“Elizabeth Lake and her team have provided business consulting services to my company for 10 years and have been very instrumental in helping us identify and select key personnel and analyze and improve internal processes, all of which have resulted in a +300% growth during that time period. We highly recommend their services.”
Nathan Carlson | 24 Hour Flex and RPS Plan Administrators, Inc.
Our Team
ELIZABETH LAKE
CEO
With over 22 years of experience with Privately Owned Growth Enterprises, Ms. Lake has worked with owners to develop sustained business value growth in both the United States and Canada through entrepreneurial development, focused operational efficiency, effective management team development, enhanced financial management, measurement and accountability. She has taken hundreds of privately-held business owners and their management teams to the next level as they seek to experience accelerated growth, improve their business value, and navigate the process of successful business succession. Ms. Lake has worked with business owners, their families, and their employees, who have faced and successfully navigated handing over the proverbial reins by developing a strategy to experience a smooth and efficient transition to the next owner/entrepreneur. She is also an expert in cross-border business growth; helping companies in the U.S. and Canada navigate the development of their companies abroad.
Ms. Lake’s work in the integrated development of entrepreneurs and their business enterprises has been highly recognized in the industry. Recently a number of heads of departments and faculty of the Harvard Business School acknowledged The Entrepreneurial Flight TM model developed by Ms. Lake, Mr. Wernimont and their team as leading-edge thinking for private businesses.
Ms. Lake has been a featured speaker and instructor for organizations including Citywide Banks, First Western Bank, Business Enterprise Institute, BOWDA, Surrey Board of Trade, and Denver Chamber of Commerce. She is the chair for two international chapters of the Women President’s Organization (WPO) in Denver, Colorado and in Calgary, Alberta. There are currently 90 chapters of WPO in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Peru and South Africa.
Prior to vNacelle, Ms. Lake was a founding partner of ROCG, a full-service business advisory and consulting firm with 40 offices internationally. Her company in Denver, Colorado was voted one of "The Top 100 Women-Owned Businesses of 2003” by Colorado Biz Magazine. While with ROCG, Ms. Lake specialized in strategy, finance and operations with privately-owned and emerging growth enterprises. She worked with multiple companies to achieve sustainable profits and increase their value with high-double digit growth.
Prior to opening her own business, Ms. Lake worked at Microsoft, Mobil Oil and Union Oil where she designed business systems and processes, enhancing sales and operational efficiencies, to increase accuracy of management information and drive profitability.
Ms. Lake graduated with honors from the Colorado School of Mines, with a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering. She is also a graduate of the Women and Minority Fast Track and Business Fast Track programs. Ms. Lake has been certified as a RAN ONE and The Profile Group consultant.
MEL WERNIMONT
PH.D., Partner
Well known, well respected, and top rated, Dr. Melvin Wernimont brings the kind of
excitement, energy, and background to vNacelle that makes a difference. As a founding partner COO, his talent for business training and facilitating has been used to inspire, educate, and encourage both national and international business audiences.
Dr. Wernimont's years of experience in consulting in a variety of capacities are multidimensional. He is uniquely gifted in taking all ranks of company employees and transitioning them into team members. Through well developed methods, insight and often humor, he can advance people in every capacity of the corporate ladder to understand and participate in team dynamics, Dr. Werinomont provides follow through and business support that ensures goals are achieved. Presently, his expertise and focus is in helping companies and owners through transitional phases at all levels.
Dr. Werrnimont holds a Ph.D. in psychology from which he brings a remarkable and well established ability to understand, interpret and resolve corporate internal dynamics (and personality issues). His diverse area of expertise includes business strategy, management team consulting, growth acceleration, family dynamics, succession, and team development. He maintains a deep understanding and integration of the financial perspective and interpersonal portion of the business world and the synergy needed between them to produce profitable results.
Dr. Wernimont has applied his skills and experience in assisting start up companies, multi-million dollar corporations and the growth in between.
BROOKS HOVEN
Consultant
Brooks began his career as a founder of a small ski shop in Colorado. After the sale of this first business, he continued to be involved in many early-stage ventures, in industries such as engineering, construction, and medical device manufacturing. One of Brooks’ greatest career advancements came when he joined a start-up called Heartstream, manufacturers of portable defibrillators. Brooks was instrumental in influencing state and local governments to modify laws related to early defibrillation programs. As a result, Heartstream achieved great success that, to date, has led to thousands of saved lives through public access defibrillation. Heartstream was then acquired by Hewlett Packard and, with continued financial results, Philips Healthcare Corporation eventually acquired the company. With the executive sales training Brooks received from three top corporations - in addition to his MBA - he has extensive knowledge and mastery of start-up high growth sales and sales management, organizational development, distribution, business finance, and marketing.
In the past, Brooks was a Semi-Pro baseball third baseman, a world-class ski racer, and he holds some impressive records in whitewater kayaking. Brooks currently resides in Del Mar, California with his wife and three children.
ALEXANDRA MCFARLAND
Consultant
When business owners really want to progress toward their business goals, Alexandra McFarland has proven herself to be “right for the job”. Ms. McFarland helps businesses identify, understand and actually implement the changes that facilitate the achievement of growth and full business potential. As a key component and success factor, Ms. McFarland believes that a an advisor like herself must understand and adeptly help manage the effect the changes of growing business have on each individual involved, as well as the organization as a whole, in order for the changes to be successfully navigated - up to and including owner transitions
As a consultant and a 19 year veteran of the Information Technology industry, she has led several small and large teams responsible for the design and implementation of a variety initiatives, achieving significant positive change and consistently producing the desired business results: growth, expansion and bottom line financial results.
Ms. McFarland has experience working in a variety of functional roles within a business, including finance, marketing, account and business development and has a foundational key skill set which includes strong communication, presentation, and relationship building. She is an accomplished facilitator and has extensive training in multi-cultural facilitation and conflict resolution. She has successfully led a variety of groups such as executives, global account teams and non-profit boards to do their best thinking.
Connection with her local community is important to Ms. McFarland. She has a direct interest in the development of women owned businesses. She volunteers with a neighborhood association board, facilitating issues and conflicts between Stanford University and the city of Palo Alto, California. She also helps non-profit organizations with business planning sessions.
She holds a BA in Philosophy from Santa Clara University and an MBA from the American Graduate School of International Management.
BARBARA MOWAT
Consultant
A trailblazer in her own right, Barbara Mowat is the president and owner of Impact Communications. With more than thirty years of experience, Ms. Mowat offers services that feature three major activity areas: management training and consulting, writing of training and business guides and materials, and international product, business and market development for the global marketplace. The latter includes creating and producing trade shows, conferences, forums, and trade missions.
Prior to her involvement with Impact Communications, Ms. Mowat was the founder and publisher of Home Business Report, the first Canadian national newsstand magazine for micro-enterprises. She was also the founder and owner of UniquelyCanada.com, an e-commerce gift store representing SME enterprises. Additionally, she created Uniquely Programs, an organization that helped entrepreneurs access the global marketplace. Through all of her endeavors, Ms. Mowat has been an international leader in the development of SME enterprises with a special focus on women. She has offered assistance to entrepreneurs throughout Canada, South East Asia, USA, South America, Europe, Afghanistan, and Africa.
Ms. Mowat has experience working with both, companies large and small, near and far. She has worked in the industries of government, health, human services, education, and served as an instructor on college campuses.
For Ms. Mowat, community involvement is also important. She devotes her free time and energies to serve on boards and committees. She is an active member of the Advisory Board of Seattle's KCTS Public Broadcasting TV station, and Advisory Board Member of Global Banking Alliance for Women Entrepreneurs, and the founder and facilitator for two Vancouver Chapters of the Women's Presidents Organization (WPO).
Ms, Mowat's achievements have been widely acknowledged. She received the 1993 Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Impact on the Local Economy. She was also a "Support to Entrepreneurship" nominee at the 1994 Ernst and Young Entrepreneurship Awards.
KIM LABRECHE
CA, Consultant
Kim is passionate about “making a difference in the business lives of our clients”, mentoring team members and thinks of herself as the “accountant with a heart”. Generous to a fault, Kim is genuinely interested in assisting clients to get where they want to go and is capable of doing so with her professional accounting designation and having lead her own successful accounting practice. She can also do this in French having attended French schools in New Brunswick!
Having worked in public practice and in the banking industry as an account manager, Kim has a lot of background and experience upon which to draw. She is not afraid of a challenge as she purchased the accounting practice of “Saklas & Co.” in 2002 when her son was only 2 years old and understands first hand the risks and rewards of owning a business.
According to Kim, "What is exciting for us now is that we are poised to help clients in all areas of their business. We have an integrative approach in which we can help clients with their bookkeeping, year end preparation, tax planning (Canadian and US cross border) and finally with the consulting offered here to build business value to enable owners to harvest this value when they are ready to live their next adventure!"
Kim lives in Surrey, BC with her husband Carl and son Justin. In her free time, Kim loves spending time with her family in Birch Bay, WA, skiing and travelling to new places.
DICK WALLACE
Consultant
Dick Wallace is the President of The Alternative Board of Nashville, which brings together owners of privately held businesses to overcome challenges and seize new opportunities with a combination of peer advice and business coaching. Board members meet monthly to learn from one another's successes to grow their businesses. Dick or his other facilitators meet monthly one-on-one with each CEO to assist them in seeking answers to their business challenges. Dick currently oversees six executive boards with forty three members.
Dick possesses over twenty-five years of top-level leadership and business experience, leading Army organizations of over 20,000 soldiers and non-profits (Eagle Ranch north of Atlanta, similar in mission to Boys/Girls Town) and for profit enterprises (a law firm in CA). He pioneered the business restructuring of Army installations across the US, and was also a key catalyst in the creation of the Georgia Oglethorpe Award for business excellence.
Dick holds degrees from the US Military Academy at West Point and a Masters in Operations Research from Georgia Tech. He graduated from the Senior Leader National Security Program, JFK School of Government, Harvard University. Dick is also a decorated combat veteran and commanded at the Brigade level in the U.S. Army.
Dick has been married for forty-two years, has two children and five grandchildren. He and his wife moved to Nashville almost six years ago to be close to three of their granddaughters. Throughout his career, Dick has been active in his local churches when career obligations allowed, and served on the board of Monterey Boys Ranch in Monterrey, CA. He enjoys family time, travel, is an avid Cross-Fit junkie and wants to learn to sail.