Meet the Team
Michael Burcham, President and CEO
LinkedIn
Michael has extensive experience in healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship, and startup venture coaching. He served as President of ParadigmHealth, a provider and integrator of care and disease management services for health plans and employers, from 2001-2007. He also founded and served as President of Theraphysics, a venture-backed specialty healthcare firm managing rehabilitation services, from 1992-2000. He is founder and Director of the Accelerator Summer Business Institute, a 4-week intensive immersion program designed to challenge undergraduate students to develop their own personal brands and business skills. At the Owen Graduate School of Management, Michael teaches healthcare innovation and strategy. He is passionate about helping the creative class transform their ideas into real businesses, and looks to the Entrepreneur Center as an opportunity to revolutionize Nashville’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and creative venture development on a large scale. Michael received his PhD in Healthcare Administration from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2003.
Sam Lingo, Chief Operating Officer
LinkedIn
Sam Lingo is a Nashville entrepreneur specializing in the development of new technologies. He is a founding partner of U. S. Cryogenics, LLC, a solution-focused company extending the usable life of industrial wear parts. At the Entrepreneur Center, Sam oversees operations, business development and the Incubator Studio. He received his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University in 2005. Sam lectures about entrepreneurism and adapting business plans to the real world at both Vanderbilt University and the Owen Graduate School of Management.
Robbie Goldsmith, Director of Marketing and Membership
Robbie is a young Nashville Entreprenuer and the guru of all things EC membership and programs! He has created several startups, the first while attending college at the University of Tennessee.
Upon graduation with a Business Administration major, he got his corporate experience with Enterprise Holdings, completing their management training program, becoming a branch manager overseeing multiple locations. Since then, he has launched One4 Ventures, LLC. He created an online platfrom where visitors to Nashville can customize weekend trips to music city (BacheloretteNashville.com, Girlsnightoutnashville.com). He is currently growing One4 Ventures, growing the Entrepreneuer Center's pool of members and programs, and living life to the fullest!
Cool fact- Robbie is a professional paintball player, ranked #24 in the WORLD!
John Murdock, Director of Communications and Programming
LinkedIn
John Murdock, creator of The Young Professional, is an active author, entrepreneur, and mentor. John is the author of several books and active lecturer on life after college, developing startup ideas, and cultivating entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Prior to joining the EC, John served as the Airport Manager for Enterprise Holdings, Inc., at the PTI airport where he managed three distinct brands: Alamo Rent A Car, National Car Rental, and Enterprise Rent A Car. John received his bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, from Wake Forest’s Calloway School of Business, with minors in Global Trade and Commerce Studies and Mandarin Chinese. He manages communications and programming at the Entrepreneur Center.
Jared Marquette, Director of Business Partnerhships
Jared Marquette is a social entrepreneur specializing in the creation and growth of collaborative partnership and development opportunities. In addition to his work with growing the Entrepreneur Center reach within the Nashville business economy, he also coordinates event efforts designed to strengthen the EC brand.
Prior to coming to the EC, Jared started and operated Elevated Inc, a Denver based clothing and lifestyle brand. He developed his acumen through both his formal education, which includes a bachelors degree in communications from the University of Kentucky and an MBA from the University of Denver Daniel’s College of Business, and his experiences working and living internationally in Australia, Costa Rica, and Peru.
Dr. David Furse, EC Master Mentor and Entrepreneur-in-Residence
Dr. David Furse has 35 years of experience as a marketing professor, business entrepreneur and strategy consultant. He founded NCG Research in Nashville and grew it into an international leader in consulting and healthcare outcomes benchmarking. He is currently Director of the Mentor Program at the Entrepreneur Center and an Adjunct Professor of Management at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. He is a sought-after speaker and consultant in strategic planning and leadership development. Furse received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Georgia State University, the Masters in Advertising from the University of Illinois, and the B.A. in Journalism from the University of Georgia. He served as an infantry lieutenant with the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg and the Ninth Infantry Division in Vietnam where he received the Bronze Star, Air Medal, Army Commendation Medal, and Purple Heart.
Shawn Glinter, EC Master Mentor
Shawn Glinter is an entrepreneur & senior–level executive with 15 years of experience in all aspects of leadership, management, sales and operations in diverse industries including healthcare, technology, manufacturing, distribution and service. He was recently President and CEO of Special Water Global, an early stage European biotechnology company. He previously served as Vice President of Sales for Emdeon (formerly WebMD). He has built and led sales teams for both products and services for domestic and international markets.
Scott Rouse, Entrepreneur-in-Residence
LinkedIn
IdeaBang, LLC
Grammy nominated producer Scott Rouse began his career working as a session musician in Boston while attending the famed Berklee College of Music. He learned to write, arrange and produce pop songs as well as market and brand the acts he was involved with from the very best in the business. Outside the music business, Scott is the Founder of IdeaBang, an innovation consultancy and product development-for-license firm. Scott believes developing products and ideas is the same as producing, marketing and branding recording artists, TV shows and movies.
“A startup company is very similar to a band or an artist. The songs that make up the startup’s album are its business model and product or system prototype. If you arrange and produce each song so they are attractive to your band’s demographic, you’ve got a shot at having not just a hit single, but a hit album and an band with a long shelf life. The same goes for a startup.”
Rouse’s main role is to help startups with everything from questions about licensing, branding and copyrighting their products or systems to packaging and marketing so they look good “out in the wild”. Rouse says “Its important for me to help a person or a new company with their nose pressed against the glass, just staring at their new idea, to take a look at it from another perspective. If their idea was a song demo we would choose the right instrumentation, tighten up the melody, add as many ‘hooks’ as possible and arrange so it was a pop song. If it’s a hit, we start on their next idea.”
Joe Galante, Chairman of Sony Music Nashville (Ret.), Entrepreneur-in-Residence Digital Media and Entertainment
Joe Galante brings with him nearly 40 years of experience in the music publishing and entertainment industry, having led some of the biggest labels in the business including RCA and Sony Nashville. In April 2010, Joe Galante stepped down as Chairman of Sony Music Nashville after 39 years with the same label family. He began his career with RCA Records in 1971 and moved to Nashville in 1973. In 1977, Galante was named director of Nashville operations for RCA Records Nashville, then became vice president of promotion and vice president of marketing. In 1982, he succeeded Bradley as head of RCA Nashville, becoming the youngest man ever to lead a major Nashville label.
His impact was immediate; RCA became the #1 country label in 1982 and held onto the top spot for an unprecedented 11 consecutive years. In 1990, Galante moved to New York when he was named president of RCA Records Label - U.S. He successfully tackled the seemingly insurmountable challenge of streamlining the label’s vast roster while restructuring the label so that it became more artist-oriented and focused on creating a lasting catalog. He returned to Nashville in 1994, when he was named chairman of RLG/Nashville.
After restructuring the RCA and BNA labels under the RCA Label Group (RLG) umbrella. In 2001, Arista Nashville emerged as the year’s #1 country promotion label for the first of seven times in eight years. Throughout this time, RLG’s three-label country powerhouse continued to develop its artists and set new benchmarks for the industry – a feat that was on clear display when RLG became the first label group since the inception of SoundScan to have three country albums reach #1 (and debut at #1) on Billboard’s pop sales chart in a calendar year.
In the spring of 2006, Galante oversaw yet another chapter in the evolution of the Nashville music industry as the former Sony Nashville was welcomed into the RCA Label Group along with the Christian label group, Provident, collectively becoming Sony BMG Nashville under Galante’s leadership. Adopting the new name and a fourth label imprint, Columbia Nashville, the roster expanded. At the beginning of 2009, Sony BMG Nashville became Sony Music Nashville. In April of 2010, after 39 years within the same label family, Galante announced his decision to step down from his post as chairman of Sony Music Nashville.
Keith Gregg, MBA, CLP, Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Health Information Technology
LinkedIn
Keith Gregg is Chairman & CEO of JRG Ventures, and a Certified Licensing Professional. Mr. Gregg specializes in assisting entrepreneurs, investors, and executives implement growth strategies to accelerate ideas into value and monetize assets. Mr. Gregg is a proven professional with over 26 years of operational and advisory experience in high growth life science, health IT, educational and disruptive environments.
Prior to founding JRG, Mr. Gregg held key positions at multiple biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies. His management roles and responsibilities have encompassed corporate development and licensing, operations, federal government liaison, marketing, technology screening and implementation for enhanced systems workflow, financing, mergers, and public offerings.
Mr. Gregg is an advisor to select US and non-US investor groups; a member of multiple entrepreneurial health technology, economic development, and education oriented committees/boards; a founding Partner in creating the health technology centric campus oneC1TYnashville; the Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) for Health Technology at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center; a former Adjunct Professor of Healthcare Management (Health Technology & Life Sciences) at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University; and an invited lecturer in the areas of corporate business development, growth strategy, health technology, and finance.
Mr. Gregg received his MBA in Finance & Marketing from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and his BS in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University. Mr. Gregg holds a certificate in executive business strategy from The Wharton School.