Events

Daniel Reid has been an international negotiator and crisis mitigator for over 40 years. He is the founder and Managing Director of Paladin International, LLC. , providing new country entry facilitation; risk identification, planning and mitigation solutions; government liaison, and security & protection services for industry and government. He has worked in more than 42 foreign countries throughout Latin America, the Middle East and Europe and has been an advisor and intelligence consultant to the Special Operations Command of our US armed forces for much of his career.

Dan received his MBA in 1991 and among many certifications holds the highest rating (CPP) from ASIS (American Society for Industrial Security.) He is a decorated Vietnam special operations veteran and has served in many foreign venues with the US special operations and intelligence community. In addition, he is the author of many technical articles on counter terrorism and crisis identification & management as well as a book on firearms for the uninformed, Guns Are Stupid, People Are Smart; the Novice’s Guide to Understanding Guns.   

Dan is co-founder and Chairman of the Support-a-Soldier Clearinghouse, a 501 (c) 3 tax deductible charity. Since 2007, its mission has been to provide deployed US military men and women with ancillary non-lethal equipment and other necessities that improves their safety, readiness, comfort and efficiency in areas of combat operations. To date SAS has provided over 5,000 needed pieces of equipment to over 4500 US combat troops and units around the world. SAS operates with minimal overheads and a volunteer cadre of dedicated current and former combat soldiers and business men and women.

Bios: Anna Cubel is a certified Health Coverage guide and has been with Health Access for over 6 years. Anna is very well versed in the different health insurance options from public assistance programs to the health insurance exchange options. Christie Higgins is the Community Access Manager and oversees Hilltop's Health Access program.

Topic: Hilltops Health Access is a Certified Assistance Site for Connect for Health CO insurance marketplace that can help people who qualify get tax credit assistance to bring down the cost of health insurance. Health Access can also provide health care coverage options for small businesses that are not required to offer insurance but want to give their employees a trusted place to go for help and possible financial assistance. Discover all the ways Hilltop's Health Access can assist in providing health coverage options! 

Bio: Cody is a husband, a father, a successful business owner, and a community leader. Cody was born and raised in the Grand Valley and is a fifth-generation native.
He and his wife, Alana, have five beautiful kids. They have served as foster parents for over 10 years, and count it a blessing to have adopted three children.

In November, Cody was elected as Mesa County Commissioner in District 1. He looks forward to starting his term in January and bringing both a principled and common-sense approach to local government. 

Bio: Jeff Kuhr is the Director of Public Health for Mesa County. He is an active participant in statewide policy and program development, serving on the Colorado Board of Human Services and the Colorado Early Childhood Leadership Commission. Jeff is a Colorado Children and Families Fellow with Ascend at the Aspen Institute, and is a PHRASES Fellow with the de Beaumont Foundation and the Aspen Institute. In Grand Junction, he serves on the boards of directors for St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and Quality Health Network, is immediate past board chair for the Rocky Mountain Health Foundation, and is Co-Facilitator of the Mesa County Health Leadership Consortium. Jeff has a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Nebraska and is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist. He has been a local public health director for 17 years.

Bio: I started my career in 1976 in Denver as a woodworker. Within two years of working as an employee in either a shop making wooden puppets ( where I met my future wife) of building children’s furniture, I just fell into being a part owner of a custom cabinet shop. Since that beginning at the very young age of 25 I have been self-employed ever since.

After five years of that initial partnership I went on to own my own woodworking business for another fifteen years.

I then segued into kitchen remodeling and then that transitioned into full on home remodeling for twenty years in older Denver homes. 

Five years ago I had a wild idea to build a teardrop trailer for my wife and I because none of the fifty or so manufacturers in the U.S. built one that met all the criteria I was searching for. After obsessing about the design for a month or so and sharing the drawings with friends and hearing their feedback, the idea of launching my own business building them for the public launched. After nervously sharing my idea with my wife and getting the thumbs up within minutes of sharing my idea with her I jumped right in forming a business plan. That was in November of 2015. My goal was to phase into building trailers while phasing out of my construction business and to be building trailers full time in two years. I had four employees in my construction business at the time. I reached that goal in Four months!

I have had ups and downs since the start but have kept every employee busy and paid on time since we started. I completely shut down the construction business in mid 2016.After two years of solid growth I realized the shop we started in was not going to be enough and started searching for a new facility. After living in Denver for over forty years and the same home for 31 years, my wife and I decided to move out of the city to somewhere where the real estate was more affordable. We landed here in Grand Junction.

We moved into a leased shop that is two and half times as big as the old one and are now finalizing plans to build a new custom shop with the capacity to more than double our output. WE hope to be in that facility, up and running by Fall of 2021.

Program will include discussion of the role and finances of the Rotary Foundation.