Gabe is a champion for specialty retailers, having served in leadership with Grassroots formerly as Vice President and Business Analyst and now as President. Gabe is also a talented golfer, outdoor recreationalist, reluctant dog lover, and girl dad.

Tara has called Wyoming home since 2000, and spends much of her time biking, hiking, Nordic skiing, kayaking, and traveling. She has two decades of hands-on experience working in nonprofit leadership, higher education, and community development. Tara holds graduate degrees in Counseling and Adult Education along with certifications in strategic planning, facilitation, mediation, and coaching. Through her role as an educator, facilitator, and coach, Tara is committed to helping groups work together, learn together, and achieve great results together.

Marty Bhatia is Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Digital Ninja Consulting, where he and his team deliver Technical Discovery and AI Readiness Assessments that help organizations find real ROI from AI workflows built around people. The firm also helps clients develop AI policies and invest in their people. That work is grounded in a friction-first methodology and a discipline-over-capital philosophy for lean teams that can't afford to chase shiny objects. The throughline: document before you automate. In the outdoor industry, Marty served as Fractional CTO of Eddyline Kayaks, where he shipped a working dealer-portal prototype in eight days. In January 2026 he delivered the keynote Applied AI Without the Hype at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute AI Summit, drawing on his work taking a client's AI product from concept to production in ten weeks. He has presented on digital transformation at the Paddlesports Trade Association, and in 2026 completed the MIT Applied AI Professional Certificate. At the June 2026 Grassroots Connect, Marty delivered Applied AI Without the Hype to retailers and brands, helping independent shops separate AI signal from noise and turn it into measurable margin. He's excited to be back this November to continue the conversation, taking that same lens one level deeper into the human side of the work. His keynote and workshop cover AI and personal wellness, and human-centric AI policy: how teams adopt AI without burning out the people it's meant to serve.

Dan Mann is the President of The Mann Group, the company he founded in 2003. After writing dozens of training manuals for his clients (Thule, Camelbak, Untuckit, Sun and Ski Sports, Fleet Feet Sports, Canyon Bicycles, Shimano, Brooks Running, Altra Running, CCA Global Partners, etc.) he finally decided in 2017 to write his first book: “ORBiT-The Art and Science of Influence”, widely used as a resource for professional managers and trainers everywhere. His new book, “Leading Change: How to achieve superior results through Gentle Pressure Relentlessly Applied” was written because of his life-long career in leading teams. In this book, Dan offers a realistic approach to the challenges that leaders face in order to crush previously impenetrable barriers and promote progress. These days, his passions are on camping, Bourbon collecting, music, Smoked meats, bicycling, cooking, fountain pens and talking about all of these things to anyone that will listen.

Brian Nero brings over a decade of digital marketing leadership and retail expertise to the MarTech space, helping brands and their retailers convert digital audiences into in-store foot traffic. Starting his career on the sales floor of a specialty retailer, Brian built his expertise from the ground up before co-founding BrandSlice (an O2O marketing platform) in 2016. Following BrandSlice’s acquisition last October by Locally, Brian continues to drive innovation at the intersection of brand marketing, retail tech, and local commerce.