Jason Brown is the founder and former CEO of Organic To Go, the nation’s first fast casual retailer to be certified organic by Quality Assurance International. Over a four year period OTG grew from a concept to a bicoastal chain of 33 cafés, a corporate catering company, and wholesale operation. With over 150 outlets in Seattle, Southern California, and Washington DC, all operations ran from 4 corporately owned commissary kitchens. In 2008 Jason was honored as a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young. The National Restaurant News awarded Organic To Go with its national Hot Concept Award. Jason spent the previous 25 years in branded, direct to consumer retail execution. As founder/CEO of Custom Nutrition Services, he built a successful personalized vitamin solutions business using medical professional expertise (Dr. Andrew Weil, Zone Diet and Pritikin Centers) That business was sold to drugstore.com. Previously as founder of Concept Development, a contract consulting firm, for 7 years he led a team of people to build on spec retail concepts for Wild Oats Markets, Baxter Healthcare, and APP Pharmacy. During the prior 15 years he developed 2 retail apparel businesses Columbia Sportswear in NZ and Australia and Cotton Comfort. His 30 year career has been spent in specialty retail focused operations with the common goal of maximizing the share of a customer through superior customer relationship development. Jason attended University of Colorado, Boulder.

Michael Johnson has over 20 years experience in retail foodservice operations and pioneering concepts into new markets through look, feel and customer experience. His experience includes both senior and operational roles, such as VP of Business Development/Retail Operations with Organic To Go, VP of Operations with Briazz and Regional District Manager for Noah’s New York Bagels. At Organic To Go, Michael was part of the senior team developing the hub and spoke commissary business model to make it possible for rapid retail catering and wholesale sales growth, including major accounts such as UCLA, USC, Microsoft Campus, University of Washington and at LAX international airport. Michael is a dynamic team builder focused on the customer to create a greater share of revenue from each business relationship. He will be in charge of the overall day-to-day management operations for the market and will drive increased new revenue development outside the four walls in catering and wholesale sales.

Wendy Tenenberg has worked over 25 years in retail and direct to consumer marketing with extensive experience in customer acquisition and direct marketing. Early in her career she ran an award winning design agency with Fortune 1000 clients. She began web site design and marketing in the early years of the internet and has since specialized in design, content development and permission based marketing programs for e-commerce and consumer business web sites. As founding VP of Marketing for Custom Nutrition, Inc., and was responsible for the interface design and marketing programs for multiple e-commerce sites. Most recently, as VP of Marketing for Organic To Go, she managed the graphics, marketing and communications for retail, wholesale and catering operations.

Tamara Bernadot has over 20 years experience in the retail and direct-to-consumer industry in operational and web development roles. Tamara began with Concept Development as a Director of Operations in 1996, when the World Wide Web was just beginning to develop. As VP of Operations for Custom Nutrition, she ran all operations of the company through to drugstore.com and was instrumental in the subsequent transition. This included working with each health care professional brand to support the personalized supplement program development. In addition, she served as project coordinator with the technology team in India to correctly interpret all of the required nutritional recommendations for each brand. As founding VP of Operations for Organic To Go, Tamara was responsible for setting up systems, working again as the liaison for web development, to create an integrated sales and production system.

Inge Juchtzer joined Concept Development as a Paralegal in 1996 and over the past 13 years has supervised the technical development of the highly customized programming associated with each of the websites we developed. As Director of Web Development, Inge served as the website coordination for all three major partnerships at Custom Nutrition Services and then again at Organic To Go, she became the website compliance and support supervisor. She coordinated all data mining and analysis, working in tandem with marketing and public relations to expand brand awareness through targeted promotional campaigns and events, feedback rewards and giveaways, media outreach and social networking sites, pay-per-click and search engine optimization. In addition, she was in charge of the documentation and compliance of all internal and external operational requirements, including obtaining and maintaining licenses, permits and certifications, developing and implementing policies and procedures and working with external auditors to obtain and annually renew organic certification. Inge received her Paralegal certification from Humboldt State University.

John Nelson has had over 25 years in many facets of foodservice operation. Most recently he has spent more than a decade focused on procurement and supply chain management in the foodservice sector. Currently he manages $20 million in food and beverage annual spending for Taco Del Mar Franchise Corporation and has an active consulting practice offering supply chain analysis, contract negotiation and audit for several emerging restaurant chains. Previously he was Director of Perishables Merchandising for Sysco Seattle. In this capacity he oversaw $250 million in annual sales to nearly four thousand restaurant and hotel clients in Western Washington and Alaska. John has held executive or culinary positions with ARAMARK and Rock Resorts as well as several regional restaurant chains. John received a BA degree from the University of Utah and currently resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Eric Li has over 10 years of experience in accounting and financial analysis. Eric has extensive experience working with private and public companies providing in depth analysis for multi-unit operations in the foodservice industry . He joined Organic To Go in 2005 as the founding Controller for the company as we prepared to go public. His prior experience includes 3 years as Controller, responsible for accounting and finance functions of a 60 unit fast casual restaurant chain and Senior Financial Analyst, responsible for outsourced financial analysis for small and middle-market companies for major financial institutions. Eric received his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.