Mentors | Center for Entrepreneurship | University of Portland

Center for Entrepreneurship
Buckley Center 216, MSC 181
5000 N Willamette Blvd.
Portland OR 97203
503-943-7769
ecenter@up.edu

Center for Entrepreneurship: Mentors

The Center for Entrepreneurship offers a mentor program that occurs throughout the school year. Mentors are members of the Greater Portland community that provide 30-minute appointments for students with venture plan related questions in their area of expertise or career advice. Here are some of the volunteers that currently mentor students:

Taylor Bergmann
Craig Christenson
Michael Coates
Lynn Le
Bob McCarthy
Tommy Pham
Eric Pozzo
Lucas Zettle

Taylor Bergmann Taylor Bergmann is a 2012 University of Portland graduate and E-Scholar. A co-founder and the creative director at Lagom he hopes to use people’s stories to incite change. Using both his experiences and interests in social change he works to ensure that products, messages, and branding represent Lagom's impact driven mission. Taylor has been involved in leading service learning immersions around Civil Rights, Native American culture, and social enterprise. He is currently serving as a St. Andre Fellow at Saint Andre Bessette Parish leading service learning immersions for high school and college students while working with those experiencing houselessness. Taylor's interests are in sustainable community development while qualitatively improving education and life long learning across borders and socio economic barriers.
Craig Christenson back to top
Michael Coates Michael graduated with a BS in 1971 from Western Oregon University. He went on to receive his MBA from the University of Portland in 1974. back to top
Lynn Le Lynn is Portland Seed Fund's Associate. She started actively connecting and networking with the Portland startup community, as well as tinkering with her own side projects, in college as an Entrepreneurship Scholar at the University of Portland. The relationships she's built with entrepreneurs and various investors have gained her a lot of insight and perspective about what it takes to create a successful startup. Her prowess is in product management and development, having served as the product manager for a social media firm in Portland. While she hasn't yet actively pursued her own startup, getting the opportunity to collaborate and help companies with the Portland Seed Fund thrive and succeed is an equally exciting challenge. She believes that Portland's tech economy will only grow with support and joint effort from private investors, business leaders, entrepreneurs and public policy influencers, and the Portland Seed Fund is a great representation of that. She can't wait to see what Portland grows to be in the next decade, and more importantly, she can't wait to be a part of it. Lynn graduated from the University of Portland, Cum Laude with a BBA in Global Business, focusing on Operations and Technology Management; and French Studies. She enjoys giving back to the community and mentors business school students at the University of Portland and provides community support when she can for Team Rubicon, a non-profit uniting the skills and experiences of military veterans with medical professionals to rapidly deploy emergency response teams. Lynn can be contacted through her LinkedIn account: Lynn's LinkedIn Account or follow her on twitter: @lynnle back to top
Bob McCarthy Bob has extensive financial management experience in manufacturing, software and services industries. Successful leader, team builder and communicator, with a background that includes achievements in Fortune 500 and development-stage organizations. Mr. McCarthy has been CFO for several technology start-ups with responsibility for financial modeling, business planning, operations and human resources. These organizations experienced rapid growth and their capital structures evolved through venture capital financing, acquisitions and mergers. In addition to successfully directing specific functional areas, he filled a leadership position on the Executive Staff as a trusted business partner influencing all major operational and strategic activities. He recently served as Vice President – Finance for Tripwire, a successful Portland-based software security firm. Bob received his BS in Accounting from the University of San Francisco and his MBA from Golden Gate University. back to top
Tommy Pham Tommy Pham graduated twice from the University of Portland. He received his B.S. in Biology (with a minor in Chemistry) from UP in 2008. And in 2011, he received his M.B.A. with a Certificate in Technology Entrepreneurship. He is currently a Technology Development Coordinator in the office of Technology Transfer & Business Development at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). His role consists of negotiating academic and industry agreements to advance research and commercialization of OHSU inventions. He is also responsible for assisting in the formation and development of OHSU start-ups and supporting the management of OHSU intellectual property portfolio. Tommy enjoys all things entrepreneurial. In the past three years he has been enthusiastically involved with the entrepreneurship community in Oregon. He was an E-Scholar in 2009, a business intern for several entrepreneurial/investment firms such as the Keiretsu Forum (the world’s largest angel investor network), and was a recent finalist of the $100K Business Plan Competition. His passion and inspiration is to one day lead the commercialization of a technology that will have a significant health and economic impact. Besides working at OHSU and various entrepreneurial projects, Tommy enjoys playing and watching competitive sports, spending time with his friends and family, social networking and mentoring younger students. He is part of the Horatio Alger Alumni Association and was a volunteer for The Big Brothers Big Sisters Association for over 4 years. back to top
Eric Pozzo Eric V. Pozzo is currently a manager of the 2008 Oregon Angel Fund, an early stage investment fund focused on generating exceptional returns by harnessing a disciplined, collaborative investment approach. Prior to a recent position as CFO/COO of CSI Digital (wholesale IPTV services), Eric was Vice President of Operations for First Silicon Solutions, Inc., an instrumentation company he helped found in 1998 with colleagues from his first start up in the early 80s. FS2 was acquired by a publicly held company, MIPS, in 2005. Eric came to Oregon in 1980 to work for Intel. He left in 1982 to help found, as President, a pioneering PC-based instrumentation company, Microcosm, Inc., and to pursue a career of entrepreneurship. He’s served in senior management roles in a number of start-ups including President of Creative Multimedia Corporation, an exciting company during the CD-ROM publishing boom. Both of these companies also enjoyed successful liquidity events. Eric received his ScB in Biology from Brown University in 1975 and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School of Business in 1980 back to top
Lucas Zettle Lucas Zettle is a University of Portland graduate who is passionate about entrepreneurship and business development. After two years in public accounting, Lucas passed his CPA exams and went to go to work for Webtrends, a marketing intelligence firm. Prior to graduating and starting his career, Lucas was a student at UP and was actively involved in various businesses, Spanish and recreation activities. Initially sparked by his experiences in his entrepreneurial ventures class, Lucas soon realized his passion for business deserved further exploration. He participated in the Entrepreneur Scholars program during his senior year at UP and finished second in the annual $16K Business Plan Competition. His pursuits of entrepreneurship have led him to various countries around the world helping him gain a broad perspective of global markets. Mr. Zettle is also the founder of Custom Curb Caps, producers of metal covers for concrete parking bumpers to extend their life and increase aesthetic appeal. The University of Portland, among others, boasts the sturdy curb caps around campus that were created by Lucas and his team. Lucas received his B.B.A. in Accounting and Spanish from the University of Portland in 2010 and continues to be involved in the Pilot community. back to top

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