Leadership Spotlight: A Journey with ATLIS Founders from Origins to Future Aspirations

Narrator 0:02
welcome to Talking technology with ATLIS, the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens. We'll hear stories from technology directors and other special guests from the Independent School community and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics. And now please welcome your host, Christina Llewelyn.

Christina Lewellen 0:24
Hello everyone and welcome back to talking technology with ATLIS. I'm Christina Llewellyn, the executive director of ATLIS

Speaker 1 0:32
and I'm bill states, the Director of Technology at Montclair Kimberley Academy,

Hiram Cuevas 0:37
and I'm hiring Kwame Ross from St. Christopher school in Richmond, Virginia. I'm the Director of Information Systems and academic technology.

Christina Lewellen 0:44
Hey, guys, Bill, and Hiram, I'm excited about this episode. I know that we've spent some time kind of doing some deeper dives into technology focused topics. Today, ATLIS is the star. That's pretty cool.

Unknown Speaker 0:58
I'm very excited.

Christina Lewellen 1:00
Me too,

Hiram Cuevas 1:01
doesn't get any better.

Christina Lewellen 1:02
I think that a lot of folks understand the ATLIS is a relatively young organization. But we're kind of getting up there. We're stretching towards our 10 year anniversary, which we will be celebrating in 2025 in Atlanta at our annual conference. But what I wanted to do in this episode, and my co host and I are really excited to dive into is we wanted to get back to our origin story, the ATLIS origin story. So we're very proud and happy to welcome ATLIS three founders back to ATLIS on the pod to have a conversation with us today. So we are welcoming Kelsey rumen. And Gabe Lucas and Stuart Posten. Guys, welcome back to ATLIS. How are you?

Kelsey Vrooman 1:46
All right. It's like we never left.

Christina Lewellen 1:51
It's not been that long. So let's go around the horn here. Because I would love for you to tell our audience if they don't know you, and I think many people do but tell our podcast audience who you are. And I think that there's kind of two versions of the story right guys? Like there's who you were at the founding of ATLIS. And then there's the who you are today. So first, why don't you tell me kind of who you were when ATLIS was started back in like the 2014 2015 timeframe. Why don't we go to Kelsey first Kelsey Berman? Awesome.

Kelsey Vrooman 2:23
Nice to be here and to speak with all of you about ATLIS. And I cannot believe that it's been almost 10 years. I don't know Gabe and Stuart. It feels like just yesterday, we were in that little. What is the hotel gave? What hotel was it again, the Crowne Plaza. And we were all you just bootstrapping this together. And so I have such incredible memories of what it was like in those early days of getting this community together. And so for me, when I was starting ATLIS, I really did it for an incredibly selfish reason. I'm sure Gabe and Stuart will have their own. But I had just made the transition from being a classroom teacher and an instructional coach, and being like the techie person, but not really knowing anything about structural tech, or how to lead people, or you know, even how to teach adults really, in a more expansive way. So I moved from Colorado to California. And I had started at a new school, urban school, San Francisco as the Director of Educational Technology. And the incredible woman who hired me and who said they were going to mentor me as my first administrator job. She retired two months after I started. So I was like, set adrift in this school. With no one really looking out for me, I really knew no one in California, I was literally going through a divorce at this time. So like, I was just distraught and lost. And I had come up through St. So I had a really lovely community, in St. But we were this tiny little fraction of the Independent School world in the larger SD community. And so when I moved to the Bay Area, you know, I was pulling on some of my su friends to be like my lifeline. I remember, like Don, or if he was at Hillbrook, who was just such a lovely mentor to me. I remember calling him and being like done, the vendor is not answering my phone call, what do I do? And he like, got on a joint call with me and helped me yell at a vendor for the first time. And so like, all of these lovely people, were really helping me figure out how to be an administrator. And that was just through like the luck of the draw, because I had that st community. So I kept thinking, we have to have something like this for independent school. Why are we are all our own islands, if I'm drowning in my school, and I only lasted two years, and then I was like, This is not for me. Then other people must be having that same experience and how many amazing administrators are coming up? And because they don't have the support, they don't have the community. They're feeling isolated. They're feeling alone, and they're feeling unsuccessful, and so gave us really close was an eye new suit suit. I don't even know how we met each other. Allah gave tell the story of how we started. But really where I was when I started ATLIS was I was a new administrator who was like barely keeping my head above water. I had no clue what I was doing. And really ATLIS served as that lifeline to me of bringing the smartest people in the room and allowing me to connect in with their wisdom and stuff having to reinvent the wheel. So that's who I was do want me to say who I am now, or are we going around the horn of who we all were?

Christina Lewellen 5:29
I sort of like the idea of like, who we all were back then. And then we can kind of wrap it up with who we are today. So why don't we go to Stuart Stuart, can you tell me a little bit about who you were when ATLIS was founded?

Stuart Posin 5:40
I was director of technology at Marlborough School, which is an all girl 712 in Los Angeles. Prior to that, I was the director of technology at the Buckley School, which is k 12 in LA and started in school technology, Academic Technology Campbell Hall, which is a cage for law someone LA. So when I met Chelsea, I think was it an NCIS actually is the first time I met her like this, the there was like an SE session for independent schools or whatever. And I went there and met Kelsey, I think just briefly the first time that actually I had a sit down with Kelsey was at nai s

Kelsey Vrooman 6:16
at breakfast. I remember, right at breakfast.

Stuart Posin 6:20
I was there because I was on the board at online school for girls, and I was there for the board meeting. And I went for a run a workout in the gym. And I was wearing a Nike shirt that said all damn day on it or something like that. And I was walking through the buffet with all these heads of school around. And I started with Kelsey, and I think she was probably kind of embarrassed like it was this guy sitting with me. But we had a good chat. Never

Kelsey Vrooman 6:42
never, you know, be better than that. I probably wanted to sit with you because of that shirt.

Stuart Posin 6:48
So we had a chat. And I think we Akina did school visits at Urban and Castile area. I don't remember what the order if that was pre ATLIS or post ATLIS, I think it was actually pre ATLIS. And so I had some exposure to Kelsey some exposure to Gabe. When Gabe gets on, he'll talk about really the founding founding of ATLIS. But I was sitting at my desk when I got a an email from them. And then we got on the phone pretty quick thereafter, I was like, well call me now. And like gave tell the story of where that comes from.

Gabriel Lucas 7:20
Absolutely. Like Kelsey, I was M Stewart I was working in a couple of schools. I've been there for about seven or eight years in different roles versus an educator and then as a director of edtech. And then as a director of all things tech. And I think if I had to use sort of one word, I mean, there was a little bit of jealousy, right of other roles, other domains that had their flock, their sheep their home. And I remember I would go to a California Association Conference. And you know, there'd be like two or three of us actually, that's where I met Stuart. And I was like, oh, there's like another tech, quote person here. And then he got an MBA conference, it might be like three or four of us or something. It's just, there wasn't really that sense of like belonging, which is ironic, given how important belonging is to schools these days. So I think that was for me, the driving factor was like recognizing that we were all so well connected online. And we were all so dialed in to helping each other right. Kelsey mentioned, you know, Don helped me her. I mean, there were tons of people that I reached out to my first couple years who were so kind and helpful that they were online and live if I didn't go drive across the Bay Area, or fly to some city to see them. That was it. And so I remember just reaching out to Kelsey, I think we had met at an oasis conference. You remember that?

Kelsey Vrooman 8:42
That's right, I do. Yes.

Gabriel Lucas 8:45
And that, in a way, right. And we won't get me to sideways on that. But I think the three of us had all attended that and just sort of saw the hunger for a gathering and beyond a gathering, you know, potential Association. And I think the three of us recognize that the Oasis conference was a great affirmation, that all of us in the tech profession needed to come together. But the three of us also felt that there was a way to do it not right or wrong, but we wanted to emulate what other industries what other domains with other, you know, college counselors, to business officers to admission officers, they had their professional trade association in a certain way that we felt was going to help actually legitimize the technology positions. That was the other side of the coin, which is that the tech profession was really always see this as sort of ad hoc, third rail, whatever, don't touch it. And so we felt I think by creating this association, we were going to bring ourselves into the big tent. And so when y'all see lies out there in a coffee shop and on the hate and then another one somewhere else in San Francisco and just kind of sketched it out was like let's do it. And basically, you know, let's roll, let's go. And the three of us came together and said, nothing's gonna stop us. So that was it.

Christina Lewellen 10:07
That's really cool that you had like you were seeing this community online, but you were looking to then bring it together in person. Because some of the gathering was kind of ad hoc. You've mentioned a few different groups and a few different other organizations where you would meet up, but you weren't finding a place. You weren't finding a home. So tell me a little bit about that first conference, because I know you did some of the legwork in 2014, to stand it up and to kind of pull everything together. But what was your goal? Or what did you hope would happen with that first conference? And where were you again, out on the West Coast, LA,

Stuart Posin 10:42
it was in San Francisco, I had actually pitched creating something like this to my head of school, maybe six, nine months before I got the email from Gabe and Kelsey. And she said, you know, MBO exists, why don't you talk to me DOA? And see if you could just do like a tech thing, part of NBA OA. And so I called Jeff. And I was like, Hey, Jeff, can we do a texting and he's like, Oh, great, you know, let's talk in the new year, or whatever it was. And that went nowhere, obviously. And so gave Kelsey and I, we had a first phone call, and decided that the first thing we were going to do was a conference, right? We weren't an organization, we weren't any of those things we were conference, and that we were going to not ask our schools for funding, that we were going to just do this on our own. Because I had been on the board I mentioned on online school for girls, and that was school funded. And it created a weird dynamic on Who do you represent when you're doing the things on behalf of all in school for girls? Are you just a board member? Or do you represent your school because your school has skin in the game? So we actually decided to self fund it? I don't remember the amount of the check. I

Kelsey Vrooman 11:46
think it was like five grand each, which was a lot of money for me back in the day.

Stuart Posin 11:52
We wrote checks. Yeah, we

Kelsey Vrooman 11:53
wrote checks. We didn't catch them, did we?

Stuart Posin 11:55
That's right. We never did we ripped them up together. Once the money started rolling in for the conference. We decided we can rip them up, which was really fun. I think we were at Marlborough, together gay brought them and we were meeting and we just sort of, you know, ripped him out.

Christina Lewellen 12:08
Ceremonial burning of the checks, never necessary.

Stuart Posin 12:11
That's right. I feel like we put it out there right around Thanksgiving, that we were gonna have this conference. You guys correct me if my brain is wrong. I think our breakeven was 170 people, something right around that number. And we put it out there. And the response was really overwhelming. And I think we hit 150 Real quick. And then Alesis was happening again, and gave Kelsey and I decided to sort of crash Alesis maybe Gabe was registered and went up to the steak dinner or something like that. But we went to Marina del Rey and sat in the lobby and just kind of bask in the fact that everybody was coming to our conference. And I think sitting there we passed 170 year, whatever it was something like that.

Christina Lewellen 12:56
It's pretty good origin story. Pretty strong. Bill, were you at the first one?

Speaker 1 13:00
You know, I don't think it was at the first one. I think it was at the second one that was in Los Angeles. Maybe that was the third. But the one thing I would say that I think is absolutely fabulous is that this came around like the genesis of this really came at what was the tail end of really how Hiram and I met, which was you talk about those conferences that brought like minded people together. For years, we were going to the loss and laptop Institute. That's where I'm at higher. And that's where I met Jason. That's where I met Vinny. You know, that's where you met all of these people. And what was interesting is, as that conference changed and evolved, it was very focused on like, just one to one tech. And I think two of the points that you've all mentioned, which I think were great, and I think we're probably some of the most important pieces of what ATLIS did early on. And what it's doing now is it gave people the conference as a means of coming together, of joining together and being able to share ideas that were specifically focused on what we were doing as professionals in that area. And that's the second piece of this, which is what you mentioned as well, it created that professional organization for which we could all stand up at our schools and say, you've got you know, MBIA over here, you've got case things over here, you've got any ins which Stuart to some of your points, you know, it was like, each of these organizations did something related to tech, but it never really went all in on tech. Those two things, I think were two of the best things that came from this, you know, speaking as somebody who needed that group to coalesce around and get together with because I learned best from the community. And that's what you all gave us. I'm so thankful for that.

Christina Lewellen 14:48
Do you guys remember what any of the early content was at that first or second? What were some of the things that you were talking about in 2015 and 16? I

Kelsey Vrooman 14:59
remember In the early conversations, because st was there, and there were a lot of st state affiliates that had a lot of content that was geared for techie teachers like the 10 apps you can use in your classroom or things like that, we really decided to pivot because we thought that space was already covered. And no one was really talking about the administration of tech and the independent school space, like, not how do you use those apps in the classroom? But how do you vet them? How do you make them all integrate and work together? And so we made a conscious choice to really pivot towards more of the administrators and not so much of the end user. So I remember that. And then when I remember one of my favorite memories from the first ATLIS is Stuart, Gabe and I, we all took one session, the very last session of that first conference. And we were like, we had a conference. Now what? And so what we did was we iterated on what this should become, we all are kind of riding high on the spirit of we're all together. This is amazing. I love being with you all. And what do we take this to? Is it a membership organization? Is it just a conference. And so my best memory is just sitting there and really designing and iterating on what ATLIS was going to become. And getting all those fantastic ideas from that first conference.

Stuart Posin 16:17
While the session highlighted was a little stronger, I was like, we are going to be a membership organization. And that's what I went with just a timeline this real quick. I could be a little off on this. But it was summer when we got together. And the first conference was in maybe February, something like that. So we went from like, Hey, we're gonna do this. We put it out in November and had almost 300 people at our first conference six months later, or whatever it was. So this was not a long term, you know, sort of take two years. We did it. And I real quick, I just want to follow up on what Bill said, somebody else would have done this, if we didn't do it, right. Like it was there. It was sort of amorphous in the air. And we're just the ones that grabbed it out. But somebody would have done it. Because it was needed. It was time.

Gabriel Lucas 17:00
I'm staring at the 2015 national conference program right here. My hands. Oh,

Christina Lewellen 17:06
wow. Blast from the Past. Do you keep that handy? You

Gabriel Lucas 17:10
bet. April 16. And 17. I think we had a lot of great sessions. I think our goal was to make sure this, you know, obviously was Bootstrap. But yeah, we wanted to show professional from the very beginning, we had our second conference already picked out that was a layup that we've had on the back of the program. We have some key notes. We knew this was sort of going to be, you know, version 1.0. Right. But this document this program, you know, if people were gonna go back to their schools, showing there, it had sort of CFOs look like this went to, I think we knew that whatever happened here was actually that was going to be the make or break moment. Because if this bomb, that would have been Oh, yeah, that was sort of cute. But this legitimized the creation of the association. We have 40 sponsors, or lead 20. Well, we had a whole bunch. Yep, does, what does it's I think we have more that we're not even the program. So it definitely said the world. This had to be, it

Christina Lewellen 18:04
was launched, it was flying, I

Hiram Cuevas 18:06
just want to take a moment and tell you all how grateful I am that you have that rapid engagement. You know, my wife and I got engaged very, very fast, because we knew it was just right. And this sounds exactly like all the stars were aligned perfectly. And you have the right Mojo in place. From one of the early sessions. I remember my first ATLIS conference was in Hollywood. And it was the tech directors roundtable. And I was just astounded by the amount of solidarity that was there that I never experienced at another conference. I mean, I've been to St. I've been to visti, which is the Virginia version of St. Some of our state level workshops, but nothing compared to the tour de force of what that session brought me. Every year that I attend ATLIS, I come back re energized, it always happens at the right time of year. It's a very cathartic experience for me, I always come back re energized in preparation for the fallout of the end of school, which is always a very, very busy time. So thank you all very much. From

Christina Lewellen 19:13
day one, it sounds like there was a certain amount of energy harms talking about it that lasts till this day, right. So you guys felt that in the very first one. You wrapped up your first conference looking ahead with a very definitive, we're going to be a membership organization. So if you can think back if we can stay in that early space for just a hot second, when you then went, Okay, that didn't flop. It wasn't a failure. There's an energy it was very desperately needed. So then what were your goals? Like what did you think it would become? And I know now you have hindsight, right? Because you know what it became but back then what did you think it might be? It was pretty

Stuart Posin 19:54
simple. Actually. It was a membership organization that had yearly conferences with tons of contents and you know, As it grew, there was the smaller conferences and whatnot. So Gabe mentioned sponsors, and I mentioned so many people, really, we made a lot of money, and what making all that money allowed us to do was hire somebody. And so we came out of that conference, posted the job, we had a bunch of applications, we hire Sarah. And we immediately went to planning an organization. I don't exactly remember when it was, but shortly after the conference gave Kelsey, Sarah came out to Pasadena. And we looked for sites in LA, because we already had Atlanta booked. And now we were looking for the next one. And we had like our first board retreat, if you will, in my dining room, one I'm sitting in right now, where we we did the whole thing, Kelsey led us through the Lean Startup exercises, and we did mission statement and goals and, and all that. So I mean, it was just from right there. We knew what we wanted. And that's what we did. I'm

Kelsey Vrooman 20:55
glad you mentioned, like, you know, the fourth person in the room because Sara handled, we all were working in schools for first time. So I think that was probably the smartest thing that we did is realize that if we actually wanted this to become a self sustaining organization, we needed to have someone who is smart, who was passionate, and also who was not in California, to really bring ATLIS to the rest of the world. When I think back of all the decisions, we realized that we didn't want ATLIS to be a West Coast Regional organization. So when we hired Sarah, we were thrilled she was out in North Carolina, and had a lot of connections to a totally different community than all of us did. And then when we were choosing our first board members, I mean, it was really we were thinking about how can we bring a diverse set of skills, a diverse set of experiences and backgrounds, but then also geographic diversity to the board. Like Jason, like he was almost like, we had these like, the old school, like, he's gonna kill me for saying old school. And again, we mentioned him. But just like the leaders of our community, we really thought it was very important to bring them in and get them involved in ATLIS from the very beginning, so that they felt a part of this, that this was a community that we were really formalizing the informal networks that they had created, and that were really in place and we just wanted to make those open to everyone. So

Christina Lewellen 22:22
that's Jason Ramsden. And he was one of your first board members, but who were some of those early board members after or around the same time as Jason. Jeff came on pretty early, right. Jeff Morrison?

Kelsey Vrooman 22:33
Yeah. Kevin McAllister. Denise, Denise muscle away,

Stuart Posin 22:38
Jim.

Gabriel Lucas 22:39
Sarah Raleigh came early on to Oh, Jen, Carrie, Jen. Carrie.

Kelsey Vrooman 22:43
I think it was Jen, Denise, Kevin, and Jeff, maybe who was the first and Sarah.

Stuart Posin 22:49
I think Jason and Jeff were first.

Gabriel Lucas 22:50
Well, I think the board meeting in Los Angeles had about six or seven people. And that was an intentional decision. We didn't want to get too big too quickly. You know, we wanted to stay nimble. The other thing, and I'll just sort of go back in time, remember, we had sort of a fork in the road, there were at least two or three associations that were like, What are you doing, including some that were our keynotes for the first conference? So they said, come join us come merge with us? We'll buy you out. Yeah, they didn't use that term, but basically, come under our tin. Right. And there was little bit of this feathers ruffling a bit and you know, oh, you're coming to our region to have a conference you didn't ask me first. It was like, oh, sorry about that. But I think that was a we were a little bit obviously naive, or just like, whatever eat up raisin, but be like, Okay, actually, we want to, we want to stand on around two feet. Eventually, the larger Association community I think came to appreciate recognize that ATLIS needed its own seat at the table. And then I think the irony, I've seen you do it, Christina is, you know, there's an opportunity to partner with and deliver content and programming with other associations that has been so critical for them to see that actually expertise that is ATLIS hands is definitely needed. And what we bring to the table is what others just don't. And I think that's been a an important kind of reminder, both for our community, but also for others.

Bill Stites 24:15
So two things I wanted to touch on that you've all said. And one is, I think, early on, it was like wanting to focus on the tech leaders in the school. And how do you Kelsey, like, to your point, how do I talk to this vendor? Or how do I do this thing that's going to help me to lead things in the schools. I was a third grade teacher. I took like one tech class when I was at college, and it had nothing to do with what I'm doing right now. So having an organization and having that presence of thought to kind of say, okay, all these organizations are doing all these things about how to be a great teacher. Like I went to ASCD conferences. I go to St. Louis, and it was all focused on like the classroom like the tool or the application but like, how to We do, what we need to do to lead the school really wasn't something that anyone was talking about. And when, you know, I first went to ATLIS, and the first thing for me that I took back, I went to like one of the cybersecurity workshops. And that just took off for me here. But it really gave me what I need it to be a better leader in the school, and a better leader, you know, amongst even the local organizations that I was coming back to either New Jersey, New Jersey, independent schools, or some of those, those local organizations. So the fourth thought to do that I thought was excellent, because and groups like SD, they did some of what we're talking about, but they didn't do all of it. And the ability to have a tech organization that was focused on leading tech in schools, that was independent school focused that wasn't dealing with, you know, SD is so large, and it's now SD and ASCD, it's now this huge piece. And we're you to have taken that early bite to kind of go under the wing of maybe SD, we'd be still lost in the mix. And now we've got the shining beacon for independent school tech leaders to kind of go to share to do all the work that we're doing now. And again, I just the focus early on, and to be able to see that is a big thank you and a testament to all of you on the call to realizing that that's one of the needs that needed to be filled. So

Christina Lewellen 26:27
looking now at where we've gone, you had this vision for it, it was off to a banger star, right. So we're now moving into the phase where you have an employee, which eventually became multiple employees, the organization really stood up pretty quickly, there was a lot of great content, eventually, you know, you guys shepherded a leadership change. And through all of that the three of you, the founders, were still guiding the vision of it, and the future of it. But there had you come a point where you're like, I have other things to do, the baby is toggling away. So tell me a little bit about that transition. And kind of when you thought the time would be right to maybe put it in other hands, like how did you kind of get to that place where it wasn't always going to be the game and Kelsey, and Stuart show, you had bigger dreams for it. Tell us a little bit about how that happened.

Kelsey Vrooman 27:22
One, I think the funny thing about all of the three of us is that within two years of creating ATLIS, none of us were still at our schools. And in fact, none of us were still in technology at independent schools. So I think from my personal standpoint, as well, we really used ATLIS to figure out well, what did we love about our jobs? And then what do we want to personally do next? Stewart and Gabe can talk about their paths. But I ended up at an AAS National Association of Independent Schools. And it was a hilarious way that I got there is because we cold called Jay Rob, who's the vice president professional development as a, you know, plucky little organization, and we're like, you know what? And they asked me, it's better technology, professional development, and Aren't you lucky, ATLIS now exists, and we can help you. And after that call, Jay, emailed me and it's like, Hey, did you know I have a job opening available. And so I started working at an as after and as I started my own company, mission and data, doing data work for schools. So for me, personally, there's a lot of responsibility when you're standing up an organization. And now I've done it twice. And then also you have to think about the worst thing in the world is to be a founder who hangs on. Because if you're a good founder, we breathe life into something, and you give it a mission, you give it a vision, you surround it with the most incredible talented people possible. And then you walk away and you let the baby fly on its own. If you're like having your hands just strangled around it the whole time. And you're trying to force it and conform it and to what you needed it to be at that moment, it can never change, it can never evolve, then you're really doing a disservice to the organization. I am in tech, I do consulting more on the data side and some on the technology side to for independent schools, but for me, like I no longer needed ATLIS as that community to help for me. And so for me, I was like, Okay, I was able to help ATLIS from the NHS side, you know, bringing in perspectives of heads boards of other people for a really long time, and then connect other people to that ATLIS board. But then then I was like, okay, somebody else should get their shot at it. And I love ATLIS to this day and stay connected and go to the conferences, but I am very happy that this baby is flying on. Its Yes, exactly.

Christina Lewellen 29:54
Stuart, how about you tell us about like what you've transitioned to and from The ATLIS leadership days now that you're not babysitting our organization growing up, what's been going on for you?

Stuart Posin 30:06
Well, definitely never felt like it was babysitting. Just to be clear, it felt like a passion. For me what Kelsey said is all true. I lived it on another board I was on. I was on an independent school board. And when I joined the board, most of the people had been a room for a minimum of 10 years, some as many as 30 years. Oh, wow. And so I saw what happens when a board stagnates, essentially, right. And they're not even like giving it that point, right. I mean, there was just it wasn't working. So I've seen it from the other perspective and was hell bent on not doing that, you know, when that line comes in, when you're ready to go is something that was hard to find. I know that for a little while, I wasn't quite ready to go. But I did eventually go. Now I'm retired. stay at home dad, that's my full time gig.

Christina Lewellen 30:53
I love that for you.

Stuart Posin 30:54
When I left Marlboro, I went and did the for profit thing. I worked at three different startups advised a few others. And a VC pointed out to me that they were for profit, but not for profit in reality, which you know, I guess is the startup world, and left the Startup Almost a year ago and have just enjoyed being a house dad. That's

Christina Lewellen 31:15
awesome. I love that journey for you for sure. Gabe, you're still working with ATLIS as a partner and as a vendor with us because we team up and we do the salary survey, you handle the data piece for us. And then we kind of look at the analysis and ATLIS issues, our compensation benchmark report annually. But tell us a little bit about how in the world your journey unfolded after you kind of started moving away from ATLIS leadership? Sure,

Gabriel Lucas 31:41
well, a couple of things. One, back to our early founding days, Kelsey Stewart and I actually had talked about starting a recruiting for the recall, if we had a name, never that name, or it, we were actually going to go into the hiring business. So I sort of sees that once they sort of said, probably not and you know, haven't looked back. So I've been helping our clients for the last nine years now, do executive recruiting, which we started in technology. And now we go far beyond that. As far as you're leaving the organization. I remember theories specifically, there was a board meeting, I can't remember where it was one of our trustees, I won't say who it was said I propose making Stuart Kelsey and gave lifetime board member some of you always remember that we actually pushed back a little bit and said, I don't think so. And that was a good moment, like, you know, the founder syndrome, like, Hey, we're here to kick this off, but then others need to take it over. And you know, we don't want to be those folks that never leave the party. So I think we actually helped to set up some good governance structure for ATLIS and kind of a roadmap for off and onboarding trustees and a process for doing so. And there was that moment in Chicago where we were running, I think a very thoughtful search for even just leadership positions within the board was kind of our final swansong was to put in place some internal governance structures and guideposts to just make sure the organization can sustain and doesn't need to keep anybody, quite frankly, around for more than six, eight years, or whatever we've all decided now. And I think that kind of our George Washington kind of moment was let's not run for office 3456 times and show this can be done. And I believe it's still working great ever since. I

Christina Lewellen 33:28
love that it really was kind of a George Washington moment, because you kind of like went out on top, you know, like you handled it in a really great place. And Hiram is a brand new board member. So we've been getting some incredible new insights and perspectives. And you guys left us in such a great place. I appreciate your patience with my reminiscing. It is something that I often cite as a strength of our organization that in my current role, I feel very lucky to have come in with the founders, so I didn't have to interpret any visions. Because you all were there to tell me the vision. And so that's been fun. That's been an incredible benefit for me is that there was no like playing telephone on this. You were in the room when I was in the room. And that's been a really fun ride. And I'm sure that, you know, Bill in high room, you guys probably have some questions. And so what I'd like to do if we could is kind of pivot us now. Just sort of Alright, so elder statesman, if we will George Washington's of ATLIS. I'd love to just hear what you guys think about what's going on, because the organization but more importantly, at the heart and center of it all our members have gone through a rough couple of years. And so I know that you guys aren't in independent schools anymore, but I know how closely you hold ATLIS to your heart. I know you guys keep in really close touch with us. You watch what we're doing. Our members have not only stepped into the spotlight, coming out of the pandemic, a lot of them were the superheroes of their schools of their campuses during the pandemic. They're really stinking tired, y'all, our members are so burnt out and tired. And so we have those issues that we're helping our leaders juggle. And then just for funsies, we've got aI kicking around. And so it just seems to me like, it was prophetic to call us leaders, tech leaders, because this is way more than the boxes and cables of years gone by. So I'm just interested to hear what you guys think about that what your observations are, because our industry has changed a lot. And our leaders have changed a lot. There's so much more pressure in the technology space, it just touches everything. What do you think of all this nonsense going on in our world?

Kelsey Vrooman 35:42
So yeah, I work with independent schools every day still. And so I do get to see just the difficulty and the stress and the pressure that the pandemic, but also just the technological changes, the demographic changes, the changing relationship between parents and schools, it's not necessarily just related to technology. In my job. Now, I talked to a lot of heads of school, and the amount of burnout that we're seeing in heads of school is catastrophic. So I'm always thinking about ATLISes mission, again, in this realm of ever changing turmoil, new innovations, new things. The antidote to burnout is community. It's a restful space where you can find shelter, where you know, people have your back, people are feeding not just your pocketbook, but your soul, your friendships, all of those things. So really, providing a healthy balance in your life, to me is the best way to combat burnout. So when I think about ATLIS and ATLIS as role in the future, you know, not only is it a professional organization, giving you tips on, you know, how to deploy AI in your schools, or how to help teachers, you know, see when students are using AI to write their papers and things like that. But also, it's like, how do you use AI so that you have more time for the things that actually fill your bucket, which is your family, your friends, your hobbies? When you come to ATLIS conferences, are there periods and opportunities for you to connect with those friends that you haven't seen since the last ATLIS conference. So really, to me, like, seeing everyone holistically is what I would hope that ATLIS does in this post pandemic moment, to really make sure that we are creating healthy individuals, and healthy leaders who can then model that to their own departments and their own direct reports, because that's kind of what I see. And Lisa, you know, as a founder of my own company, who was insanely burnout, it wasn't until I was like, I'm not going to work 80 hour weeks, I'm going to do other things, I'm going to go all my hobbies, I'm going to go traveling again, that's when I started finding balance and kind of coming back to myself. And so I think that that's the wisdom that ATLIS can really bring. And because I'm a tech person, a lot of the ways to do that is to have better efficiencies, using oh my gosh, using AI to automatically code surveys has given me so much more time. That's awesome. And I suggest it for everybody. So really like harnessing these technologies to win us back more time to do the things that are the most valuable for our lives. Because guess what, it's usually not work.

Stuart Posin 38:19
I'll chime in here to COVID aside, I suspect that the biggest challenges with technology are that people factor not the technology factor. What I witness is generally technology is evolutionary, not revolutionary. And so it's still the how do we adopt this technology? How do we get people to use it? How do we train people? How do we make sure reaches the proper pedagogical milestones? Not necessarily. The tech itself, right? There's always new things, right? Wireless came out at some point. And we went from stringing Macs together with local area, not even local area networks to having a local area network like all those things happened. And so one of the biggest challenges that I think independent school type folks face on the heart tech side is that they're kind of jack of all trades, but they're masters of none. I feel like that's an evolution that needs to happen at some point. How can a school possibly dive deep into AI? If they don't have a data scientist, if they don't have you know, those roles, it's basically going to be impossible. And all you're doing is putting more and more and more on top of people that are already jacks of trades of 100 things, and I'm honest, won't be 105. Right, because they're the people that can handle it. So I would say that's one of the biggest challenges and it has been for a long time and I suspect it persists with independent school technologies. How do you really master something? Gabe,

Christina Lewellen 39:41
I would imagine you probably see that in hiring too. Right? I know that you do searches beyond technology now. But is it hard to fill tech roles are harder than it was even just a few years ago to fill tech roles at independent schools?

Gabriel Lucas 39:54
Basically, yes, it's definitely not an easy task for sure. So to I in this back to what you said earlier about kind of where Jack directors are burned out and whatnot, by sort of like longitudinal Latins, during the pandemic, a lot of tech directors actually rally their schools, a lot of them save their schools, and even situations that were difficult for the fact that the director of the school like everybody kind of got together and was in the same boat that was really great to see. In fact, we did more hiring at that point in non tech roles than we ever had done. Then out of the pandemic, lots of burnout, a lot of people just like, duck. What's interesting now is that for the first time, I've seen a real trend around roles at the next level up, that are finally truly valuing tech leadership, tech leaders. So you know, think like one of our board members, John Foley. Now he's ahead of school kind of came from a technology background. Other schools are creating assistant head of school positions to oversee technology. So it's just been, I think, really great to see. Post pandemic, yes, there's a burnout, yes, it's hard to hire. And the groundswell is coming to where, you know, Head of School Leadership, assistant head of school leadership, you just cannot be tech averse, quick little story, I heard about an association that was trying to hire for its executive director recently. And one of the finalists just could not plug in their, their laptop into the projector, and like 20 years ago, sure, here's your executive assistant, and you don't need to know tech, that's gone. I mean, now it's like, you got to bring it right. And there's a new contemporary set of leaders, tech or otherwise. And I think organizations like ATLIS are showing the value of that kind of visionary understanding and just technology, fluency and everything in between. And it's gonna make for some opportunities for roles of our leaders to step into some other positions outside of tech. It's been a long time coming for that. Yeah, I

Christina Lewellen 41:57
often say gave when I speak to heads of school or Business Officers, but especially heads of school. So whether you like it or not, you are now the Chief Technology Strategist at your school. And if that gives you hives, that's why you need ATLIS, we can help you with some of those issues that you're trying to juggle as an academic leader. Let's go to Bill and Hiram, what questions do you have for ATLIS as founders?

Speaker 1 42:24
One of the things I'm thinking about in terms of like, still, you mentioned, you know, the jack of all trades, master of none, 105 of you know, just the numbers as they keep growing, you think about the things that schools are now having to focus on. And we recently had on the podcast, Eric Heilmann from Cirrus and I was involved with some of the work that we did over the summer on that book. And that's, that is an area where I see technology having to step in, and really have to be able to see it across all areas. Because one of the things I see us struggling with in school struggling with this, as we try to you'll hear NAS talk about, you know, how do we reframe independent schools so they can be sustainable? Well, you need data to make your points about everything that you're doing. And so much of what I'm seeing, like right now, whether it's how do we access the data? How do we share the data, whether it's the DEI work that we're doing, you know, we had a conversation today about the fact that our information system has a field to track gender, but it doesn't have a field to check biological sex. And when you need to be able to have information about those two things, how that becomes conflated. It's how tech directors who have to be able to pull and gather information and help all those organizations gather that all together, I think is really one of the points of strain that we have right now. Because everyone's like, Oh, it's in this system, go grab it. It's not that simple. And trying to find people in the school to deal with it, organizations to work with to help you get at it, I think it's a real area of need, that schools are struggling with.

Kelsey Vrooman 44:03
I'll step in there, because I had that same idea as you about four years ago. And so I created my company and hired Eric. But also, I remember my last couple years at ATLIS, like I saw at NAS, the institutional researchers little happier group that was starting, and they didn't have a home and high was like ATLIS needs to own data. Because for me, when you think about technology from a strategic lens, it's usually data. And when we come in and work with schools, it is shocking to me, the percentage of times that the technology team is not involved in our conversations about creating data systems, creating data strategy, pulling data together, and it's such a lost opportunity. And so for me when we're thinking about yes, you can go at the head of school route, you can go assistant head of school route as a technology director Or there's also this chief information officer or going into a Director of Institutional Research. And what that really is, what I think is really interesting is if you can tell the story of the data, then all of a sudden the doors open for you. Because when we're thinking about technology directors, we know where the data is. We know how it connects, we can map it, we can audit it, all of that stuff. But if we develop that skill, to provide actionable insight from it, see patterns, see trends and help people dig into it, then all of a sudden, the value we provide to a school just amplifies. So I really think that, you know, if I'm looking ahead, obviously, I'm biased because I have a data company. But it's how does technology partner with our databases to make them integrated, so we have to have interoperable data, we have to start creating these data warehouses that bring together all the insights from all of your different platforms, just show one comprehensive look at the student from all angles, the family from all angles, the school from all angles, and then also to be able to speak to people who are not in technology who are not in data about what you're seeing, and what are the trends that you're seeing started

Hiram Cuevas 46:13
with the whole data conversation here, because it is the foundation of so many areas, I have found in looking at our own school, the new initiatives that we've had to take into account that were never part of the technology area. When you look at campus safety, for example, whoever thought that you were going to have hundreds of cameras on your campus and access control lists that are now also controlling not only your sprinkler systems, but are also controlling your doors. The best part about having all of this data is now I feel equipped, and I hope schools take advantage of the fact that they should feel equipped to be able to go to the leadership at their respective schools to say, Listen, the job of the director of technology is so broad, that you do need some specialists. Because the general practitioner approach for a department, a director of technology just doesn't work for the needs of the contemporary independent school today, you do need a cyber person, you do need an institutional research person, you do need a cyber person. So they're all of these other areas that I keep finding are needed within schools, but schools will try and get as much out of their CIOs or their do TAS as they can. Because no one ever wants to have that FTE bubble grow any more than it has to. I love the fact that we started with data. And I think it's it is really the linchpin for the vast majority of conversations that we can have with our leaders.

Christina Lewellen 47:44
So as we wrap this up, because I'm so grateful to have everybody's time and to get all three of you on one podcast has been really cool. I'm so grateful that you guys carved out the schedules to make this happen. I know that you're juggling a lot and traveling. But my last kind of question that I want to lob at you is our goal is to be 500 members by our 10th anniversary, and we are barreling toward that we have a much broader universe of non members and prospects that we serve. But I think that in order for ATLIS to be a sustainable and growing and thriving organization, it really comes from the heartbeat of all that is membership. And so we're barreling towards 500 members by our 10th anniversary. So let me ask you, where would you love to see ATLIS at 20 years? Can you picture that far out? What does that look look like? When we celebrate our 20th anniversary? I'll

Stuart Posin 48:43
give a softball answer maybe which is fulfilling its mission. You know, if I could tell the future I'd be rich and living like in this huge mansion or whatever. I don't have a crystal ball. But I feel like if ATLIS stays mission driven, and that mission adapts over time as it needs to. I think Alice will be doing a okay. Maybe that was too easy political. I

Christina Lewellen 49:03
don't know. Hey, I love it. You're speaking my language to her because I think that that's right where it is. What do you think, Gabe, where are we going to be?

Gabriel Lucas 49:11
Well, I don't know where it will be. That's a great, I wish I knew. But I'll give you two sort of like, potentially, again, though, we the answers that maybe we'll just trigger thoughts for the community. I think we were talking about this right, as the three of us were leaving the board, not to get way into the weeds. But I think we thought about association for technology leadership. And I don't mean to say change your name, but I hope in 20 years, that it really is that whether you change your name or not sure about associations, right? We think business affairs, you might think MBO a, I feel like heads of school should almost be going to ATLIS conferences more than tech directors are certainly in the same numbers. And so I hope in 20 years is a recognition that this is the place for technology and beyond technology, right not just the wires but bringing The data ring in the curricular innovation, that is the be all end all or at least the bullseye point for technology leadership. I guess the second thing, again, sort of a little bit myopic, but you know, there are other associations that accredit, and I feel like I could see in 20 years like ATLIS, being a formal accrediting partner. And again, even if it's not, the recognition that accreditation for schools needs to change, right? It's been for decades, this very backward facing or just voluminous in terms of like, things that are just really is that so important when here's like one of your biggest areas of your budget, one of the biggest reasons people choose to or not to go to a school. And I just think that they put ATLIS on the map, but it gets even though it's not accrediting. The recognition that like just the oversight and the governance of technology and sort of the evaluation of schools, through a technology lens is like just as important as all the other things that are in those big chapters in those binders. And I think outlets could be driving that equation.

Kelsey Vrooman 51:05
I'm gonna lean more toward Stewart fulfilling its mission. However, when I think I do have a dream that you know, the generative thinking of like framing the question for the board. So Hiram, you're you're on the boards. And maybe this is seeding your generative discussion at a next board meeting. When I think of schools today, and when I think of the challenges that face it independent schools today, it's financial sustainability. And the business model of independent schools is just getting harder and harder to make work with tuitions 40 $50,000. And if we want to ensure access and affordability to all students, something's got to change. And when you look at the different types of roles within an independent school, community, finance and technology are the two areas where it kind of almost doesn't make sense to go into independent schools in those realms. Because the incomes that you can make outside of independent schools, I'm sure, Stuart, when you left independent schools, you were making two 3x, what you made inside of independent schools. So for me, it's like if we're wanting to attract and retain the best and brightest and technology without having them go to industry, we have to do something, and doing something crazy and out there. And then the left field is what I would love to see ATLIS try to do. And you know, so much of technology can be administered digitally and from afar, so are there ways where you could partner schools that have similar missions that aren't necessarily market competitors. And then share services, share talents, even share platforms, across space and time to make the bottom line of technology more sustainable for schools and for ATLIS to be part of that solution to really rethink the business model of independent schools to try to make it more sustainable for the future. That's what I would love to see ATLIS, really just innovating to make things work for independent schools and the families that attend them. And

Christina Lewellen 53:02
I think that we are up for that challenge. What do you think, Hiram? Are we ready to roll with some of these great ideas?

Hiram Cuevas 53:08
No, absolutely. I think we have a lot of firepower on the board right now with a lot of energy and excitement to take on the new the mantle of the next era for ATLIS. I

Christina Lewellen 53:18
agree. Well, folks, I'm so grateful that we were able to do this. I'm glad that we were able to get our founders together and to talk about some of the ATLIS origin story, because I do think we're going to look a lot different in another 10 years. So it's important, this can be our historical perspective, with our own three George Washington's here on the podcast, Kelsey, and gave Eltek, Martha Washington, Martha and Georges. Thank you guys so much for this. We're really grateful for your time. Thank

Speaker 1 53:48
you for the time. Thank you for just getting us all started. I mean, that's the biggest Thank you. I think we all want to give you.

Christina Lewellen 53:54
Yeah, the whole community. We're all feeling the love for the founders.

Stuart Posin 53:57
Certainly my pleasure. And I'm here for Alice whenever you need it. All right, guys. Thank

Christina Lewellen 54:01
you again for joining us for talking technology with ATLIS. We'll be back with you next time and we'll be digging into all these big dreams as we barreled toward 20 years, let alone 10.

Narrator 54:12
This has been talking technology with ATLIS produced by the Association of technology leaders and independent schools. For more information about ATLIS and ATLIS membership, please visit the ATLIS.org If you enjoyed this discussion, please subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues in the independent school community. Thank you for listening.