Board of Directors

Chairman – Mark Frischmuth

Mark conceived of and founded DemocracyLab. Professionally, he works as a pension wholesaler, and is the owner and President of RMS NW, Inc. He travels throughout the Northwest working with financial advisors to deliver effective retirement plan solutions to their corporate clients.

Treasurer – Lance Inouye

Lance Y. Inouye, CPA is the Chief Financial Officer and co-owner of the PREM Group Family of Companies, a Portland-based commercial real estate management company focusing on managing high-rise, mixed-use residential and office properties.  As CFO for PREM Group, Lance’s primary responsibilities include: financial budgeting and reporting, managing cash flow, risk management through procurement of insurance, tax planning and staff management. Prior to joining PREM Group in 2009, Lance was the CFO for Gerding/Edlen Development Company, LLC.

Deborah Bryant

Deborah Bryant is Public Sector Communities Manager at Oregon State University, where she works within the intersection of academia, industry and government around Open Source issues and activities. She brings with her the perspective of twenty years management and operational experience in information technology from both private and public sectors. Ms Bryant serves as a member of the Governor’s Open Technology Industry Cluster and directs the annual Government Open Source Conference. Ms. Bryant is also responsible for outreach and education programs for Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab, which hosts some of the largest Open Source projects in the world as well as hosting the master Linux Kernel.

Prior to joining OSU, Ms. Bryant worked for 4 years in Oregon state government, serving as Manager of Enterprise Strategic Planning and Policy in the Office of the State CIO and also as Deputy State CIO. Prior to entering the pubic sector, Deborah held management positions in a number of emerging technology areas; parallel and high-speed computing and commercialized internet and web applications in the 80s, commercial wide area networks, advanced telecommunications and data/voice convergence in the 90s.

Su Midghall

Su Midghall is the Managing Partner of DHM Research, a premier opinion research firm based in Portland, Oregon that has a focus on public policy issues and social causes. She has been in her field for over 15 years and feels privileged to work on important issues that improve communities across the Northwest, including early learning, public health, alternative transportation, and renewable energy. Su has been involved in thousands of projects over her career, and she’s especially intrigued by the values and beliefs of 18-24 and 12-17 year olds.

As a small business owner, she has a commitment to identify best business practices and directs research for the annual Oregon Business Magazine’s 100 Best surveys including the Best Companies, Best Nonprofits, and Best Green Companies to Work for in Oregon. By far, her favorite activity as a business owner has been teaching 5th graders about entrepreneurship through Junior Achievement.

Su graduated from the University of Tennessee in Marketing and Psychology and serves on the Board of Governors for City Club – a civic organization, and the Entrepreneur’s Organization – a nonprofit serving small business owners.

John Tortorici 

ohn has over thirty years of successful management experience in IT most recently in his own consultancy, Chart Solutions. For thirteen months until August 2010 he had been Executive Director of the Oregon Bioscience Association. And for two years, until Feb.2007 he had been President of the Software Association of Oregon. For the three years prior to its acquisition by WebMD in 2003, he had been a VP at WellMed Inc, with roles including Operations, Marketing and Strategic Business Affairs.
Prior to joining WellMed in 2000 John was VP and GM of the Blood Bank Division of Mediware Information Systems Inc. (NASDAQ MEDW) a health information systems company which had acquired John’s company in 1998. Since its inception in 1980 John had been founder Chairman and CEO of Informedics, Inc, (formerly known as Western Star, Inc.). Informedics provided medical laboratory software to healthcare customers in six countries. The Company completed an IPO in 1983 and made three strategic acquisitions before merging with Mediware.
John’s career in IT began at Burroughs Corporation where, as an Account Manager in San Francisco, he headed a team of professionals who sold and serviced mainframe computers. He then moved to Raytheon Data Systems as the Western Regional Manager and, prior to founding Western Star, John was the Bay Area Manager for Durango Systems, Inc. a manufacturer and distributor of business computers.