Builders Summit

Craig Boesch is a business adviser and entrepreneur with four decades of experience working with companies, business owners and organizations. After graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he worked as a marketing consultant before becoming an entrepreneurial partner in one of Lincoln’s early high-growth technology startups. Following the company’s successful exit, Boesch advised domestic and international clients, including business owners and operators in the business aviation industry. He helps growth-minded leaders identify opportunities, develop practical plans and build teams capable of sustaining long-term growth.

Jim Collison is Gallup’s CliftonStrengths coach community manager, where he builds and supports a global community of Gallup-Certified Strengths Coaches and CliftonStrengths customers. Since joining Gallup in 2007, Collison has held several leadership roles, including managing information technology resources and Gallup’s high school and college internship program. He also served on the Omaha STEM Ecosystem managing board. His work focuses on strengthening connections among coaches, customers and the broader CliftonStrengths community.

Josh DeMers is co-founder and chief operating officer of DARO, an agricultural technology company that uses whole-herd, noninvasive molecular surveillance to help prevent swine disease outbreaks. He leads operations and commercialization as DARO expands its work with leading U.S. pork producers. Previously, DeMers led The Combine AgTech Incubator, where he supported early-stage agricultural technology startups and worked closely with founders and investors across the industry.

Sydney Hall is co-owner and chief operating officer of Doors Plus, a growing garage door company serving residential and commercial customers. She oversees business administration, financial management, organizational development and strategic planning, playing a key role in the company’s daily operations and growth. Hall graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2020 with a degree in accounting and became an owner of Doors Plus in 2023. She is committed to sustainable growth, exceptional customer service and building a company respected in the communities it serves.

Lindsay Hastings is the Clifton Professor in Mentoring Research and research director for NHRI Leadership Mentoring at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in leadership theory and development, and her research focuses on leadership mentoring, community leadership development and youth leadership. Hastings has received the Holling Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching and Learning, the Dr. Ron Joekel Research Award and the Sage Outstanding Scholar Award, as well as the Association of Leadership Educators’ Robin Orr Outstanding Practitioner Award.

Maria Heyen is an investor at Lightbank, a Chicago-based early-stage venture capital firm with $1 billion in assets under management. Previously, she was an investor and the first external hire at Redbud VC, a Missouri-based pre-seed venture capital firm founded by the founders of EquipmentShare. There, she helped source, evaluate and invest in more than 35 companies across two funds. Heyen earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and lives in Chicago.

Stacie Higgins is founder of EDGE Nebraska City, a longtime member of the Nebraska City Public Schools Board of Education and a board leadership specialist with the Nebraska Association of School Boards. With more than 30 years of experience in education and nonprofit leadership, she built EDGE from an idea developed around a kitchen table into a leading community organization. Higgins brings firsthand expertise in sustainable nonprofit leadership, effective governance, long-term vision and building organizations that understand and respond to community needs.

Joey Kaplan is co-founder of Cedar Creek Coffee & Art, a coffee shop, art gallery and specialty cocktail bar in Olde Towne Elkhorn. While attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Kaplan participated in the Clifton Builders Program. In 2023, he and his wife, Tyra, purchased a 1963 Chevrolet Step-Van and launched Cedar Creek as a mobile business before expanding to a brick-and-mortar location. Today, Kaplan manages a team of 10 employees and oversees the company’s business operations.

Taek Lee is chief financial officer at Gallup and serves as interim chief technology officer. As CFO, he leads Gallup’s global financial strategy, connecting financial discipline with strategy execution, growth and enterprise value. As interim CTO, Lee is leading Gallup’s transition into an AI-powered organization by integrating product innovation, advisory expertise, research and technology. His work focuses on expanding how organizations and leaders use data-driven insights to understand and improve human potential, performance and well-being while increasing the speed, scale and efficiency of Gallup’s capabilities.

Emily Lorenz is a senior methodologist and research consultant at Gallup, where she helps organizations measure what matters through strengths-based research and rigorous methodology. With a background in educational measurement and industrial-organizational psychology, she focuses on how people can better understand and apply their strengths. Lorenz’s latest research explores how individuals’ talents shape the perspectives they bring to everyday work and life, combining measurement expertise with practical insights into human development and performance.

Brent Lucke is a community builder at NeighborWorks Lincoln and a master’s student in community and regional planning. A 2019 Builders cohort alumnus, he applies his strengths to projects focused on community development and urban life. Lucke has co-founded a cooperatively owned nonprofit truck-sharing program, led local urbanism and cycling advocacy efforts and organized a tool library in Lincoln’s Near South neighborhood. He also is a “Hamleteer” at Lincoln’s Hawley Hamlet urban farm, where he lives with his wife, Haley, and their two cats.

Matt Mosser is chief human resources officer at Gallup, where he leads the firm’s global human resources and operations functions. He also leads consultants who advise organizations on talent strategy, leadership development and strengths-based cultures. Mosser is passionate about identifying and developing leaders early in their careers and building cultures that can thrive amid AI-driven change. He views leadership as the disciplined work of creating conditions in which people can do meaningful work and organizations can endure.

Brett Stohs is director of clinical programs and a clinical professor of law at the University of Nebraska College of Law. He oversees the college’s in-house clinical programs and directs the Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic, where students provide legal services to entrepreneurs, startups and nonprofit organizations. Stohs also supports Nebraska Law’s Client Counseling Competition teams and serves on the board of the Brown-Mosten International Client Counseling Competition. Before joining Nebraska Law, he practiced corporate and transactional law in Washington, D.C., and Nebraska.

Heather Wright is a senior workplace consultant at Gallup, where she helps clients achieve their goals through analysis, consulting and development strategies. Since joining Gallup in 1986, she has worked with leaders to foster personal and organizational growth and build strengths-based, engagement-focused and performance-oriented workplaces. Wright is an International Coaching Federation-certified coach and leads Gallup consulting programs. In 2023, she was named Gallup Workplace Consultant of the Year.