2006 GSEC Team Mentors

Our heartfelt thanks to the following team mentors, who work with the teams long distance and in person in Seattle to improve and complete their business plans:

Charles Antholt is an agricultural economist with more than thirty years of development experience, twenty nine of those living in and/or working on problems of agricultural development with US Agency for International Development and the World Bank in five South Asian countries.  All of his work was associated with grass roots agriculture and rural development; institutional development in agricultural, e.g., agricultural research and extension system, graduate schools of agriculture, rural and agricultural credit; and public policy, e.g., agricultural price policy, privatization of fertilizer distribution, trade policies, etc.  Currently he is an adjunct professor at Western Washington University , owner/operator of a small organic truck farm on Lummi Island, WA , and chairperson of Whatcom County 's Agricultural Advisory Committee.   Recently he has been particularly active in working with the dairy industry, the largest agricultural sub-sector in Whatcom County, and Western students in seeking to enlarge market opportunities in Canada and East Asia for Washington State dairy products.

Michael Bridges is the Technical Director of Drinking Water and Coatings Products at HaloSource, Inc., a Redmond-based bioscience company. Prior to HaloSource, Michael served in variety of roles including a Program Manager for several environmental engineering consultancies; head of operations for a ceramic drinking water filter company start-up; and Engineering Manager at a small Southern California-based aerospace firm. He has developed several drinking water products as well as numerous high-temperature ablative materials for space and industrial use. Michael received his BS and MS in Chemical Engineering at the University of California at Davis ('88) and University of Washington ('90) respectively, and holds an MBA ('98) from the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. Michael is also a Registered Professional Engineer in California and Washington.

Jos de Laat is a graduate of the University of Brabant in the Netherlands with a BA in Business and a MBA with a focus on IS from the Erasmus University in The Netherlands/University of Michigan. His career consists of 20 years of international business experience in audit, management consulting, finance, operations, IS, and business development. He is currently the COO of Topics Entertainment, the nation's number one publisher of education, reference and language learning software and audio products.

Although the focus on Topics Entertainment is the North American market, Jos keeps a keen interest in international business. This was one of the main reasons he wanted to sign up a mentor for the GSEC program.

D. Duane Dunk has served in management within HaloSource Inc. in a variety of roles including the Water Treatment Division, Drinking Water Systems, Operations, and Manufacturing. He came to HaloSource from Marathon Ceramics, a subsidiary of MSR (Mountain Safety Research) and REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.), where he served as Managing Director. Previously he was Director of Corporate Development at Triad Plastic Technologies, recipient of the 1998 Northern Nevada 's Small Manufacturer of the Year Award and the Comstock Vanguard Award for fastest growing companies.

Duane was an appointee of the late U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown to the District Export Council (DEC) in Nevada and served as the acting chairman. He was an appointee of Lt. Governor Lonnie Hammergren of Nevada to the Advisory Board on International Trade and Investment to the State Commission on Economic Development. He is a past president of the Nevada World Trade Council (NEWTRAC) and board member emeritus.

Duane has authored eight published technical articles involving various aspects of water treatment. He has been a presenter at the University of Washington, University of Nevada Reno, and at University of Nevada Las Vegas for seminars on international trade and competitive intelligence. A CPA, he holds degrees in marketing and in accountancy and information systems from Southwest Texas State University and the University of Texas , Permian Basin. He is presently enrolled in an online MBA consortium program of five leading universities, administered by Ellis College of the New York Institute of Technology.

Dr. Karen Johnson Freeze is currently Senior Researcher and Coordinator for Central and Eastern Europe for Tensions of Europe , based at the Technical University of Eindhoven. She is also a Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Lecturer in the Ellison Center (Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies) of the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. A UW graduate in History, she holds a Ph.D. in East European History from Columbia University and has focused on the management and history of technology in Central and Eastern Europe. Freeze's cross-disciplinary work includes case studies in the management of design and technology for the Harvard Business School, the Design Management Institute, and the UW Business School. Her current projects include (a) studies in the management of innovation under communism and technology transfer to the West, focusing on the textile machine industry of communist Czechoslovakia; (b) a case study on design management at Samsung; and (c) a handbook on the management of technology in opera production, prompted by her growing interest in non-profit management. Freeze has spent over ten years in Europe and is fluent in several European languages.

Tim Hanstad president and CEO of Rural Development Institute, is a native of the farm country of Skagit Valley. While a law student, he answered an ad for a research assistant from RDI founder, Roy Prosterman. Prosterman needed help at the then nascent RDI. Since then, Tim has led RDI's growth in institutional strength and effectiveness. His life's work on land reform is grounded in a deep faith and commitment to serving the world's rural poor.

Tim has 16 years of research, consulting, writing, and project experience on land law, policy, and administration in both developing and transition economies. He also teaches at the University of Washington School of Law, where he co-directs a graduate program in Law of Sustainable International Development. His field experience includes 15 countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Since mid-2001, he has staffed RDI's India field office, where he is spearheading RDI's new India program. Tim holds a J.D. (1988) and an LL.M. (1994) from the University of Washington School of Law, and B.A. from Seattle Pacific University (1985) in Political Science and History.

Douglas L. MacLachlan is Professor, Department of Marketing and International Business, University of Washington Business School. He has a BA in Physics, MA in Statistics, MBA and PhD in Marketing, all from the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches primarily marketing research, database marketing, multivariate data analysis, and data mining. He has had extensive experience in consulting, marketing research, and management development and has published many articles in various academic and business journals. He has been Visiting Scholar at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France; and Visiting Professor at Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. As Associate Dean of the UW Business School, he helped establish the Global Executive MBA joint program between Yonsei University and UW.

Heidi A Mahy A Research Scientist, Ms. Mahy works primarily in the areas of nuclear defense nonproliferation and global security. At the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), her experience in this area includes assessing the ramifications of nonproliferation policy options, including social, political, and security implications of assured fuel supply as a means to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technology. Ms. Mahy has also supported the US interagency group of the Biological Weapons Conventions, through analyzing the potential impact of new and emerging technologies and mechanisms to mitigate the proliferation of biological weapons. She is currently assessing technology gaps affecting public information and communications in the emergency response and management process. She is also developing an international forum for dialogue between technical experts and policy analysts in the US and Southeast Asia regarding new and emergency security and nonproliferation concerns. Educational background includes: M.A., International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington'M.B.A., University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, and a in B.A., French and Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Dipika Matthias is a program officer in the Business Development Unit of PATH in Seattle. Her major responsibilities focus on developing a downstream competitive market for stabilized vaccine products, involving most critically, developing collaborations with private sector technology and vaccine partners in a manner that will maximize eventual product accessibility and directing market research and other analyses required to understand and demonstrate the value of stabilization technologies to various stakeholder groups. Before joining PATH, Ms. Matthias worked as an independent consultant, providing strategic partnership and product advice to the market research/information product suppliers of the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to her consulting work, Ms. Matthias led a team of marketing analysts at a subsidiary of Merck. She also has had several years of experience at the World Bank. She holds an MBA from Yale and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University

Fred Mednick was raised in Los Angeles and moved to Seattle in 1994. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of California , his master's degree at the Claremont Colleges, and his doctorate at Seattle University. Up to the founding of Teachers Without Borders in 2000, he served as the head of two prominent schools, both with extensive programs recognizing individual learning strengths, strengthening faculty professional development, community service, and global education. His book, Rebel Without A Car: A Principal's Guide to Adolescence , has been translated into European languages and was excerpted in a compilation called: “Parent School: The Best Parenting Books of our Time.” The book provided him the unique opportunity to work with the late Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Teachers Without Borders (www.teacherswithoutborders.org) works to close the education divide through teacher professional development and community education, with members in 84 countries. TWB's International Advisory Board includes leadership from academics and influential leaders such as Dr. Jane Goodall. TWB has members in 84 countries. TWB has established Community Teaching & Learning Centers (CTLCs) in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Central America . In addition, TWB runs workshops for teachers from regions in conflict. In February 2006, Teachers Without Borders was selected by the Global Philanthropy Forum to present at their annual conference in a special session: Meet the Social Entrepreneurs..

Li Ping is a Staff Attorney and Beijing Representative of the Rural Development Institute, a Seattle-based non-governmental land law and policy institute. Since 1987, Mr. Li has conducted extensive research on rural land rights in China, and has provided technical assistance to the Chinese government and international development agencies related to the development and implementation of Chinese land laws, including the 1998 Land Administration Law and the 2002 Rural Land Contracting Law. He has directly interviewed over 1,000 farmers in 20 Chinese provinces regarding to their rights to land. Worked in a collective farm in China before China 's economic reforms, Mr. Li has witnessed dramatic changes in rural China . Mr. Li is a graduate from China 's Southwest Teacher's University (1977), Seattle University (M.P.A. 1989) and University of Maine School of Law (J.D. 2000).

Dr. Bradley F. Smith was named Dean of Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University in September of 1994. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Smith had served for three years as the first Director of the Office of Environmental Education for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He also served as a Special Assistant to the administrator of the EPA and as Acting Associate Administrator for the EPA. Dr. Smith was appointed to the U.S. Senior Executive Service in 1992. Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and the Environment. His B.A. and M.A. are in economics and political science.

From 1975 to 1990, Dr. Smith was a professor of political science and biology, and concurrently was executive director of Michigan's Tobico Marsh National Refuge from 1982 to 1990. Dr. Smith has been a Fulbright Scholar to England and a NATO Fellow in Belgium. He holds adjunct faculty positions in Russia, China, Holland and Japan.

Currently, he serves as a senior advisor to General Motors Corporation V.P. Environment, Energy and Public Policy and the GM Foundation. He also is an external evaluator for the U.S. Department of Energy and is the President of the U.S. Council of Environmental Deans and Directors and President of the World Conservation Learning Network. Dr. Smith is the Governor-appointed Chair of the Washington State Sustainability Commission. Formerly Dr. Smith served as an appointed member of President Clinton's Council for Sustainable Development (Education Task Force). His most recent publications include co-author of Environmental Science: A Study of Interrelationships, 10 th edition 2005, and Environmental Science Field Guide and Laboratory Manual , 10th edition 2005. McGraw-Hill.

Kentaro Toyama is assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, in Bangalore.  He leads a group that conducts research to identify applications of computing technology in emerging markets and for international development.  From 1997 to 2004, he was at Microsoft Research in Redmond , where he did research in multimedia and computer vision and worked to transfer new technology to Microsoft product groups.  In 2002, he took personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi University, a private liberal arts college in Ghana. Kentaro graduated from Harvard with a bachelors degree in physics and from Yale with a PhD in computer science. 

Joanne Young VP of the board of the Seattle-Tashkent Sister City Association

Ray Zambroski, President and CEO, Essential Security Software, joined Essential Security Software in 2004 and brings more than 12 years senior management experience in the creation, development, and marketing of emergent PC and web-based technologies. As Essential Security Software's former vice president of sales and marketing, Zambroski led marketing, strategic partner development, and customer acquisition efforts.

Zambroski spent seven years with Microsoft Corporation where he was instrumental in developing the company's worldwide value-added reseller channel, and built ISV partnerships contributing to Microsoft Windows, SQL Server™ and Small Business Server revenues worldwide. After his tenure at Microsoft, Zambroski was director of sales and marketing for GLIDES, an early and leading developer of global Web content management tools. GLIDES was subsequently sold to Streamcast, a peer-to-peer digital media distribution company. Zambroski then became vice president of sales and marketing for Spinoza Technology. Zambroski led product development and partnership strategy for the first PC-based audio-visual management and control product, which was subsequently licensed to multi-national audio-visual original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as InFocus, Christie Digital and Da-Lite for worldwide distribution.

Zambroski holds a Bachelor of Arts from Seattle University . Zambroski has a black belt and practices Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do, Tai Chi and Bagwa. He is also an avid runner, cyclist, and co-founder of a rugby team. Zambroski serves as a board member for Artworks, where he is passionate about bringing professional arts opportunities to at-risk youth.

Updated February 27, 2006