Echo Summit Advisory Board

Mr. Jonathan Gear
President and Chief Operating Officer of IHS CERA, and Senior Vice President of IHS Inc.
Mr. Gear is President and Chief Operating Officer of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA), and Senior Vice President of IHS Inc., where he is responsible for the commercial aspects of IHS Insight business, including IHS CERA, IHS Fairplay, IHS Global Insight, IHS Herold, and IHS Jane’s. He has a broad range of international experience working with major energy companies and providing strategic consulting services. In addition to his work with IHS Mr. Gear has international experience in the oil, gas, and energy businesses, and in consulting.

While a consultant at Booz-Allen & Hamilton he worked on assignments in the oil, gas, and energy industries, developing strategic plans at both the corporate and product level, and leading detailed implementation assignments focused on operational improvements for Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Gear also served as Vice President of Marketing & Business Development for Activant Solutions, a leading technology provider of vertical business management solutions primarily serving the automotive, hardware/lumber, and wholesale distribution businesses, and directly managed Activant’s full European operations. Mr. Gear holds a BA magna cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mr. Gear assists Echo Summit in ensuring that it always enjoys a technical advantage vis-à-vis the competition, and that its maintains both national and international scaling potential.

In 2008, the Denver Business Journal recognized Mrs. Wapensky‘s leadership by awarding her with its prestigious CFO of the Year for Large Private Companies award. The newspaper also lauded her work outside the office to support community nonprofits. Mrs. Wapensky‘s passion for education led her to serve as chair of the board of the Children's Museum of Denver. She is also a member of the Women‘s Vision Foundation, for which she spearheaded the 10th annual Women’s Success Forum in 2007, a leadership conference attended by more than 1,200 corporate women.

Mrs. Wapensky has worked in finance for over 20 years. She is a certified public accountant and earned her master‘s of business administration degree from New York University. She earned her undergraduate business degree from the University of Colorado.

Mrs. Wapenski assists Echo Summit in strategic business planning, and in general, enjoys poking holes in the Echo business plan.

Mr. David J. Steiner
Principal at Ehrhardt, Keefe, Steiner & Hottman PC (EKS&H)
Mr. Steiner is a Principal at EKS&H. He has been involved in public accounting servicing private and public companies since 1975. He has extensive experience in a variety of industries including manufacturing, franchising, wholesale distribution, real estate development and publicly-held companies. His expertise encompasses issues in privately held companies including succession of management and structuring of capital needs relative to growth and succession ... plans, and the SEC requirements for public companies. Mr. Steiner graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration with emphasis in accounting from the University of Colorado. His professional affiliations include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants; Colorado Society of Certified Public Accountants; member of AICPA Peer Review Committee. He is active in various community organizations.

Mr. Steiner assists Echo Summit in all aspects of accounting, tax strategy, and strategic planning.

Mr. Alan Mayer
Managing Director, Green Manning and Bunch (GMB) Business Advisors
Mr. Mayer joined GMB Business Advisors in 2003. GMB Business Advisors is a division of GMB focused on creating financial solutions for lower middle-market companies typically valued between $5-$30 million, which have historically been underserved by the professional financial community. Prior to joining GMB Business Advisors, Mr. Mayer completed numerous merger and acquisition and private financing transactions as president of his own firm, Mayer Business Advisors, and as vice president and principal of UniRock Management Corporation, a Denver-based merchant banking firm. Previously, Mr. Mayer was senior vice president and general counsel of Colorado Gaming & Entertainment Co. (CG&E), a publicly traded entertainment company. While at CG&E, Mr. Mayer oversaw in excess of $250 million of equity, debt and equipment financings, and successfully directed the sale of the company for $90 million to an international hospitality company. He began his professional career as an attorney at Isaacson, Rosenbaum, Woods & Levy, P.C., where he specialized in corporate, securities and real estate law. Mr. Mayer currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Jewish Family Service of Colorado. Mr Mayer received his BA from the University of Colorado, and his JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Mr. Mayer assists Echo Summit in various aspects of strategic business planning, as well as mergers & acquisitions.

Mr. Lon Welsh
Founder of Your Castle Real Estate
Your Castle Real Estate (YCRE) provides brokerage and lending services to residential and commercial clients. To help clients obtain maximum value, Mr Welsh developed a proprietary software package that evaluates all of the properties for sale in a market and determines which 2% represent the best values. The enables, for example, first time buyers to get homes with nothing down without appraisal problems, contractors to find fix and flip projects with substantial upside, and investors to find rentals with better cash flow. The pricing engine has several patents pending. The Denver Business Journal awarded Mr. Welsh the Commercial Heavy Hitter Award for his achievement of personally selling over $10 million in commercial real estate per year, in both 2004 and 2005.

Mr. Welsh and his team of more than 250 brokers complete several hundred transactions per year for their clients and their personal portfolios. His is author of four books: “Fundamentals of Real Estate Investing” and “Advanced Real Estate Investing.” Mr. Welsh is a frequent speaker at real estate investing clubs and on investing radio shows. He also frequently contributes articles on real estate trends to the six Realtor boards in the Denver metro area.

Prior to founding YCRE, Mr. Welsh spent eight years working as a consultant, first with Deloitte & Touche and later with Arthur Andersen (Accenture). At Deloitte, he managed merger and acquisition strategy and integration engagements. At Accenture, Mr. Welsh was a senior manager providing strategy and operations consulting services to communications and high tech clients. Mr. Welsh earned a BBA in Finance from the University of Iowa and an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt.

Mr. Welsh assists Echo Summit in ensuring its property management services are properly aligned with the needs of investors, realtors, and their client base.