Guiding Growth: The Expertise Behind Our Advisory Board
Today is the first day of Spring: HOORAY!! I am so appreciative of the early crocuses and grape hyacinths popping up through the still-frozen ground. My gratitude to these early harbingers of spring extends out to other areas of my life, to events and people I am most grateful for. Today, I’m feeling thankful for our advisory board members at GSS, folks whom we’ve met along our path of developing a business around scaling and meeting individualized goals for people and organizations. Each of our advisors brings a unique perspective and expertise to help Jennifer, Jason, and me as we scale our technology and continue to grow our business. I’d like to brag about them now so you can see the great company we keep:
Our first advisory board member, Dr. Clark Bennett, has been with us since our early days developing the first prototype at our university. Clark, now retired, was the founding director of the technology transfer program in the office of research. He provided opportunities for us to complete two rounds of National Science Foundation Introduction to Customer Discovery (NSF-ICD) training, to confirm the market need and help with early-stage business planning. Clark joined our advisory board after retiring and has helped us complete our spinoff from the university where we incubated our technology.
Dr. Robert Forgey was one of our NSF-ICD trainers back in 2017 who believed in us and our product and has continued as a mentor. As a fellow health scientist, Bob has served in leadership and operational roles at Searle, Pharmacia, and Pfizer. Bob is currently President and CEO of Iaso Therapeutics, Inc. Iaso’s technology develops vaccines that target cancer and infectious diseases. In 2022, Bob led his team in securing almost $1 million from the NSF to create vaccine carriers for pre-clinical and clinical studies.
Dr. Terri Kinzy, as the then Vice President of Research at our university, became familiar with our grant-funded behavioral health workforce education and training programs, in which we use GSS as an outcome measure. Terri is now an appointed member of the National Institutes of Health General Medical Sciences Council. In this role, she leads the evaluation of the NIGMS IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) Program and is on a search committee for an NIGMS leadership role.
David Esposito is a healthcare CEO and combat veteran, with experience building and scaling healthcare companies. David currently serves as CEO of ONL, a biotechnology start-up company that develops innovative therapies to protect vision for those with retinal diseases. David is leading the company in human clinical trials for treatment of retinal detachment. He is also a managing partner of Harvest Time Partners, Inc., a personal and professional development company. His focus on helping others achieve their full potential matches our own GSS core values. His insight and advice at key points in our development has been appreciated.
Steve Trebing, a pharmacist by trade, has worked for years in performance management and coaching. He brings expertise in sales training, marketing, and customer service to our GSS team. On a side note, Steve recently retired after 30 years of leading the Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association (KOHA) Learn to Skate program. He was featured in a news article hailing him as “A Learn to Skate Legend.” We appreciate his dedication and person-centered approach off the ice as well.
Last but not least, Amy Courter has played an integral role in our technology and business development. She is a certified EOS Implementer (Entrepreneurial Operating System) which GSS has used as an organizational framework since our inception. Amy recently shared that 2024 was a banner year for living her core values including ‘Help First’ and expanding her teaching, facilitating, and coaching of organizational leadership teams from Kalamazoo through Grand Rapids to Traverse City. We have certainly felt her influence in keeping us on track, living our core values, and ensuring we have the right people in the right seats.
A pretty impressive bunch, wouldn’t you say? As I stare out at these early flowers of spring, I can’t resist a cheesy analogy: Our GSS Advisory Board is the water and sun that helps GSS grow and succeed. We couldn’t do it without them!