Staff Directory

Small Business Advisor, has been with the Nevada SBDC since 2014. Her office locations are at the Las Vegas Urban Chamber of Commerce and at the Nevada Cooperative Extension. Mrs. Navarro speaks Spanish-English and has expertise in Small Business creation, Business Plan Guidance, Retail, Business Management, Marketing and Financial Analysis. Mrs. Navarro has a BS in Physical Education and has previously owned a Fitness Center in her home town Guadalajara, Mexico. Since she moved to the Las Vegas area, she has owned several retail businesses such as a Computer Shop, Cellular Store, a Jeweler and Women’s Accessories stores. Mrs. Navarro enjoys being a Spanish Instructor and Presenter as well.

Web Communications Specialist, has been with the Nevada SBDC since 2005. He works in Reno at the University of Nevada, Reno location. Mr. Tedore has specific experience with digital marketing, web development, social media, IT and graphic design. He previously worked as a Digital Media Technician in the Department of Art at UNR as well as a freelance Web Developer and Designer for several years.

Brian is the Project Manager for the Center for Regional Studies where he has conducted a wide variety of mapping and analyses at the University of Nevada, Reno since 1994. Brian specializes in spatial analyses including site selection, market area, feasibility, land use, industry, employment, sales demographic, residential, and economic impact studies using geographic information system (GIS) software. Brian’s educational background includes a Master of Science degree in Geological Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from California State University, Chico.

Caroline is a White Pine County native and retired Nevada educator. Throughout her career in K-12 education, Caroline held positions including teacher, principal at Mt. High School at Ely State Prison, Nevada’s only maximum-security institution, Assistant Superintendent of White Pine County School District, Superintendent of Lyon County School District, and Head of School at Nevada Virtual Academy. Caroline’s passions include economic development and education. She enjoys serving as a community volunteer and member of various board and project teams.

Caroline holds and Associate of Arts from Cottey College, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Master of Arts in Elementary Education from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Chris, Director of the Nevada Business Environmental Program (BEP), has been with the Nevada SBDC since 2010. Mr. Lynch and his consulting team provide assistance to hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs annually on a broad range of issues including environmental regulatory compliance and permitting, environmental sustainability strategies, green business development, energy efficiency, clean transportation, and environmental energy project funding. Mr. Lynch provides assistance statewide out of BEP’s offices in Reno. He was awarded his Juris Doctor and Master of Studies in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School and received his Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Government from St. Lawrence University.

Courtney Sweetin became a Nevada SBDC counselor in summer of 2018. She lives and works in Mesquite and has called the beautiful Virgin Valley home for the past five years. Courtney has an undergraduate degree in education from Brigham Young University and a Masters in Business Administration from UC Davis. She was a teacher for four years and has worked in education reform in Sacramento, Washington D.C. and Clark County, Nevada. She taught business courses at the College of Southern Nevada before moving to Mesquite where she started her own small business in 2014, a soda and dessert shop called The Splash Pad.

Diana Moreno is the Economic Development Specialist and Bilingual Business Advisor at UNLV Office of Economic Development’s Nevada SBDC office. She has a passion for helping people start or expand their business and understanding their credit. She spent the majority of her career in the SBDC family throughout California, gaining experiences in areas such as entrepreneurial advising and training, financial education, small business loan packaging, and specializes in Hispanic marketing. She is a professional translator and interpreter in Spanish and English, habla her native Spanglish, and parle un peau français. Diana is a magna cum laude graduate of San Diego State University with a BA in International Business, minor in Spanish and Latin American Studies. While the SBDC is her primary job function by day, Diana also enjoys real books (with real pages that you can turn or bookmark) and flying airplanes.

Office: (702) 948-5930
Cell: (702) 576-7752

Eric Florio joined the BEP in January as our new Air Quality Specialist Business Advisor.  Eric will work out
of BEP’s office in Reno and will provide air quality assistance statewide under our new contract with the
Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.  If you have business clients with air quality permitting or
compliance questions, particularly new or expanding businesses that need help determining if they need
a permit, don’t hesitate to get Eric involved.

Eric is a New York native who is new to the West.  He has a Masters in Environmental Science from
Adelphi University and a J.D. in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School. He previously worked in
the energy sector while living in Vermont for the past 2 years.  Eric brings additional knowledge and
experience in the environmental field to our team.  In his free time, Eric enjoys participating in triathlons
and will be out hiking around the Sierra.

Throughout my 28 year career in commercial banking, at the Nevada Small Business Development Center, and now teaching at Great Basin College, I love listening to business ideas. Business ideas need to be nurtured...so they can develop to their full potential! My goal is to teach critical thinking skills to my clients so they will be able to enjoy life - one that is always changing.

Life is like a Ferris Wheel, sometimes you are up and sometimes you are down...but you are not always up or not always down - you are constantly moving. Learn to enjoy the ride.

Located at the SBDC Urban Chamber, Hank is a business advisor and has been since 1994. Hank specializes in Financial Projections and Management, Bookkeeping, Budget, and Business Organization & Structure. Hank also has expertise in Human Resource Management, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Retirement planning for the self-employed, Government Contracting, and Disadvantage Business Enterprise women, minority and veteran certifications. With a BA in management, Hank graduated from the University of Southern California in 1975. He has been a business owner, and in business management services and tax preparation since 1968. Hank’s experience includes business management in the Peace Vector II Program in Egypt from 1991-1994 and is the former NSBDC DBE Program Manager. He is a member of the National Association of Tax Professionals and was a Certified NV IRS Instructor from 2010 to 2014.

Jake, Business Development Advisor, has been with the Nevada SBDC since 2013. He works in the Reno office. Jake has experience in preparing financial projections and valuations for small businesses, conducting financial analyses, drafting and reviewing business plans, creating marketing strategies and assisting with the startup process. Jake has his BS in Business Administration with a Dual Major in Economics and Finance.

Karen, Operations Coordinator, has been with the Nevada SBDC since 2014. She works in Reno at the University of Nevada, Reno location. Ms. Coe has specific experience with Human Resources, Neoserra, financial analysis, budgeting, grant writing, project management, office fun, Operations Management, and the Boston Red Sox. Ms. Coe has a MS in Psychology and an undergraduate degree in Psychology (and yes, this helps her work with all the crazy people at the Nevada SBDC). She previously owned an upscale children’s boutique and worked in Operations Management at a mental health/addiction treatment center.

Kathy Halbardier has over 25 years of experience in small business development as a highly successful entrepreneur as well as a sought-after advisor and trainer by those in all stages of business ownership. Her areas of expertise include business plan counseling, marketing, strategic planning, economic development and business education and training. With over 10 years in banking and other types of financial institutions, Kathy has assisted businesses in financial planning and access to capital through alternative lending sources. Kathy is a certified NxLeveL instructor and has taught the 15-week business planning course in Reno, Sparks, Fernley, Fallon, Minden, Gardnerville, Silver Springs, Ely, Winnemucca, and Virginia City. She also taught the Agriculture-themed curriculum to over forty ranchers and farmers in 8 Nevada locations. Kathy recently co-instructed the national Boots to Business: Reboot class to Veterans in 6 Nevada locations, and is also serving a number of them with counseling services. She successfully ran her own business operation in the wine industry taking the product from dirt to bottle, selling her product to a variety of local retailers, including Costco.

Kathy has special expertise in product manufacturing through the Lean process, business planning, growth and work-out strategies through Six-Sigma processes, product development, technology research, innovation and diversification. Special emphasis has evolved around the Nevada Food Forum, HACCP training, and regulation changes impacting the state administration code.

Kathy currently serves as Regional Manager for JOIN working throughout the Carson City and rural communities of northern Nevada, working to match youth to job training and placement. She has earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from California State University, Fullerton and an MBA from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Kathy serves as a part time business advisor and trainer for the Nevada SBDC primarily in Douglas County, Carson City are surrounding areas.

As a Business Development Advisor in the Nevada SBDC, Katie blends her background in consulting with her study of economics to counsel local businesses. Specializing in start-up entry and expansion, Katie conducts research, analyzes trends, calculates financial projections and evaluates market opportunities, to create strategic business recommendations for clients.

Prior to joining the SBDC, Katie worked in marketing/PR consulting for technology and consumer brands, creating innovative and award-winning communications campaigns for large multi-national corporations as well as rapidly growing start-ups. In her spare time, Katie enjoys watching sports, playing games and traveling to as many US states and foreign countries as her budget allows.

Kayla, Marketing Intern, joined the Nevada SBDC in the spring of 2017. She works in Reno at the University of Nevada, Reno location, while also pursuing an undergraduate degree in Marketing with a focus in Entrepreneurship. Ms. Banda has specific experience with business plan construction and revision, consumer market and industry research, and strategic tradition and online marketing.

Kathy Carrico has served as the statewide training director for the Nevada Small Business
Development Center since 1995 at the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Business. She works
closely with Nevada SBDC counselors to identify a broad range of training needs for the small business
communities. Kathy works with key community partners who fund and collaborate in providing
entrepreneurial training across the State. She contributes to the grant writing and implementation of
a variety of proposals that focus on education and training for all Nevadans looking to become new or
more successful business owners.

Kathy is a Master Trainer for entrepreneurial and financial literacy courses, and has provided
hundreds of presentations to business audiences across Nevada. She manages and co- instructs the
national SBA Military Transition Assistance Program, Boots to Business, quarterly at NAS Fallon, as
well as the Veteran’s outreach program, Boots to Business: Reboot, in all Nevada counties. Through
this program, Kathy works with multiple organizations that focus exclusively on Veterans’ assistance.

Kathy travels throughout the entire State, primarily in southern Nevada where the majority
population resides. She has extensive board and committee experience with many Nevada Chambers
of Commerce and has designed, planned and implemented many unique and special events targeting
the small business owners across Nevada.

Prior to working at the Nevada SBDC, Kathy worked 5 years with a high-end entrepreneur firm from
startup to multi-millionaire status in the medical technology industry in California. She was also self-
employed during her college years, on a part-time basis.

Kevin is the Nevada SBDC Nevada Grow Manager, which is an intuitive that provides data and analysis for companies to grow their business. He began his work with the SBDC in 2011. Kevin teaches Management and accounting courses at the College of Southern Nevada. He is also the advisor for the CSN entrepreneurship incubator and partners with the Nevada Small Business Development Center. Kevin is a graduate of the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania and received his graduate business degree from the University of Pennsylvania and received his graduate business degree from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. His professional career includes executive positions with Johnson & Johnson, Whole Foods, Snapple Beverages, and Hewlett-Packard. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Kevin currently resides in Las Vegas. He sees the enormous potential for global economic diversification based on the talented students emerging to change the world.

Nancy has worked at the Reno, Nevada SBDC office since 2006 in the capacity of ‘client specialist’. Nancy is the first point of contact for most clients and is responsible for discerning their needs and placing them with the appropriate counselor or referring them to the appropriate resource partner. She is responsible for processing Neoserra contacts and assigning them to a counselor. Also, Nancy is responsible for general office management, including purchasing supplies, processing of PCard statements and general accounting process. Nancy graduated from UNR in 2009 with a BA in History/Archeology.

Nathan, Executive Director at Churchill Economic Development Authority (CEDA), has been with the NEVADA SBDC since 2015. He works at the CEDA office in Fallon where the SBDC services are hosted. Specifically, he has experience with grant writing and reporting, project development and management, and permit and licensing compliance. In his time at CEDA, Nate has worked to identify funding sources and facilitate partnerships to support projects and services that improve the City of Fallon and Churchill County. He received his B.A. in History with a Certificate in Computer Programming from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. He has owned operated a number of businesses, mostly computer related. He also serves as a trustee on the Churchill County Museum Association Board and is President-Elect of the Rotary E-Club.

Rod is the Senior Business Development Advisor for the Nevada Small Business Development Center (Nevada SBDC), located in the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno. Rod has been the Senior Business Development Advisor since he arrived to Reno in the fall of 1990. As such, he provides oversight with counseling efforts statewide, as well as running a local counseling office out of the Ansari Business Building at UNR. In his tenure at the Nevada SBDC, Rod has engaged with well over 15,000 prospective and existing businesses in Northern Nevada. Rod has a degree in Ag Economics, is a Certified Management Accountant, a Certified Economic Development Professional, has completed the CPA exam, is a management professor at UNR as well as at Sierra College in Truckee. Rod is involved in the community through his board positions with Munimetrix, a locally owned for profit business, and is currently on the board of Nevada State Development Corporation and Entrepreneurs Assembly. Having Worked in this field for 29 years, Rod is rather a generalist; he knows a little about a lot of various businesses. Based on the commonality of business types throughout his history, he has dealt with a significant number of businesses in: food and beverage; legal issues; business taces; access to capital (ie. loans); business purchases and sales; franchises; non-franchised licensing opportunities; childcare; and a smattering of others.

Director of the Nevada Small Business Development center, manages 14 statewide offices that provide a wide array of technical assistance to Nevada’s businesses. In 1985, Males wrote the original NSBDC proposal to create the program within the College of Business. The program began with three centers and a budget of $375,000. The program has excelled in leveraging its university budget through numerous federal, state, and local government grants and contracts. Currently the program has 14 statewide offices with total program resources that exceed $4,000,000. In 2016, Nevada SBDC counseled 1300 new clients that started 130 new businesses and added approximately 600 new jobs to the state’s economy. These clients received $56.4M in capital financing to assist them start/grow their business. To further support Nevada’s existing businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs in 2016, the Nevada SBDC conducted 236 training programs which attracted nearly 1500 attendees. Under Males’ leadership, the Nevada SBDC program has been able to accomplish this growth through the development of a wide variety of federal, state, and local partnerships. These partnerships have (both financially and programmatic) allowed Nevada SBDC services to be delivered to the business communities throughout the state: small businesses and large corporations; urban and rural businesses; minority and women owned businesses; existing and start-up businesses, etc.

In addition to its excellent reputation within the state, Males through his outreach activities at the national level, has established the Nevada SBDC as one of the premier SBDCs in the country. These activities include:

Elected by his peers as the President of the national Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC). The ASBDC, which oversees combined state and federal resources of $300 million, has over 1,000 national offices and provides assistance to over 700,000 entrepreneurs annually, is the largest business assistance network in the country.

He has provided testimony as an expert witness to the Small Business Committees in both the U.S. House of Representatives. He provided testimony to Congress on ASBDC issues and also provided expert testimony on business regulatory relief initiatives.

He was selected and served on Microsoft’s 13 member national Small Business Technology Council. The Council provided input to Microsoft’s top management on small business issues.

Males was selected by a national advisory group to represent small businesses on the Public Entity Risk Institute’s (PERI) five member Board of Directors. PERI is a nationally recognized, nonmember, non-profit organization whose mission is to provide high quality technical services, training and education on risk management issues to public entities, nonprofits and small businesses. In January of 2004-2006, Males was elected to be Chairman of the Board.

Males was selected and served as a member of the Forum of State and Tribal Toxic Action (FOSTA), a national advisory committee of the Environmental Council of States (ECOS). Males represented small businesses on pollution prevention issues.

Currently, Males serves on the University of Nevada, Reno’s Outreach and Economic Development Committees.

Prior to his work as State Director of the NSBDC, Males was the Director and Operations Manager of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER), now merged into the NSBDC in the College of Business Administration at the University of Nevada, Reno. During this tenure with the BBER, Males had the opportunity to work as a business consultant for both large corporations and many small businesses.

Males holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Westmister College in Pennsylvania and a MBA from the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a current member of Beta Gamma Sigma.

Bio coming soon...

Sara, Administrative Assistant for the Churchill Economic Development Authority has been with the SBDC since 2016 as an advisor in Fallon, NV. Sara has worked in retail/customer service, and marketing with social media platforms as well as other online services.

Shelley is the current Executive Director for Mineral County Economic Development Authority, a Nevada private non-profit. Shelley has been there since 2004 and has worked on both the government and business side of planning. She and her husband own a printing company and an art company. Shelley also teaches art in the community. Her office provides job search assistance, business start-up assistance and economic development consulting to companies who want to make the move to rural Nevada. Shelley has been in this field for 34 years working in economic development and planning with a personal goal to facilitate growth and job creation in Nevada by helping companies move here, or helping people build their dream business so they can create jobs. Shelley studied Art and Business at Southern Utah State University, Clark County Community College, University of Nevada, Las Vegas and continuing education in many diverse fields. Her family came to Nevada before it was a state in the 1850’s. Shelley’s family is in their 7th generation of Nevadans, and therefore has a long history of working for rural Nevada interests and has many contacts statewide. She grew up in a ranching & mining family. Her family is full of cattle ranchers and miners, multifaceted entrepreneurs with a construction company, all service gas station, and a development company which helped develop Rose Valley and Eagle valley in Lincoln County, Nevada. She served on the Governor’s Workforce Investment Board for Defense and Aerospace, Several Secure Economies Together sub committees, Nevada Arts Council Team, Western Nevada Development District, local CTE advisory board, Walker Lake GID and the arts council.

Tamera has been a business advisor with the Nevada SBDC since 2010 and enjoys working with rural businesses and tribes. Tamera graduated with a MBA with a specialization in Marketing from Regis University in 2015. She possesses outstanding communication and organizational skills and enjoys collaborating with others to assist businesses. She is married with two daughters and two granddaughters in Colorado. When not counseling, Tamera loves to garden and enjoys white water rafting.

Winnie, Deputy Director, has been with the Nevada SBDC since 1991. She works in Reno at the University of Nevada, Reno location. Ms. Dowling has an MBA and an undergraduate degree in Computer Information Systems. Ms. Dowling has specific experience with proposal development, financial analysis, budgeting, human resources, grant writing, project management, and operation management. She has also worked on many business surveys. She previously owned a computer consulting and training business.

Zach Miles serves as the Associate Vice President. Miles also serves as the Director of the Nevada Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at UNLV and Executive Director for the UNLV Research Foundation.

In these capacities, Miles manages the assessment, protection, and commercialization of intellectual property owned or controlled by UNLV and assists start-up companies in building a strong business foundation and seeking capital.

Prior to joining UNLV, Miles served as the deputy executive director of Technology Venture and Commercialization at the University of Utah. Miles has also co-founded, advised, and served as general counsel for a number of Utah based start-up companies.

Miles holds a bachelor of science degree from Weber State University, where he majored in microbiology and holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of New Hampshire School of Law.