Rick Turoczy, Cofounder & General Manager, PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment)

For more than a decade, Rick Turoczy has been a vital connector in the Portland startup scene. His résumé runneth over, starting with his role as co-founder and manager of Portland Incubator Experiment, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary as the granddaddy of Portland startup accelerators.

He is author of the tech blog Silicon Florist, where he opines on everything from the deal flow surrounding local startups to mental health problems among founders. He helps steer Business for a Better Portland, an independent chamber of commerce (Zepeda, who runs the startup Switchboard, co-founded the guild with him). He co-founded Built Oregon, a consumer product startup accelerator. He's at the center of conversations about the Innovation Quadrant—a collaborative project between higher-ed institutions, governments and businesses that aims to create a "center of gravity" for inventions. And he was instrumental in getting TechfestNW (the largest startup and tech event in Oregon, produced by WW) off the ground.