Chris Bentley
Deming Center for Entrepreneurship
Chris Bentley has a long history of successful entrepreneurship. He was a founding partner of Aspen Pet Products, which he and his partners built from the ground up to become the world’s largest designer and manufacturer of pet accessories. In his 13-year tenure at Aspen Pet, Chris was known as a keen decision-maker, insightful strategist, and responsive team leader. His strong relationship-building skills and effective negotiating strategies led to highly successful, long-term business lines with retail giants including Walmart, Target, Kroger, Safeway, Walgreens, Costco, Petco and PetSmart.
Since 2004, Chris has provided specialty sales, marketing, and strategic guidance for a diverse array of companies. Using imaginative methods and innovative marketing models, Chris helped jump-start numerous businesses, including a 300-franchisee international “enterprise effectiveness” organization based in Aspen, Colorado; a luxury resort in Montana; and various consumer packaged goods companies.
As founder and CEO of the Five Star Institute, Chris and 10 partners built an innovative international enterprise that provides a powerful, collaborative, year-long team process and a proprietary web-based application to help organizations achieve their strategic and financial targets. Most recently, Chris was recruited by MWH Global to launch the Strategic Resource Management group to help organizations “Go Beyond Just Green” with a focus on energy, water, emissions and waste. His success in that endeavor led to rapid promotion to VP of Strategy, Sales and Marketing for the entire MWH Business Solutions Group.
Chris is now back in the continually growing pet industry, leading his company and the industry move to more sustainable products and practices. Chris is LEED-accredited, recently completed the MBA “Sustainable Business Leadership’ Program at Green Mountain College in Vermont, and attended MBA classes at Pepperdine University; his undergraduate degree is from Michigan State University.
Chris participates in a multitude of environmental activities and organizations. He also serves the boards of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at CU-Boulder, Colorado Cleantech Industry Association and LJS Capital.
Now Chris has joined Only Natural Pet, an online and Boulder retail store selling natural pet supplies direct to consumers. The company strives to keep a neutral “pawprint” by taking our environment into account in everything it does. The company is 100% powered by wind energy. Its packaging aims to reduce waste, conserve valuable resources and benefit the environment. Chris’s charge as VP of Sales and Sustainability is to co-found a new wholesale division and bring his talent for sustainability to helping Only Natural Pet become a zero waste company and to promote sustainable practices throughout the entire pet industry.
While business and the environment have always been Chris’s passions, his family is his pride and joy. Chris lives in Louisville, Colorado with his wife, Cheryl; their teenage daughter, Aspen; two dogs, two cats, three goldfish, four chickens; and 60,000 bees. The two-legged family members (except the chickens) love snowboarding, biking, camping, rollerblading, sailing, horseback riding, gardening and adventure traveling.
