Rocky Mountain Economic Summit: First Session

VIDEO July 15, 2014

Speaker / Author

Charles I. Plosser, Ph.D.

Board Member, FINRA and Former President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Dr. Charles Plosser was president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. In this role, he participated on the Federal Reserve System's Federal Open Market Committee, which is responsible for conducting our nation's monetary policy. He currently serves on the FINRA Board of Governors. Dr. Plosser joined the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. During his term, he and his colleagues faced the challenges of a global financial crisis followed by a severe recession. The Federal Reserve took unprecedented actions, in both monetary policy and in its lending operations, that helped mitigate the effects of the financial crisis and ... Read More

Robert J. Ryan

Founder, Past Chairman and CEO of Ascend Communications

Robert J. Ryan is the founder, past chairman and CEO of Ascend Communications, and currently serves as chairman and CEO of Entrepreneur America. Ryan earned national attention when he grew his 1989 start-up company, Ascend Communications, Inc., to more than $2 billion in sales. Lucent Technologies acquired Ascend in 1999 for approximately $24 billion in what was termed at the time, “the largest technology merger ever.” Under Rob’s leadership, Ascend became the leading manufacturer of hardware called Point of Presence boxes (POPS) for Internet providers. Effectively, Ascend helped create the modern Internet by building all of the infrastructure equipment that powered ... Read More

Robert E. Grady

Partner and Managing Director, Cheyenne Capital Fund

Robert Grady is currently a partner and managing director at Cheyenne Capital Fund, a private equity investment firm. Prior to joining Cheyenne Capital Fund, from 2000 through 2009, Mr. Grady served as a partner at The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms, where he was chairman and managing partner of Carlyle Venture Partners, the firm's U.S. venture and growth capital organization. Mr. Grady joined Carlyle in 2000 as global head of Venture Capital and served as a Member of Carlyle's Management Committee. Mr. Grady served as chairman of the National Venture Capital Association's Board of Directors from ... Read More

Troy Downing

CEO, AC Self Storage Solutions, LLC

Troy Downing is the chief executive officer of AC Self Storage Solutions, LLC based in Carlsbad, California. Mr. Downing has had an eclectic career that has spanned multiple distractions from performing arts to combat search and rescue as a US Air Force aviator, from viniculture to commercial real estate. Downing, a former research scientist at the New York University Media Research Lab and instructor at the NYU Information Technology Department, has followed a path as a technology entrepreneur, an early Yahoo!, an angel funder of dozens of Silicon Valley Startups and a member of the US Air Force / Air National Guard’s ... Read More