by Ocean’s Edge Ministries & Convene CEOs
Are you a faith–driven CEO, business owner, & leader who wants to make an eternal difference?
WHEN: Wednesday, October 25, 2023
TIME: 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Where: Ocean’s Edge Ministries Training Center, Through the Roasted Edge Coffee Shop, C. Lapa Verde, Barrio Ricos y Famosos, Puntarenas Province, Jacó Or via Zoom
WHAT: Roundtable Business Mastermind Forum with U.S. Faith-Driven CEOs
Agenda:
8:30am Gather, Visit & Coffee
9:00 Welcome & Overview of Ocean’s Edge Ministries & Convene Opening Prayer
9:15 Introductions
9:30 Devotional: Integrating Work, Worship & Service | Hannah Fletcher, Director of OEM & RE/MAX Costa Rica
10:00 Entrepreneur’s Story | Mark Brandon, Founder & Former CEO, Dealerlogix
10:15 Break
10:30 Entrepreneur’s Story | Joel Jonker, Founder & CEO, Down To Earth Compliance & Summit Services Group
10:45 Entrepreneur’s Story | Chad TeBeest, CEO, Prototype Casting & Karl Schmidt Manufacturing
11:00 Mastermind Opportunity/Challenge Discussion **
11:45 Takeaways: Insights & Actions
12:00 Closing Prayer & Dismiss
** This is a facilitated mastermind discussion to work on a top opportunity or challenge from one participant and to gain actionable insight from many decades of combined business leadership experience in the room. Would you like to volunteer to lean into this mastermind opportunity?
Convene Team Bios
After graduating with a degree in accounting from the University of Arizona, Mark immediately reported for duty as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Mark held several jobs in the Corps with his primary job being a helicopter pilot. It was in the Corps where Mark honed his leadership and problem-solving skills.
As a Marine Corps Captain, Mark resigned his commission in 1989 to pursue a career in the emerging telecommunications industry. Mark’s career in telecommunications was diverse, holding sales and sales management positions at various industry leaders such as; voice/data transmission provider Sprint, cable TV hardware/infrastructure manufacturer Scientific Atlanta, enterprise-level telecommunications software developer Objective Systems Integrators, and ultimately as the VP of Enterprise Sales for Pre-IPO data center collocation company, Inflow.
In early 2001 the “dot com bomb” went off and shortly thereafter in July of 2001 Mark exited Inflow, the start-up he had joined a short six months earlier. During this period, Mark had many conversations with God trying to understand what his path for the future would be and, as He often does, God closed one door while opening a new one. This time it was to use Mark’s technology skills to develop a software application for retail automotive dealerships.
Mark spent the next twenty years bootstrapping, innovating, and building Dealerlogix, a cloud-based, mobile software platform for automotive service departments.
Operated as a Kingdom business, Dealerlogix embraced its one-word mission statement: “Generations.” Generations was more than a mission statement, it was a philosophy, with the idea being that if Dealerlogix functioned as a Kingdom-focused business with a servant-leadership philosophy, the business would have a positive “generational impact” on its employees and customers.
Dealerlogix was acquired by a private equity firm in September 2020, where Mark continued in his role as CEO until June 2022.
Joel grew up in a Christian family that encouraged entrepreneurship, education, and the arts. Both grandfathers, his father, and several members of his extended family took the leap to run their own businesses in a midwestern manufacturing culture where the ideal for many of our neighbors was to work a lifelong career at the big employers in town. The message Joel absorbed growing up was to be in control of your own destiny, take limited risks when appropriate, and make good things happen by serving others.
After working his way through college (barely graduating) and grad school, Joel started his own business as a specialty contractor serving construction projects in the Denver, Colorado market. In 2023 Joel’s businesses, Down To Earth Compliance and Summit Services Group employ more than 70 employees, and Joel continues to be guided by biblical principles and his personal mission statement: “Creating workplaces that allow employees to discover and embrace their God-given potential.” Joel is currently enjoying the challenge of creating a business succession plan. He is looking for the best way to bless his employees while transitioning leadership of the business to a new generation of leaders, most of whom worked their way up from front-line jobs in construction.
Joel loves to talk shop with other business owners, whatever their line of work and whatever their current stage of business. Gathering with other Christian business owners and encouraging each other is one of many ways we can join our Father in building the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. Let’s talk.
Raised on a corn and wheat farm in Texas, Chad learned the value of hard work and mechanical aptitude at a young age. Chad pursued a degree in mechanical engineering and then a master’s degree in engineering technology management.
After college Chad started work at Prototype Casting, a small non-ferrous foundry and machine shop, as a CNC machinist. Over the course of the next 7 years, Chad took various roles before purchasing the company in 2012. The plan was that the previous owner, Mike, would transition into retirement, drive his RV around the U.S., and consult as needed. Unfortunately, just 6 months after the purchase, Mike was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away 4 months later.
While that year was a good year financially for the company, Chad was overly confident in leading the company, and in one of the last meetings with Mike stated that everything was good, and he had this business ownership thing figured out. Mike laughed and apologized that he would not be around for the tough times. The next 4-5 years were very difficult for the company as Chad learned several valuable and expensive lessons. This began the humbling process and the questions of “Why God, Why am I in the role?”
After joining the peer-to-peer Christian CEO business group Convene in 2015, Chad started the process of developing his personal mission of providing 1000 jobs in manufacturing. Since 2016 Protocast has grown to 35 team members and another manufacturing business, Karl Schmidt Manufacturing, was acquired in 2017 which currently employs 10 people.
Chad is the husband of the best wife in the world, and the father to 4 amazing kids. Chad enjoys living in the mountains of Colorado and a lifestyle of fitness, hiking, mountain biking, and snowmobiling.
Todd grew up in Central California with Midwestern roots in a family that enjoyed hiking, camping, and backpacking in the mountains which fostered his love for the beauty and challenge of the outdoors. His business journey began with lawn mowing jobs, raising his own cattle, selling greeting cards door-to-door, and helping to frame a cabin all by age twelve.
Through sports, Todd experienced the joy of being a part of teams and flourished under the training and mentoring of his high school water polo coach who built a team culture of pursuing excellence together. At a Young Life summer camp, Todd heard a speaker talk about playing his sport for an “Audience of One” which ignited a greater purpose for Todd to integrate his faith with playing his sport. He counts it an honor to have been a part of two NCAA championship teams and to have played on the U.S. National Water Polo Team.
After earning undergraduate degrees in computer science and history at Stanford University, Todd embarked on a career in which he led international IT projects and sales systems engineering teams at a Fortune 150 tech firm. He also started three entrepreneurial ventures with business partners in software, retail, and business brokerage, including one debacle which confronted him with a financial and identity crisis, and earned him considerable scar tissue. God met Todd again in this vulnerable place and called him out from fear and self-reliance to greater purpose and trust, and into growing and coaching leaders and helping them work out their greater purposes at the intersection of faith, leadership, and business.
Todd believes each person has a Masterpiece inside of them and noble purposes to pursue. He coaches growth-minded business leaders and teams to activate more of their core and collaborative genius, grow inside-out capacity to navigate adversity and create more generational flourishing with authentic relationships. He also helps leaders discover what holds them back and how to get unstuck.
Todd is a Master Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation and holds a Master’s degree in psychology with a concentration in positive psychology from Indiana Wesleyan University. He is the principal of Northwise Group and a CEO peer advisory forum Chair with Convene. More importantly, he is married to his college sweetheart Julianne, and they have two young adult children in whom they take great delight. They live in Colorado and enjoy outdoor adventuring together and investing in other people.