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Successful Montana Technology Entrepreneur, Keith Brown, CEO of Merlin Information Services Tapped for Chairmanship of Frontier Angel Fund, LLC

Keith Brown, CEO of Merlin Information Services http://www.merlindata.com/ , has been selected as the new Chairman of the Frontier Angel Fund, LLC http://www.frontierangels.com , Montana’s first angel investor fund. Brown succeeds the fund’s Founding Chairman, Bob Smith of Whitefish. Mr. Brown’s experience brings a diverse background of business, operational, and technology expertise to apply to his role as Chairman of the fund. As CEO of Merlin Information Services, Mr. Brown leads a company known for excellence within the online data industry. Merlin Information Services provides online access to a host of public record and proprietary databases that are used to locate people, businesses and assets. Users of this data span across many industries and include real estate, law enforcement, collections, government agencies, and background screening. Prior to joining Merlin, Brown spent five years at Starbucks Coffee Company where he enjoyed a successful career as Vice President of Information Technology. At Starbucks, Keith was responsible for multiple teams supporting worldwide systems for the financial, supply chain, and human resources divisions. Keith’s teams collaborated with other teams across the organization to successfully deliver several key initiatives including the following: the financial team expanded globally to Europe and Asia and the e-business team successfully deployed an application and business-to-business infrastructure to integrate the company’s disparate systems. This infrastructure was crucial to the implementation of widely publicized programs such as the Starbucks Card and Wireless Network. The supply chain team successfully opened two new roasting plants in Carson City, Nevada and Amsterdam, Netherlands utilizing state of the art manufacturing and warehouse management systems.

After a productive career with Egghead Computer and PcConnection, Keith spent two years as President & Chief Operating Officer of Orbit Network. There he was responsible for implementing a business and technology strategy that grew a company that was consistently ranked among the top Internet-based travel companies. The company created technology that contained detailed information on over 10,000 leisure travel destinations. It tied into all the major travel distribution channels providing access to 98% of travel agents, AOL, and the Internet, and interfaced with suppliers directly for real-time bookings. At Egghead, Keith was responsible for automating systems to provide real-time clearing of financial information, inventory management, and product information across the company’s direct mail and corporate businesses. Additionally, Keith directed the company’s Internet initiatives, growing the company to be the second largest Internet-based retailer.

Brown takes over leadership of the fund with six portfolio investments. “I look forward to working with the members of the fund during these interesting economic times. Down economic cycles can be great times to launch a new venture. We continue to be positive and excited about working with Montana’s entrepreneurs,” says Brown.” Frontier Fund has some of the best business and financial minds anywhere in addition to experience across many sectors of the economy.”

Frontier Angel Fund invests in early stage entrepreneurial adventures that need equity to grow their business. The fund looks for companies with proprietary products or services, solid management and the capacity to scale the business to a successful exit. The fund is member managed and has a geographic investment focus of Northwest Montana, Montana and the inland Pacific Northwest. For more information visit http://www.frontierangels.com or contact the Fund Coordinator, Liz Marchi.

The Frontier Fund began formation in 2006 and closed in December, 2007. It has 33 accredited investors with committed capital of $1.75 million. It is a member of the Rain Source Capital Network, the Angel Capital Association and works closely with a number of other angel funds in the Spokane, Seattle and Portland. The funds syndication activity will be led by Diane Smith, Syndication Chairperson. Smith, a lawyer by training, is also a successful entrepreneur in the telecom industry having been a co-founder of Auroras Entertainment, now Avail Media, which attracted over $30 million in equity capital.

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