Who Are These Guys?
Alex Wolfe
Alex has broad experience not only in starting multiple businesses in the state of Nevada, but also in Nevada small business mentorship, and additionally in areas pertaining to international expansion and operations. Alex has coached and mentored businesses ranging from ideation phase pre-formation small businesses, to startups, failed startups, fast growth startups, including national and international multi-billion dollar entities.
Alex has further led and engineered international operational systems to allow for global transit of psychometric and generally Personally Identifiable data, across the boundaries of EU and US, relating to the intersection of GDPR, CCPA, BIPA, VCDP; navigating issues across US Dept of Commerce Safe Harbor framework, and otherwise facilitating the techno-operational aspects of international business concerns.
Additionally, Alex has engaged in coaching and mentoring cohorts of companies from Poland through Poland-Nevada Accelerator, as well as the Warsaw School of Economics and the broader referred ecosystem. Mr Wolfe has founded four Nevada based businesses and is intimately familiar with the facets and resources involved in not only the formation of an entity, but also the support structures in the community.
Matt Westfield
Matt started his first entrepreneurial endeavor at age 10, starting a TV Guide route, garnering 150 customers in the first year of operations. At 21 he founded the New Year Ultimate Fest, a Frisbee tournament in Tempe, AZ. The directors donate tourney proceeds to aid abused/neglected children every year.
His next successful venture was a design/build firm, started after dropping out of college at age 21 because he thought he knew everything. At 30, realizing that he did not know anything, he sold the successful company and went back to school, earning undergrads in computer science and international business, then pursued a Masters in marketing from City University in Seattle WA.
In 1994 Matt accepted the COO position for Dine-Rite software, an early internet restaurant play. Then in 1997, as a Microsoft Business Partner, he helped build the world’s first desktop anti-fraud software, developing the markets, channel strategies, and strategic alliances with the FBI, CIA, DOJ, DOD, State Farm Insurance.
He moved to Reno in 1999 to help launch an investor relations dotcom. In 2004 he acquired the US rights to a European design collection of executive gifts. The in 2005 he and a partner invented the first custom paperclip brand, which remains the leader in the space — www.LOGOpaperCLIPs.com.
Matt’s on 3 boards, founded and leads the vision for the Entrepreneurs Assembly (an entrepreneurial 501c3 non-profit he founded in 2009 — www.EA-NV.org). He helped develop and instructs the Entrepreneurial Minor at the University of Nevada, Reno, while creating business strategies, business plan mentoring and advising the UNR Entrepreneurs Club. He’s been a business plan writer since 1992, and a business plan judge since 2003.
Matt has tirelessly given back to charity and the community, recently being awarded the distinction as one of the Top 10 Community Leaders for Reno-Tahoe, the 2014 Governor’s Cup Mentor of the Year, and the 2014 SBA Entrepreneurial Spirit Award for his work with the EA.
Rachel Flanigan
Rachel Flanigan Ph.D. is a behavioral economist specializing in entrepreneurial decision making. Her academic work has focused on beliefs, strategy, and training at small young firms. She has worked with private data from the Kauffman Firm Survey to follow a cohort of 5,000 U.S. startups over eight years and model their financial decision making. Dr. Flanigan has conducted quantitative comparisons of U.S. Small Business Administration, public, and private training outcomes. Dr. Flanigan synthesizes personal contacts with hundreds of entrepreneurs and startup survey data for insights into how microenterprises succeed.
For the past 16 years, Dr. Flanigan has gained experience as an entrepreneurial consultant in start-up operations and data science. In her consulting practice, she currently conducts research design and data consulting for interdisciplinary academic studies at the intersection of economics, psychology, epidemiology, and medicine. She has performed quantitative relocation feasibility analysis for the Northern Nevada Development Authority. She currently serves on two non-profit boards.
In the government sector, Dr. Flanigan has worked for the US Census Bureau and the Nevada State Demographer’s Office. She has contributed to a National Academies of Science book on methodology in the American Community Survey.
In 2024, Dr. Flanigan was the research mentor for a binational team (University of Nevada, Reno, USA and Khawarizmi University Technical College, Amman, Jordan) in the US State Department sponsored Global Solutions Sustainability Challenge, supporting the team’s business canvas, business concept, and finalist pitch. She is an AmeriCorps national service alumnus.
Dr. Flanigan has been invited to present her research at many academic conferences and workshops including: The Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics, Western Economic Association International Conference, Bay Area Behavioral Economics Workshop, and SGH Warsaw School of Economics – UNR Symposium. She contributed a chapter to the book Entrepreneurship, Economic Development and Public Policy – In Search of Synergies. Ed. Parker, et al. As a University of Nevada academic, Dr. Flanigan has participated in bilateral entrepreneurship exchanges in the US and Europe, and given feedback at many student and visitor pitch presentations.
