Our guest for the February 7th edition of Playmakers Talk Show: Kristi Valentine, CEO of Valentine Premier Construction

Kristi Valentine has lived in Coppell, Texas for more than twenty years. Kristi and her family have always been active volunteers in the community. As president and CEO of the Coppell Chamber of Commerce, she played a key role in growing and strengthening the business community while serving on several committees and boards for the state and region. A graduate of Leadership Coppell and Leadership North Texas, Kristi is a proud Texan.

After graduating from Texas Christian University, Kristi’s early career was in the wild world of advertising as an Ad Exec for some of the biggest and best Ad Agencies in DFW. 

Recently, Kristi contributed to shaping the direction of her community as a member of the Coppell Vision 2040 Executive Committee and the Coppell Arts Center Development Team. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Metrocrest Services, a social services non-profit agency, for 8 years.

Kristi was recently widowed after a marriage of 25 years with John Valentine, the founder of their company, Valentine Premier Construction, LLC. Before John’s loss of his heroic battle with Cancer, Kristi joined him in their family business and eventually had to step up to take the reins and run their business. 

ValentinePremierConstruction.com

Phone: (972) 538-4400

Guest Kristi Valentine, Host Steve A Klein

Our guest for the January 24th edition of Playmakers Talk Show: Owen Hannay, Founder and CEO of “Slingshot” and “Five Smooth Stones“

Born in Dallas, Owen is a fourth-generation native Texan, with stories from both sides of his family about running away from Pancho Villa while they lived in the LRGV (Lower Rio Grande Valley).

Owen attended Cistercian Prep School in Irving after three years of living in Tokyo with his family. His family agreed to pay for college if he attended the University of Virginia, and he says he “left a flaming trail” from Dallas to Charlottesville.

After graduating with an Architecture Degree and, deciding that he did not want to be an architect, he returned home to get an MBA at SMU. After failing to get a job in Real Estate development (it was the late 80s) he took a job at an advertising agency and unexpectedly fell in love with the business.

Owen started his first company, Slingshot, in 1995 at the advent of Interactive Marketing and has been at the forefront ever since. Slingshot ran the first HTML Banner on the Internet, developed the first updatable banner, negotiated the first online awareness guarantee, and much, much more. Today, Slingshot (advertising agency) and its sister company Insite (development company) serve clients including UT Southwestern, Bimbo Bakeries and Omni Hotels

The growth of Slingshot led to the purchase of the Awalt Building in the Dallas West End in 2000 to house their offices. Classified at the time as “Demolition by Neglect”, the building was restored during the following year. Since that time, Five Smooth Stones, Owen’s real estate company, has renovated, repurposed, and sold over 600,000 square feet of historic space. In 2023 Five Smooth Stones purchased the Landmark Center in the West End for the second time.

Slingshot.com

Insite.net

LandmarkDallas.com

Phone: (214) 634-4411

Guest Owen Hannay, Host Steve A Klein