http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/162913/
Published May 25 2010

Colin Cutler, Aleks Udris, Boyd Wright, Traci Kovar and Kristi Hall-Jiran honored by The Chamber of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

By: Tu-Uyen Tran, Grand Forks Herald

Before Colin Cutler and Aleks Udris hired the first employee for their Grand Forks software firm, the only office furniture they had was a card table from Wal-Mart.

After all, they started as two guys with two laptops in the kitchen of their apartment.

But they didn’t want the prospective hire to get the wrong impression, Cutler said, and had to go out and buy real office furniture two days before the interview.

Since that time just a few years ago, the firm, Bold Method, has expanded to seven workers and has a contract to develop laptop simulators of Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft.

On Tuesday, Cutler and Udris were honored as young entrepreneurs of the year in the state and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Region VIII, which includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. The award went out at a ceremony hosted by The Chamber of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

Bruce Gjovig, director of UND’s Center for Innovation, presented the award. He said he still remembers when Cutler and Udris started their first business as sophomores at UND 10 years ago. They eventually went to work for airlines, he said, but found they were making as much money with their private consulting business. Airline furloughs came, he said, and they went full time with their business.

Other winners at the Chamber’s ceremony were:

n Traci Kovar won the Mike Maidenberg Emerging Leader Award. Kovar works for Auto Finance Super Center. Maidenberg is the former publisher of the Herald and was a longtime Greater Grand Forks community leader, and the Herald created a fund for the award after he retired. Kovar donated her award to St. Vincent de Paul.

n Boyd Wright, owner of Wright Made Products, who won the SBA Region VIII home-based business champion of the year. He makes handmade wooden gifts such as kaleidoscopes and backscratchers and teaches small business classes to others with a yen for starting their own business.

n Kristi Hall-Jiran, longtime executive director of the Community Violence Intervention Center, won the regional Athena Award. Karen Thingelstad of Minnkota Power Cooperatives and Sheryl Smith of AE2S were also nominated for the award.

The award is given to men and women who demonstrate excellences in their profession, in community service and in helping women advance as professionals and leaders.

Hall-Jiran is also a founding member of the Community Foundation’s Women’s Fund and Healthy Families Region IV, a child abuse prevention program.
Reach Tran at (701) 780-1248 (701) 780-1248      ; (800) 477-6572 (800) 477-6572       ext. 248; or send e-mail to ttran@gfherald.com.