Assisting Clients in
Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties
805.384.1800
hosted by: Economic Development Collaborative-Ventura County (EDC-VC) SBDC

Blog Archives

Kelly Noble

Kelly Noble has been the office manager for EDC since 2003, giving her extensive experience managing workflow and office systems. She has expert organizational skills, honed through catering and party-planning. She is an entrepreneur and former owner of an appliance repair shop, where she handled all aspects of the business.

Stephanie Gonzalez

Stephanie Gonzalez serves as the Client Services Specialist for the EDC and the SBDC. Stephanie helps assess small business owners who are seeking professional technical assistance and connects them to the appropriate business adviser. In addition to her position at the EDC Stephanie is completing her B.A. in Psychology and a translation certificate for Spanish at California State University of Channel Islands.

Alondra Gaytan

Alondra Gaytan serves as the Client Services Manager for the EDC SBDC. She is responsible for assessing small business owners and innovators seeking professional/ technical assistance. In addition, Alondra assigns small businesses to the SBDC’s business advisers who provide co-cost consulting to businesses in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.

Dr. Eric Zackrison

Dr. Eric Zackrison, MBA, MA/PhD Organizational Communication, has been teaching, training, and consulting in Santa Barbara and Ventura for the last five years, with a heavy focus on team building, leadership, and strategy. His published research indicates that workplace relationships are at the core of coordinated teams and organizations. His work embraces the understanding that we have diverse ways of interacting and empowers people to manage those differences to be more successful.

Craig Wilson

Craig Wilson supports startups in preparing the C-Corp for bylaws, share allocation, participant shareholders and term sheets. He is certified in Investment Banking for Private Equity and Venture Capital, and has experience in pre- and post-acquisition, having gone through two startup exits. Craig is an engineer who has built software and hardware companies and can help founders architect and identify areas to improve scalability, including how to hire engineers. Craig’s experience also includes operations for hiring and staffing growth, and financial operations.

Erick Went

Erick Went is the CEO and co-founder of a startup studio and corporate innovation lab. Erick is passionate about distilling complex business problems down to their practical essence, helping organizations look beyond their own boundaries to discover new ideas, knowledge, and ways of working. He has managed large-scale innovations engagements for companies ranging Fortune 100 companies to early stage startups. Partnering with universities and venture-backed startups, Erick has developed roadmaps that communicate the innovation potential of a core technology / process at the earliest possible stages, helping to protect, project, and expand the scope of their intellectual property claims and long-term competitiveness.

Bryan Went

At the age of 16, Bryan Went started his first company, one of the first alternative fuel companies to generate power from hydrogen and developed the first flexible fuel vehicle that could run on four different fuels. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he cofounded another company with his brother Erick to provide strategic technologies for companies like SAP, Microsoft, Honda and FOX studios. Bryan has studied, traveled and lived all over world. Currently his focus is being the founder of a startup studio and corporate innovation lab.

Jay Tsao, M.B.A.

Jay Tsao, M.B.A., is the founder and CEO of a global B2E e-commerce market-place startup utilizing innovative media and SaaS technology to facilitate commerce transactions and make trade between SME’s easier around the world. Tsao was a partner and board member of a leading international trading and distribution conglomerates. There he built several of the companies’ ecommerce platforms and managed supply chain partners from raw material sourcing, OEM/private label development, pre/post production oversight, logistic strategies, and customer clearance.

Sonata Taman

Sonata Taman is an experienced business advisor specializing in B2B growth, strategic marketing, alternative revenue streams, and global scaling. As a Fortune 100 trained CSO and an entrepreneur, she has extensive experience in global strategy and marketing operations with an eye for sustainable scaling.

Al Spector

Al Spector brings over 30 years of business experience to …