conference.

I’m an author, public speaker, consultant, instructor, and academic business librarian.

I have written and presented on: academic library spaces and how those spaces help creativity and innovation, applying lean principles to managing radical innovations in academic libraries, how to create a welcoming environment for non-binary job seekers and employees, and big data and data literacy. I am currently completing a book on job searching: The 3 Most Powerful Communications: Research Your Way to a Great Job!

As an business librarian I provide research consultations to diverse range of students and community members. I create and teach information literacy classes for business, economics, and entrepreneurship classes. I am passionate about student success, especially in helping with the job search.

Anthony is a Central Coast local. and a lecturer at Cal Poly in the Industrial Technology and Packaging Area. He teaches product design and development, along with supply chain management. An entrepreneur at heart, Anthony has started three manufacturing companies, and three additional retail companies.

Leyla provides research guidance and curates information resources as the librarian for the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Science at Cal Poly, S.L.O. She previously served as Plant Sciences Librarian at the University of California, Davis. She began her career as a research contractor, collecting market and materials information for bioenergy, animal feed, and green building projects. She has ten years experience in the food system, including leadership of a countywide farm to school food program, and supporting small-scale organic seed producers across California with resources and networking opportunities. She holds master’s degrees in botany and in library and information science.

Jose is a founder and startup community builder leveraging over 10+ years’ experience in digital marketing, event execution, venture design, to partner with startups and various clients helping them launch and scale innovative ideas. Previously served as the President of the Latino Startup Alliance, a Silicon Valley based organization helping to accelerate Latino led tech ventures. He is also the Founder at Santa Maria Valley Tech (santamariavalley.tech), an online community platform highlighting all things tech and entrepreneurship in northern Santa Barbara County.  

I am an experienced human-centric leader with 10+ years of experience in high growth, cross-collaborative, global/remote teams. I consider myself an innovative brainstormer, creative problem solver, and a big believer in diverse and collaborative teams and solutions. I believe that HAPPIER people produce better work and culture needs to be woven through systems. I enjoy providing a psychologically safe space to share ideas, provide input, and come up with solutions or perhaps that next big thing! I value communication, growth-mindset, emotional intelligence, diversity, and trust.

Dr. Ahmed Deif is an Associate Professor of Operation and Supply Chain Management. Before joining Cal Poly, Dr. Deif was an assistant professor and the program director of the industrial and service engineering department at Nile University in Egypt from 2010-2013. Dr. Deif was also an assistant professor at the industrial systems engineering dept., at University of Regina in Canada from 2008-2010 where he still serves as an adjunct professor. He is also currently an adjunct associate professor at the Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Windsor in Canada where he served as a visiting scholar from 2013-2014.

Amy brings 20+ years of experience in working with small businesses. She has a strong background in helping companies find a bookkeeping system that works best for their organization. Amy enjoys working with clients on understanding financial reports, gauging the health & profitability of their business.

Damon is an experienced Accounting Manager with a 15+ year track record in multiple aspects of financial control, management and policies and procedures. He is a strong operations professional with a Associate’s degree focused in Computer Engineering & Economics from University of Durban.

Javier is an industrial and graphic designer with more than 20 years of professional experience. He is a specialist in creating innovative and conceptually solid designs in a variety of 2D and 3D formats. 

Jean has extensive experience both at the bench in molecular biology research as well as applying bioinformatics and genomics solutions to a variety of agricultural, biomedical, and other biotechnology applications. Her focus is on leveraging computational technology to advance biological research. She received her PhD in Genetics at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, has years of collaborative research experience with various consortium science projects like ENCODE and the Undiagnosed Disease Network. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Biology, focusing on genetics and bioinformatics and serves as the Co-Director of the Bioinformatics and Applied Data Science in the Center for Applied Biotechnology. She also is the co-founder and CSO of Cerro Data Science.

Jeff works with local start up and early to mid stage businesses, primarily in Food and Beverage industries, and also supports tech, transportation, manufacturing and other market segments. Jeff has held senior management positions in the software industry and became an independent consultant in 2010 to focus on the marketing needs and budgets of small, local businesses. Jeff holds a BSEE from WPI and an MBA from Pepperdine. 

Born and raised in Rhone Valley, France next to Lyon, the food capital UNESCO of the world. Germain moved to the US when he was 21.  He opened and created five different restaurants/bars between the Bay area (San Francisco, Oakland, Marin County ) and New York City.  He currently has over 70 employees and has been featured in Forbes, Sf Chronicle, Michelin guide (5 bib gourmand awards), and the New York Times for the top 50 places to go in the world. He is also a wine producer (Domaine du Somail, France 92 points Parker guide & Malbec Mendoza, Argentina) He is a certified sommelier and has a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing.  He speaks English and French.

 

BJ has over 36 years of industry experience leading software teams and providing
computer services to customers. His career encompassed diverse management and technical
positions where he drove strategy, acquisitions, architecture, software development and
quality assurance.

He holds a BS from the University of Illinois and a MS from the University of Arizona.

Dr. Anderson is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Dr. Anderson directs the Data Science Research Group at Cal Poly where his team specializes in developing and applying data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to the fields of bioinformatics, genomics, biomedical informatics, and metabolomics. His research group also specializes in the foundations of data science with a focus on explainable and fair ranking algorithms. He has served as the Director of Data Science at the College of Charleston where he founded the first MS in Data Science and Analytics in South Carolina. Dr. Anderson is actively engaged in Software Engineering and Data Science with extensive experience deploying AI and machine learning systems in production.