About / Board of Directors and Advisors
Board of Directors
Hal Alles
Hal Alles has more than 20 years of high-tech management experience and was a founder of three high-tech startups. He started his career at Bell Laboratories in 1973 and was a founder of Silicon Design Labs (SDL) in 1983. SDL merged with Silicon Compiler, Inc., in 1987 to form Silicon Compiler Systems (SCS), which was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 1989. Alles stayed with Mentor Graphics as a General Manager and became Chief Technology Officer in 1995. He left Mentor Graphics in 1996 and helped found Genedax, a firm specializing in electronic design automation, in 1997. Alles was CEO of Genedax from 1997 to 2000. He was CEO of Averant from October 2000 to April 2002 when he left to found Home Comfort Zones. Alles has a B.S. in Physics from Case Western Reserve and a Ph.D. in Solid State Physics from the University of Oregon.
George Orban
George Orban served as CEO of Egghead.com from 1997-1999. He has been actively involved in the creation, development, and turnaround of several retail companies in various sectors. These include Ross Stores, Inc.; Aaron Brothers, Inc. merged into Michaels Stores, Inc; Office Mart, Inc. merged into Staples, Inc., Devon Stores, Inc. merged into Pantry Pride/Revlon, Inc.; and Egghead, Inc. He is a director of Ross Stores, Inc.
Jim Hermann
Jim Hermann has over 30 years of general management and sales and marketing experience. He started his career with Boise Cascade Corporation, spending time in manufactured housing and wood products marketing. He spent 4 years as a management consultant, before becoming President and part owner of The Earth Stove, Inc. a manufacturer of residential solid fuel and gas home heating products. Jim purchased the company in the mid 90’s and sold it to Lennox International in 1999. Jim became a VP and GM in Lennox’s Hearth Products division. Jim has been an advisor and board member of HCZ since 2004. He has a B.S. degree from The University of Washington, and an M.B.A from the Harvard Business School.
Board of Advisors
Alan Folkman
Alan Folkman served as Chief Investment Officer and was on the board of directors for Columbia Mutual Funds. He joined Columbia in 1975 and assisted them through their acquisition by Fleet Financial Group. While at Columbia, Alan developed an excellent rapport with the media. He has appeared with Louis Rukeyser, Bill Griffith and Jim Rogers and was also featured in Money Magazine, Smart Money, Fortune, Financial World, Barrons and the Wall Street Journal.
Bob Gregg
Bob Gregg joined the founding group at Sequent in 1983 where he became Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer and was responsible for raising over $120M of financing and taking the company public. Bob left Sequent after its sale to IBM in 1999 having grown revenues to over $800M to become Chairman and CEO at Unicru, a hiring management software applications company. Bob Gregg is currently CFO of FEI Corporation.
Brad Bigelow
Brad Bigelow is a veteran of the HVAC industry with more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of residential heating and cooling. Brad is currently VP of Operations for Tri County Temp Control, one of the largest HVAC dealers in Oregon.
Jerry Kaplan
Dr. Jerry Kaplan is widely known in the computer industry as an entrepreneur and technical innovator. Dr. Kaplan co-founded OnSale in 1994. Prior to OnSale, he was co-founder and chairman of GO Corporation, which develop Pen Point, a pen-based operating system. Before joining GO, Dr. Kaplan worked at Lotus as a senior technologist and as a co-founder of Teknowledge, a pioneer in artificial intelligence.
Jim Moon
Jim Moon was the Chairman and CEO of Serveron Corporation, located in Hillsboro, Oregon. Serveron provides proprietary technology for the management and condition assessment of critical electric utility transmission and distribution infrastructure. The company completed a $16.5 million financing in June 2001. Prior to joining Serveron, Mr. Moon was a founder and CEO of Protocol Systems from 1986 to 1998. Protocol Systems completed its initial public offering in 1992 and grew to over $68 million in sales.
John Skardon
John Skardon is the founder and former President of AirAdvice, John raised over $3M to launch the local company. AirAdvice markets an air quality monitoring service for both residential and commercial customers.
Kory MacGregor
Kory MacGregor is owner and President of Roth Heating and Cooling, a Portland, OR HVAC dealer that is nationally recognized as one of Lennox International’s top 25 dealers. Kory was instrumental in taking the organization from a small rural operation to one of Metro-Portland’s largest residential and light commercial HVAC companies. Roth Heating and Cooling is renown for their excellent service and their signature red trucks.
Paul Corso
Paul Corso, a Portland, Oregon, native, is retired from NW Natural with thirty-five years of experience in the gas utility industry. His responsibilities ranged from sales/marketing to manager of the Southwest Washington District. A major component of his career involved working with various construction trade associations at the local, state, and national levels. These organizations consisted of home builders, developers, remodelers and realtors. He is a lifetime member of the Home Builders' Association of Metro Portland and a recipient of the National Remodelers' Council Outstanding Associate Member of the Year. His community involvement included membership on the Clark College Foundation Board, Vancouver Rotary Board, and The Greater Clark County Chamber of Commerce Board.