Meet the MasterSuite Team

Fran Tarkenton

Founder & CEO

After graduating from the University of Georgia, Fran played football in the NFL for 18 years and was inducted into the National Football Hall of Fame. He is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country, having launched 17 companies in the past 40 years. Fran started each of these companies with just an idea, with the largest one growing to $142 million in revenue. Included in this list are companies that used a large staff of behavioral psychologists to improve productivity in aging factories, the first payroll deduction guaranteed issue life insurance program as well as highly regarded advertising and public relations firms.

Fran has the unique ability to take innovative ideas and identify effective and efficient ways to bring them to market. His extensive expertise in sales, direct marketing, and Web-based marketing has enabled him to advise and counsel businesses about new opportunities in fast-changing environments. He is also skilled in identifying and tapping into new and innovative channels of distribution. Lodestar is the culmination of his past 14 years of work identifying needs of small business owners and building solutions for those needs.

Rick Gossett

Chief Operating Officer
rgossett@tarkenton.com

Rick Gossett holds an MBA in Accounting from Georgia State University and brings more than 30 years of broad financial experience to Lodestar, where he serves and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining Tarkenton Companies, Rick directed the local tax practice of major national CPA firms, ran his own broad-based accounting practice, taught at a major state university and was CFO for a publicly held software company. Since 1996, Rick has worked directly with Fran Tarkenton to build GoSmallBiz.com, the premier support network for small business owners across North America, and he is the principal architect of the on-demand software applications developed by Lodestar.

Shaun O’Reilly

Senior Director of Marketing
soreilly@tarkenton.com

Shaun is a graduate of London Metropolitan University with a bachelor’s degree in Law and also holds an MBA in Marketing from Northeastern University in Boston. Having spent his early career in the telecom business, Shaun moved into the online marketing arena as Director of Marketing for what is now Careerbuilder.com before co-founding an online venture that distributed job seeker resumes to recruiters. More recently, he has headed marketing efforts for a leading insurance marketing firm, an incentive marketing company and a national franchise company.

Shaun brings a broad base of marketing knowledge and experience to the Tarkenton Companies, where he is responsible for marketing MasterSuiteApps, both directly over the web and through a network of resellers and affiliates.

Micheleh Center

Director of Web Development
mcenter@tarkenton.com

Micheleh studied Business Communications and New Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she developed a broad spectrum of skills in graphic design, web design, web development, multimedia creation, project management and public speaking. Before joining our team in 2009, Micheleh worked in creative management roles in the corporate communications and interactive marketing departments of several enterprise corporations, including Southern Company (SO) and Premiere Global Services (PGI).

Micheleh has held a passion for fine art and mathematics since childhood, developing her artistic abilities all throughout her life. Her hobbies include singing, drawing, dining out, fitness, sports, outdoor recreation, marathon running, reading, volunteering, and most of all spending time with her two boys.

Alex Sherman

Product Development Manager
asherman@lodestartechlabs.com

Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in Management and Entrepreneurship from Kennesaw State University. In his past, he worked with a friend of his in a start up landscaping business for two years, and has held an assistant managers position at Hibbett Sports for three and half years. Alex is a member of Students In Free Enterprise and was the project manager for the Concept-2-Reality competition held twice a year at Kennesaw State University. Alex has an inspiring set of parents and two brothers. He enjoys traveling and spending time with his girlfriend. After living in Michigan for a brief period of time, Alex picked up snowboarding and has been perusing the passion consistently since 1998.

Rachel Swieter

Client Relations Manager
rswieter@tarkenton.com

A graduate of North Carolina State University with a bachelor ‘s in Marketing Communications, Rachel Swieter serves as the MasterSuiteApps.com Webmaster. She also manages content and other development projects on many of Tarkenton Companies’ other Web portals. Additionally, Rachel overseas client relations for Lodestar Technology Labs partners and assists in the development of strategic marketing and branding campaigns for the Tarkenton Institute, MasterSuiteApps.com and Tarkenton Financial, LLC, an insurance marketing firm also operated out of the Tarkenton Buckhead offices.