Restoring Community: How risk, persistence, and faith can solve the complex game!
Episode 4: Glen and Nancy Ellis — Entrepreneurs with a passion for their community
Are you crazy, or just crazy enough? Do you follow your faith regardless of the naysayers? In Episode #4 of the Art of Complexity, your host Roy Adams interviews change agents and community leaders Glen & Nancy Ellis as they uncover and unlock the unique community-based aspect of complexity in Restoring Community: How risk, persistence, and faith can solve the complex game!
With a strong belief in doing what you love for a living, Glen & Nancy Ellis’s story starts out with discovering their shared passion for helping others. Along with accepting the risk, their passion sparked the desire to develop a software company with the sole purpose of helping those around them. Founding Sycamore Education, Glen and Nancy sought a vision to enhance organizational data and optimize educational management procedures. It was at this time (1999) when their son Brock’s small private school needed a more efficient way to facilitate information they had on incoming students. With their entrepreneurial mindset, the couple decided to go all in developing the solution they needed. That birthed Sycamore Education, now a leader in the school management software industry.
As a software engineer, Glen knew the substantial monetary value behind educational management systems. This meant smaller institutions like the one his son was attending are unable to afford such large requirements. Thus, in the beginning, Sycamore Education was given to local schools for free, but it became outrightly clear that this technology could be a great asset for other small schools facing similarly complex challenges around the world. Due to the web-based design, international schools started to take note and the company rapidly expanded into over 40 different countries worldwide. In fact, they also grew a presence in nearly all 50 states, including schools in California, Nebraska, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Texas.
Parallel with their rapid growth and persistence to never give up, Glen & Nancy always had an appreciation for supporting their friends and fellow community members. Provided that, they jumped on the opportunity to relocate Sycamore Education into the historical heart of downtown Fremont, Nebraska into the May Brothers Building.
It would be this decision, and this location that would provide the next massive slate of complex challenges Glen, Nancy, and family would now face.
In addition to Sycamore Education, the May Brothers Building houses the Milady Coffee House and the Fremont Creative Collective, an entrepreneurial center for those looking to create, develop, and jump-star their personal business. As a learning hub, Glen and Nancy created this space to encourage those to take risks, network, and change the future. In essence, Milady Coffeehouse allows students, business professional, and community members to meet up, collaborate ideas, and help each other’s businesses cultivate and succeed. As relationships grow into business opportunities, the Creative Collective has a space for those opportunities to grow.
Amid Sycamore’s evolution and the perseverance to trust the process, the entrepreneurial opportunities for recent alumni in the Creative Collective, and the coffee shop, Glen & Nancy intend to continually enhance their space, and create a home for the most talented graduates, businessman, and community members alike.
So Lean In, and enjoy our conversation with Glen and Nancy Ellis, Entrepreneurs as we talk about navigating complexity.
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