Mark is the CEO of a 23 location Ace Hardware chain called Crown Ace Hardware and a local hero to may of us who know him. Mark and my lives have met on several areas and we dive into them here one at a time. We discuss business, building a service first culture, Being of service to the community, Catalina Channel crossings and other Waterman stuff, father hood and much more. Hope you enjoy!

You can find more on Mark here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-schulein/

In this special Collaboration Podcast I sit down as the first ever guest of “Up Shift Creek Podcast” with the host Mark Redgrave. Mark is Business Transformation Consultant and focuses on the People and Teams structures in companies to help drive improvements. In this podcast we dive into the concept of “It’s not all about Tech”. We discuss the state of business right now as we see it with our current clients, the near future and where is AI actually being implemented. This is a great conversation and has some predictions that I think you find interesting. Hope you enjoy.

You can connect with Mark here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mredgrave/

In this Boardroom Session we meet Eric Ching, recently retired Marine Safety Officer and Captain of the Huntington Beach Lifeguards. When I was 17 years old and working in a lifeguard tower at the beach myself, I thought the Lifeguard Boat Operators were the coolest guys on the planet. Well I got a chance to meet one with Eric and he confirms my beliefs here. Eric and I dive into his journey of becoming a captain, his best day and worst day on the water, how to deal with the public and what a day in life of an ocean lifeguard looks like at one of the busiest beaches in the world looks like. Hope you enjoy!

This podcast is produced in partnership with www.podlad.com

Welcome to this annual tradition where my good buddy Dave Rhoads - CEO and founder of Blue Street Capital, and I share our plans and processes for the New Year Goal Planning. We go fast and hard here so you may want to listen with a pen and notebook, seriously. I am super excited about the topics of Goals, Vision and Manifesting as you all know so this a special one for me. Hope you enjoy!

Dave is one of my favorite humans period! I am so grateful for the opportunity to sit and pick his brain on the is podcast. Dave is a legend in the Channel business and has built a very successful business helping many enterprise clients better their business. HE shares some amazing lessons learned her about breaking old patters and paradigms in this new work environment. We also discuss the future of the “vendor agnostic, client advocate consultant” and the value to the modern business leader.  Hope you enjoy!!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davedyson/

This podcast is edited by podlad.com

Welcome to a special live recording of a panel event that I hosted at our OCTP (Orange County Technology Professionals) networking happy hours. About once a quarter we have a live panel event to discuss some cool new tech, this event we went deep on Conversational AI aka BOT’s. On this panel I assembled a few of the most relevant folks in this space right now.

• Kristy Thomas – leads the CX vertical at one of the largest Technology Service Broker, Intelisys. She literally vets every vendor in this space to separate the hype from the players.   
• Tyson McDowell – a Venture Capital entrepreneur and expert in the space of AI. Tyson has built, sold and runs companies built on AI. His outlook on this technology and it’s future is incredibly well researched and we could give him a mic and go for days.
• Stephen Kennington – is a technical leader at DialPad who is engaged with many clients looking to implement Conversational AI in their organizations. He sees the Use Cases and understands where it fits and may not. DialPad has AI built into their product and is looking to the future of this space.

We had a lot of fun here and since this meeting I have had an incredible amount of conversations with enterprise technology leaders on how AI may help them. Hope you enjoy!

Kristy Thomas - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristy-thomas-bb004a29/

Tyson McDowell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tysonmcdowell/

Stephen Kennington - https://www.linkedin.com/in/srkennington/

This podcast is produced in partnership with http://www.podlad.com

Danny Nichols is a personal hero of mine for many reasons. First he is a selfless giver and runs one of the most impactful philanthropic organizations I know called Operation OpenWater serving the Veteran and First Responder communities. He is also a full on Bad Ass Waterman, HB Board Riders Team Rider and Coach, and one of the most humble good guys I know. We learn from Danny how he and his partners built their successful company called Ink Right, we hear about his background as a Pro Surfer and most importantly about his organization called Operation OpenWater which makes a life changing impact for so many in the Veteran and First Responder communities. I hope you enjoy.

If you are inspired and want to help please visit: https://www.operationopenwater.org/