Betsy Cowles
Chairman
Betsy joined the company in 1992. She is president of the broadcasting, insurance and real estate divisions. She has extensive experience in real estate development projects and acquisitions, including leading the redevelopment of River Park Square. She has been instrumental in broadcast start-ups, technology centralization and operational restructuring. Betsy led the company's broadcast division expansion from one station in Spokane to more than nine across Washington, Idaho and Montana.
Betsy is active in the community. She has served on a number of boards including Greater Spokane Incorporated (past Chair) and Downtown Spokane Partnership. She is a past Chair of the Board of Regents for Washington State University and past trustee of George Washington University. She currently is a member of the Board of Directors for the Laird Norton Company, the Independent Colleges of Washington and the Washington Roundtable.
Prior to working for Cowles Company, Betsy was a lawyer for Davis, Wright, Tremaine in Seattle, WA. Betsy received her BA from Dartmouth College and JD from George Washington University.
Stacey Cowles
President
Stacey is president of the print media division which includes The Spokesman-Review daily newspaper and several weekly and bi-weekly publications and their associated websites. Having joined the company in 1989, he has been Publisher of The Spokesman-Review since 1992.
Stacey is a current director of the Associated Press and serves on the boards of a number of local and regional media, business and nonprofit organizations. He is an active participant in regional entrepreneurial support organizations and has been an angel and venture capital investor since joining the board of Spokane's first venture fund Spokane Capital Management in 1989. He was the founding chairman of the Downtown Spokane Partnership. He serves as the community liaison for the Washington State University Spokane Applied Sciences Lab.
Prior to joining Cowles Company, Stacey served as a newswriter for the Associated Press London Bureau and was a senior manager in the business valuation practice and Merger & Acquisition Department of KPMG Peat Marwick in New York. He holds a BA in Economics from Yale College and an MBA from the Columbia University School of Business.
Steve Rector
Chief Financial Officer and Secretary/treasurer
Steve leads the company's growth capital investment strategy in addition to managing bank relationships and audit and tax functions. An accomplished financial analyst and deal architect, he currently serves on the boards of Clearas Water Recovery; Ag Energy Solutions, Inc. and Scorebook Live. He is a board member and current president of the Rypien Foundation. He has also served on the board of the Whitworth Foundation and the Spokane Teachers Credit Union Supervisory Committee. He represents the company as a member of the Spokane Angel Alliance and the Seattle Alliance of Angels.
Prior to joining Cowles as internal auditor in 1989, Steve was a Certified Public Accountant for Coopers & Lybrand (now Pricewaterhouse Coopers or PwC). He holds a BA in Accounting from Whitworth University.
Matt Nielsen
Corporate Controller
Matt is a CPA and the controller and compliance officer for taxes and filings. He is in charge of the company's accounting policies and procedures, oversees the financial consolidations of the companies and supervises the payroll shared services group. He has extensive experience with complex financial structures and business operational trend analysis.
Matt has served as a board member and treasurer of various local non-profit organizations as well as several Mayoral commissioned volunteer committees for the City of Spokane.
He worked for Coopers & Lybrand as a Certified Public Accountant before joining Cowles in 1998. He is a graduate of the University of Washington with a BA in Accounting.