The People Behind SPARK

Sales Executive Melissa Ewen has spent most of her career serving the small business community through a variety of roles including teaching, training, consulting and ultimately through the SBA loan program. With over ten years’ experience in SBA Loan Operations and a commitment to operational excellence, Melissa became one of SPARK’s first customers. She fell in love with the product and the team, becoming a brand ambassador long before coming on board herself.

Melissa holds a BS and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Ball State University. When she’s not directly supporting small businesses, Melissa enjoys fitness, boating, serving her community, and spending time with her husband, two daughters, and three pups.

Tanner Bruhschwein has spent his career in both the lending and technology industries. Prior to joining the SPARK team, he was one of the first SPARK users, applying the system to originate and underwrite SBA loans. Tanner also has experience in ensuring the successful implementation of software to healthcare organizations. He leverages this experience, as well as his time as a SPARK user, to offer a consultative approach to implementation, training, ongoing support, and everything in between.

Tanner holds a BS in Finance from the University of Nebraska. He is a hopeless golf fanatic who enjoys cooking and traveling abroad with his wife.

Emily McCarty helps SPARK users leverage technology for increased day-to-day efficiency. As Lead Customer Success Manager, she uses her knowledge of interpersonal skills to bring a human element to implementation and technical support. Through SPARK, she hopes to further the mission of small business lenders by helping underserved communities secure financing for their small business ventures.

Emily holds a BA in Psychology from Transylvania University and an MA in Clinical Psychology from the University of Dayton. She is a self-proclaimed outdoor junkie who loves hiking, biking, running, and more — all with her dog in tow.

Dawn Tata has spent her career assisting people and businesses alike with all their banking and lending needs—from non-complex auto loans to complex New Markets Tax Credit transactions; SBA to small business loans, and everything in between. Dawn’s experience has strengthened her deep understanding of the challenges lenders face daily, as well as the efficiencies that SPARK can offer.

Dawn holds a BA in Finance from Western State College of Colorado. She is a beach fanatic and looks forward to any time she can spend at the beach with her two kids. When not at the beach, you will find her in her backyard gardening or in the kitchen whipping up a delicious baked treat.

Keegan Mack is a uniquely skilled professional who has strong technical aptitude, senior leadership experience, and 20 years advanced customer solutions experience, including a proven track record of strategic business scaling. She joined SPARK as a Customer Support Manager because she believes in the mission of efficiency that can be achieved through automation. Prior to joining SPARK, Keegan played an instrumental role in scaling a SaaS company from start-up to a well established international business.

Keegan has a passion for all things music-related and enjoys watching true crime documentaries.

Kyle Holder has spent a decade supporting customers as they pursue software solutions in the medical, government, and financial industries. As Senior Customer Success Manager, he blends a respect for customer process with a deep knowledge of the SPARK platform to help customers do what they do best, only better and faster.

Kyle has a BA in English from the University of Nebraska and an MA in Education from Edgewood College. He has been known to spend time discussing good fiction and bad movies.

Alex Herman has spent his career building software for the lending industry. He combines an in-depth knowledge of small business lending with years of experience implementing enterprise software solutions to consistently deliver high-quality software solutions to our customers.

Alex holds a BS in Computer Science from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. He enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and dogs.

Craig Macy is a senior application developer for SPARK. With a love for learning and problem solving, he brings more than 10 years of technical expertise from a variety of positions. Craig provides both business and technical analysis for features, develops functionality to expand and improve SPARK, and handles support for complex technical issues.

Craig holds a BS in Computer Science and Information Systems from the University of Vermont. He is also a scuba diver and pilot who enjoys traveling, cooking, gardening, and building anything he can out of wood.

Briana Como has over 20 years of experience designing digital products for a wide variety of industries and users with a focus on goal-directed design and cross-discipline collaboration. As Principal Product Designer, Bri tackles tough business and technology problems by creating intuitive, elegant, and functional products. She has worked for companies of all sizes, including Foodsby, where she built and led the design function from the ground up. Prior to that, Bri led design for 3M’s Health Information Systems division, focused on high-profile enterprise software programs.

Bri holds a degree in Digital Media from John Brown University. She plays sand volleyball, enjoys outdoor concerts, and is learning the ukulele.

Elle Harstad is a Senior Product Designer on SPARK’s product design team. Prior to SPARK, she worked in technology as a product and UX designer across healthcare, food delivery, and fitness industries. With a background in visual and interaction design, Elle brings her attention to detail to design exploration, information architecture, data visualization, interaction design, and design systems.

Elle studied graphic design at the University of Minnesota. She loves to garden, cook, bake bread and pizza from scratch, and spend time outdoors with her two dogs.

Alex Reich is a full-stack Application Developer for the SPARK development team. Specializing in modern front-end frameworks, Alex applies his prior experience building web applications for small and large companies to iterate and improve the SPARK user experience.

Alex holds a BSBA in Actuarial Science and Finance from Drake University.

John Howes is a Principal Architect on the SPARK platform. He is an experienced software developer with over 20 years of experience designing and building web applications for a number of industries, including retail, healthcare, and banking. John’s focus is on helping to deliver a high quality, beautiful, accessible product that delights our users and stands the test of time.

John has an MA in Political Science from SUNY Buffalo. He enjoys spending time with his family, loves books and music, and is learning to play the guitar.

As a product manager, Alia Abboud works cross-functionally to guide each step of the product lifecycle, from researching and gathering requirements for new features and enhancements to collaborating with product design, development, and QA to implement SPARK’s product updates. Meanwhile, she supports Customer Success to prioritize and respond to customer requests. Prior to SPARK, she worked in client operations and product management in the tax compliance technology space.

Alia holds bachelor’s degrees in International Business and Musical Arts from Hamline University. She is also a semiprofessional cellist and vocalist, performing regularly in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. In her free time, she enjoys trying new restaurants, traveling, and listening to podcasts.

Johnson Anyarah is a Senior Cloud Engineer focused on improving SPARK’S overall cloud infrastructure. He uses his background in building and maintaining cloud infrastructures to deploy, manage, monitor, and troubleshoot SPARK’s cloud-based systems. 

Johnson holds an MS in Information Technology from Minnesota State University. He enjoys traveling and playing soccer.