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Chandler Sterling founded the California Beard Company in 2016. A cartographer by training but a lover of beards by birth he became frustrated by the cosmetics industry after searching for a high-quality natural beard oil. Fed up with being unable to find a suitable beard oil, and being a DIYer at heart, he set out to create his own recipe that would meet his high standards. The goal was to create something simple, only containing materials that came from the earth, that could mimic a product from the era before cosmetics were synthesized and contained potentially harmful chemicals. The result of this experiment led to California Beard Company’s Original Beard Oil recipe. After months of serious use, he realized that this product needed to be shared with the world, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.
Christina is the Owner of Knieriem Designs (pronounced Canary-um) and KD Social. At Knieriem Designs she designs and produces women's clothing in her studio in Alexandria, Virginia. At KD Social, she helps small businesses stand out on social media. She's all about supporting local small businesses and is especially passionate about empowering female entrepreneurs.
Chris Hoffman, Owner and Co-founder of Formula Running Center in Arlington, VA, has always been passionate about running and endurance training. After years of training, Chris continually found himself searching for a place that provided the complete training experience for all runners, a place where runners could train together and grow. From there, Chris worked with a longtime friend and business partner, to create and cultivate the home for runners – Formula Running Center. Chris has competed in numerous marathons, running races and in a variety of triathlons as well and through his running journey he became an RRCA certified running coach and a NASM certified personal trainer.
Carisa is the CEO of tilr, a company that uses an algorithm to blindly match qualified workers with companies to fill their immediate placement needs. She drives tilr’s strategic vision and day-to-day execution with a relentless passion for the new workforce marketplace and providing it with innovative, sustainable solutions. In her role, Carisa works closely with the board, internal team, strategic partners and clients as part of her efforts to ensure aggressive scale and success. She's a serial entrepreneur who honed her digital recruitment skills at Careerbuilder.com, where she spent over seven years building multi-million-dollar business units
Finding the fantastic” between the hustle of surviving life and achieving it. Colleen Dee Tiberius Shumaker is real and authentic. With a twist of learning disabilities, she calls her super powers, her goal is to show people they are not alone in their struggles, and they matter. She is able to do this through her podcast called “Finding the Fantastic” where she sheds light on everyday stereotypes, and the troubles that those bring, to help galvanize and motivate people’s individuality.
Connor Gillivan is a founder and the Chief Marketing Officer of FreeeUp.com, a leading freelance marketplace for eCommerce and digital marketing professionals. Connor served as CEO of his first eCommerce company which sold over $25 million on Amazon. He regularly writes for his own site, ConnorGillivan.com, and is passionate about building companies from the ground up.
Chase Louderback, a Virginia native, began his real estate career in 2012 as a sophomore in college with the purchase of his first investment property. In the past 7 years, he has renovated numerous single-family homes to rent or resell and has subsequently co-founded Lioncrest Investments LLC, a manufactured home community investment company in 2019.
Cathy H Harkless, is the founder of Yhtack in Stitches. Yhtack in Stitches is a embroidery company offering embroidery & digitizing of logos, designs and images. We personalize, individualize and customize. Our talented team consists of needle arts have a passion for crochet and embroidery personalizing gifts with bling and embellishment for gift giving for life events such as babies, birthdays, weddings, retirements, memorials, gift baskets and our gorgeous line of realtor gift baskets. The Yhtack team strives to exceed our clients expectations by imagining the possibilities in the amazing world of needle arts.
enjoys hiking and backpacking."
Christina Baucom is an attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Headquartered in Alexandria, Va, the USPTO is the federal agency responsible for granting U.S. patents and registering trademarks. Throughout her education and career, Ms. Calloway has sought to merge her personal passion for the arts and professional pursuits in public service. She is a Board member of the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association and was recently appointed to the City’s Commission for the Arts. She frequently speaks and/or volunteers in educating small business owners and creatives about their intellectual property. She is the digital content creator of sharpandsound.com focusing on local lifestyle and style inspiration.
