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Opportunity Creation
Investing time, energy, passion, and capital.
Driving investment in our community
- Our investments: Operating businesses and real estate.
- What we do: We invest time, energy, passion, and capital in Colorado and Wyoming.
- Why we do this: To create meaningful impact - for our teams, our families, and our community.
- Why Vuelo: Through a disciplined investment approach, Vuelo provides a family of investments. In their entirety, our investments create an ecosystem of related real estate and operating business investments. We invest in markets we know, understand, and trust. Each investment propels the flywheel through opportunity creation, mitigated risk, and catalyzed growth.
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Our story
Vuelo is a collaboration between the founders of Waypoint Real Estate and Poudre Bay Capital, focused on bringing positive change in our communities by helping businesses scale and drive growth.
Leadership
As a founder and Managing Partner of Vuelo Investments, Josh Guernsey has matched his passion for real estate with extensive experience in founding, acquiring and growing great companies. Josh’s operational expertise has been paired with successfully overseeing billions of dollars of total transaction volume related to real estate investment, development, brokerage and consulting deals.
Beginning his career at Prologis, a global leader in distribution facilities, he managed institutional-level transactions across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, contributing to a deal volume exceeding $3.0 billion. In 2007, Josh became a Partner at Brinkman Partners in Fort Collins. During his decade-long tenure, Brinkman was routinely recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Colorado, as Josh successfully oversaw growth of the real estate company, investments, development projects, and transformative consulting and brokerage work.
Josh continues in his role as founder and Managing Partner of Waypoint Companies, as he continues to play a pivotal role in the strategic direction of Waypoint’s management and real estate companies, with Waypoint gaining annual recognition as one of Northern Colorado’s fastest growing and most dynamic companies. Over the years, he has developed expertise in structuring successful joint ventures and fostering collaboration between stakeholders, navigating the complexities of financing, and securing capital for growth and development. Josh actively engages in creating synergies between public and private entities for community development which has contributed to shaping the Northern Colorado real estate landscape.
Josh’s philosophy of creating ecosystems that transcend mere financial metrics fuel his role with Vuelo today. In his role as Managing Partner at Vuelo, he goes beyond being an investor, seeking interconnectedness of investments within the Vuelo ecosystem that strengthen each component. Josh’s vision is to ultimately create an ecosystem that serves a greater mission of creating meaningful impact for his team members, our families and the communities in which we work and live.
Josh holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Colorado, a Master in Science in Real Estate Finance and Construction Management from the University of Denver, and is a recognized Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM). Josh also has a background in aviation, with aviation terminology being a common thread in the naming of many of the Vuelo Ventures. Josh has held licenses as a Private Pilot, Instrument Rating, Commercial and Airline Transport Pilot.
Josh commits much of his time to serving on numerous boards and community based causes that are close to his heart. He finds his greatest joy spending time with his wife Jen, traveling, playing sports and enjoying all things outdoors in Colorado with his three boys (Cole, Graham and Reid).
Brian Smerud is the founder and CEO of Poudre Bay, a firm that specializes in the investment, development, and redevelopment of commercial real estate assets along the Front Range of Colorado and Wyoming. Brian has been a leading commercial broker in Northern Colorado since 2014 and holds the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) designation. Before founding Poudre Bay, Brian worked in the oil and gas industry as director of development for CNG 4 America, a startup in the compressed natural gas space. Brian also spent eight years with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, where he collaborated on upstream and midstream projects throughout the Rocky Mountain region and in Africa. He made his mark in the corporate world participating in the development of a $20 billion-dollar liquified natural gas project in Mozambique, Africa.
“Fostering the growth of local businesses is something I’ve been passionate about for my whole career,” Brian says, “and Vuelo is the culmination of that passion. Growth generates employment opportunities, invigorates the local economy, and ultimately leads to a thriving community. That brings meaning to what I do, and it’s what gets me up and moving every day.”
Brian holds an M.S. in real estate and the built environment from the University of Denver. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado, where he obtained a B.S. in finance and a B.A. in Spanish and Portuguese. Through his past endeavors, Brian has acquired specialized knowledge of the Colorado real estate market and overarching financial landscape. A trilingual business professional, Brian has extensive knowledge in commercial real estate as an investor, developer, and broker.
Tom Hall is a partner and the director of asset management for Waypoint Real Estate. Tom holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Northern Colorado and has 30 years of experience in commercial real estate, with an emphasis in accounting, project management, property management, and leasing. Prior to joining Waypoint, Tom was the vice president of commercial operations for McWhinney, where he led the commercial operations and development team to ensure the success of its commercially managed properties equaling nearly $850 million. In his role at McWhinney, he was key in attracting and retaining well-respected national and global businesses to Northern Colorado, including Constant Contact, Numerica, and Nutrien.
Tom now oversees the strategic planning and execution of property management services for a diverse portfolio of properties. With 5 million square feet under management, 1,600 tenants, and 200 properties, Tom has grown Waypoint Real Estate’s property management sector exponentially since joining the firm in 2017.
At Vuelo, Tom spearheads the identification, acquisition, and management of high-potential investment opportunities, driving value creation for clients and investors.
“Investing in operating businesses is like being an architect of economic growth,” Tom says. “We have the opportunity to identify and nurture promising local companies, helping them reach their full potential. This process not only creates value for our investors but also serves as a catalyst for economic growth, sending ripples of prosperity throughout the community.”
Drew Yancey is the founder of Teleios Strategy, a leading strategy advisory firm. Drew helps companies achieve what they thought was impossible. He leverages his extensive track record in high-performance team building and strategic execution to solve challenging problems at the nexus of growth, strategy, and innovation. Drew has more than 15 years of strategy consulting and executive leadership experience across multiple industries.
His career started in a large family-owned foodservice distribution business, where, as the director of strategy, he helped guide the company through its acquisition by one of the top five largest food distributors in the U.S. He then became CEO and led the turnaround of a produce merchandising and distribution company. After that, he was a consultant at Clareo, a global strategy and innovation company, helping Fortune 500 clients in the natural resources, energy, and food industries create new growth paths.
At Vuelo, Drew drives growth across Vuelo Ventures and Vuelo Real Estate Investments by building out scalable systems and processes, integrating acquisitions, and executing growth strategy. “Building on the success of Waypoint, Vuelo represents an incredible opportunity to scale generational impact in Northern Colorado and beyond,” Drew says. “Professionally, there is nothing I am more passionate about than helping build and strengthen Northern Colorado businesses, especially ones that pour back into our community. “I am a byproduct of this business community. I was the fourth generation of one of the largest family-owned food distributors in North America. We were a 70+ year member of the Northern Colorado business community and experienced unique growth and success by staying rooted here.”
Drew is the author of two books and a frequent keynote speaker. He has a Master of Divinity degree from Denver Seminary, an MBA from Texas A&M University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham (U.K.). Drew is an avid traveler (having visited over 40 countries) and proud sixth-generation resident of Colorado, where he lives with his amazing wife and kids.
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