Christopher Wyatt Tippie, Managing Partner, Maroon Ventures

Prior to founding Maroon Ventures in August 2006, Christopher Tippie, 36, served as Vice President of Marketing and Client Services for WebVisible, a leading Search Engine Marketing company based in Irvine, California. During his tenure at WebVisible, Tippie was responsible for new product development and reseller management working with companies such as Dex Media, RH Donnelley, McClatchy, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and MediaNews Group.

Previously, Tippie lead technology initiatives for MediaNews Group Interactive as Vice President of Service Delivery. In this capacity, Tippie managed software development, support, ad operations and program management for the interactive division of MediaNews Group, the fourth largest newspaper company in the United States. He was responsible for the online technology infrastructure including content management systems, search, archival systems, corporate email and graphical ad platforms. Tippie has also served in an executive capacity at Managed Business Solutions (MBS), the Indigio Group, and Planet Technologies.

As a Maroon Ventures partner, Tippie has served as the acting General Manager of the Newspaper Consortium – a group of 23 newspapers companies who have entered into agreements with Yahoo, Inc. He has also served as the Transition Officer for MediaNews Group heading up the integration of the online assets of the San Jose Mercury News, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Contra Costa Times and Monterey Herald.

Tippie earned his Masters in Business Administration from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University and his Juris Doctor from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University. He also holds a BA in Economics from Marietta College.

Chris Tippie lives a charmed life living in Crested Butte, Colorado. He is married to photographer Andrea Tippie. They have two wonderful daughters, Eleanor and Samantha and enjoy spending as much time as possible in the high country.

Chris Tippie can be reached ctippie@maroonventures.com or 303.807.2022.

Heather Lamm, Partner, Maroon Ventures

Prior to becoming a Partner with Maroon Ventures, Heather Lamm was an Executive Vice President at MediaNews Group, the fourth largest newspaper company in the US, with properties throughout California, the Rocky Mountains and the Northeast. In this role Heather led the Interactive team and was responsible for developing the company’s interactive strategic vision and working with its 60+ newspaper groups to implement online initiatives. During her tenure at MNG, interactive revenue grew from $14 million in 2003 to $150 million in 2008. Heather was also responsible for strategic partnerships and in this capacity was instrumental in the recent Hot Jobs and Yahoo! deals with the Newspaper Consortium.

Heather was also previously Vice President of Strategic Planning at San Francisco-based Standard Media International, publisher of the Industry Standard magazine. In this role Heather rode the internet wave to its apex; participating in illustrious conferences in Barcelona, Palm Beach, Aspen and other hot spots of internet activity and trying her hardest to use words like “synergy” and “convergence” in most sentences. When the bubble crashed, Heather and her husband “quit” their jobs and travelled the world for 9 months.

From 1999-2004 Heather was Chair of the Board of Directors at Third Millennium, a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy and education organization. In this role, Lamm testified before congress on the need for Social Security and Medicare reform. She has appeared on CNN’s Inside Politics, CNN & Company, Talk Back Live, Crossfire, The McLaughlin Group, the Jim Bohananon Show and Politically Incorrect. Heather is actively involved with education reform efforts in the city of Denver and is a Partner at Social Ventures Partners, a group of community-minded professionals who contribute time, money, and business expertise to Denver nonprofits She is a 2004 graduate of the Denver Chamber of Commerce Leadership Denver program.

Heather holds an MBA in entrepreneurship and organizational behavior from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a BA in political science from Brown University. Heather currently lives in Denver with her husband, two young sons and a Bernese Mountain Dog named Argos. True devotees of Steep and Cheap, they fancy themselves as active skiers and hikers but in reality they spend more time changing diapers than on the slopes these days.

Heather Lamm can be reached at hlamm@maroonventures.com or 303.517.9764.

Mike Higgins, Partner, Maroon Ventures

Before becoming a partner with Maroon Ventures, Mike Higgins was the Executive Vice President of Interactive for MediaNews Group, the 4th largest publisher of newspapers in the United States. In that role he had overall responsibility for interactive operations and technology for the companies 57 daily newspapers.

Over the last 13 years Higgins has been involved in numerous start up and early stage businesses. Prior to MediaNews Group Interactive Higgins was co-founder and Executive Vice President for the Indigio Group, Inc. Today Indigio is Colorado's largest interactive agency managing the online channels for companies as Avis-Budget Group, Qwest, Sirva and PODS. While at Indigio, Higgins successfully launched four ventures, opening Indigio Europe to serve VNU from offices in Amsterdam Holland, Excito Marketing, StreamingCity and SavingStreet Realty.

Prior to Indigio, Higgins was an Officer and VP Sales with Digital Courier Technologies (NASDAQ: DCTI). In that role he oversaw the business operations of their weather subsidiary WeatherLabs, ultimately selling the business to Landmark Communications (Weather Channel) in 1999. Previously Higgins served as Director of National Sales for MapQuest.

Higgins earned a B.A., Political Science from Colorado State University. He currently lives in Denver with his wife of 18 years Valerie, their three children, 3 dogs and one horse.

Mike Higgins can be reached at mhiggins@maroonventures.com or 303.332.3370.

Julie Brahler, Associate, Maroon Ventures

Julie Brahler joined Maroon Ventures as a project manager in July of 2007. Previously she was with MediaNews Group Interactive as a Project and Account Manager. Brahler’s most recent focus was establishing a process for efficiently redesigning MediaNews Groups’s 80 newspaper websites, creating consistencies across sites and focusing on user experience and effective ad placements to optimize revenue.

After establishing the initial process and launching the first round of sites, Brahler applied this process to successfully transition the newly acquired San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Monterey Herald and SiliconValley.com. Each newspaper site not only needed to be redesigned, but transferred onto MediaNews Group systems and processed within 9 months, as required by the acquisition terms. All newspapers were successfully transitioned ahead of schedule.

Brahler’s other project management experience includes three years with the Indigio Group managing efforts for Dex Media/R.H. Donnelley including a complete redesign, reengineering and functionality overhaul of the online yellow pages site www.dexknows.com. She managed additional projects including www.budgettrucks.com , www.yellowtruck.com , www.imove.com and various initiatives with Mini Moves and Re/Max. Brahler started her career as a business analyst and project manager with Qwest Communications focusing on building Qwest’s Intranet, “theQ”.

Since joining Maroon Ventures, Brahler has managed MediaNews Group’s migration to Yahoo!’s Ad Serving Platform (APT) including working very closely with Yahoo! during the pilot launch for www.mercurynews.com and subsequent MNG papers. As one of the first sites to launch on APT, Brahler was tasked with tracking many moving parts including timelines and contractual obligations, establishing processes and writing documentation for the implementation process. Her experiences with the APT platform launch have allowed her to work with various other newspaper companies on pre-migration activities. In addition, she has worked with the Newspaper Consortium’s project managing activities associated with Yahoo! HotJobs.

Brahler has a BS in Information Systems from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Julie Brahler lives in Denver. Her husband Mark is a Software Engineer. They have two wonderful little boys Matthew and Zachary. Julie has a passion for U.S. history and secretly harbors a desire to live in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Julie Brahler can be reached at jbrahler@maroonventures.com or 720.323.9394.

Charity Huff, Partner, Maroon Ventures

Charity Huff draws on a wealth of search engine marketing, newspaper and yellow pages experience to bring media products to local markets. Since joining Maroon Ventures as a partner in the summer of 2007, Huff has focused on helping the newspaper industry execute on interactive strategies. One key initiative has been associated with the development of social marketplace technology designed to connect newspapers’ strong local user base with relevant products and services.

Before joining Maroon Ventures, Huff managed strategic relationships for WebVisible, an online media company specializing in local search engine marketing products. Huff leveraged her experience with both newspapers and yellow pages to double WebVisible’s affiliate revenues.

Huff’s media experience includes an account management role at MediaNews Group, where she helped to establish a service delivery business for the company’s interactive division. In this role, Huff managed the relationship between MNG corporate and its Los Angeles and Northern California newspaper properties. These websites represented 40 percent of the company’s interactive revenues.

Before joining MediaNews Group, Huff worked for eight years in the Internet yellow pages industry at Dex Media (now R.H. Donnelley). She helped to bring new products to market and gained extensive experience with search engine marketing products, sales force automation tools, competitive response marketing and sales campaign planning.

Huff earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from Washington State University and a Masters in Business Administration with an emphasis in Operations Management from Regis University.

Huff enjoys a wonderful life in Denver, Colorado. She is married to Brian Huff, a senior Chemical Engineer with Golder Associates. They have two children, Trenton and Sarah.

Charity Huff can be reached at chuff@maroonventures.comor 303.886.6816.

Sarah Garrison, Project Manager, Maroon Ventures

Sarah Garrison joined Maroon Ventures from Zillow.com. While at Zillow, Garrison held responsibility for migrating the 700+ newspapers involved in the Yahoo! Newspaper Consortium onto the Zillow real estate platform. Her focus was three-fold: technology build out to port listings sold by the newspaper channel to the Zillow platform, establishing new operational processes that govern the partnership, and training Zillow’s newspaper partners on the Zillow product line and platform. to launch and support newspaper partners.

Previously Garrison was with MediaNews Group Interactive as a Project Manager where she managed the implementation of Yahoo! HotJobs and numerous Yahoo! Content initiatives . In this role, Garrrison acted as liaison between the individual newspaper properties and Yahoo!, managing multiple content integration initiatives and managing the technology build out for HotJobs.

Additionally, Garrison was responsible for migrating new newspaper acquisitions onto MediaNews Group’s systems. A master of juggling multiple projects to completion, Garrison managed the redesign initiative for over 40 newspaper Web sites within one year.

Garrison has also spent time in the newsroom. She was the New Media Editor at The Daily Herald Co. (www.heraldnet.com) where she was responsible for content on the site. As a result, she worked closely with News, IT, marketing, circulation and advertising to develop and maintain content, create workflow, evaluate new products, train staff and develop efficiencies. Though a newshound at heart, Garrison also managed online sales efforts working with print sales reps and over 50 clients involving billing, scheduling, creative, placement and reporting.

Garrison holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Washington State University. She currently lives in the Seattle area with her husband, Travis, and two cats. She enjoys sipping on strong black coffee in the Seattle drizzle.

Sarah can be reached at sgarrision@maroonventures.com or 425.772.8910.