Megan: Thank you guys so much for joining us today for SheBoss. I am very, very excited that we are joined by Alicia Ryan with L SINC CEO and founder and all things just. Amazing woman, I have to say. She is one that I’ve admired for quite some time. You know, from the distance, so. And, we have some things in common as it relates to words that we like to lean towards.
So, we’re going to talk about that in a little bit. But thank you so much for being here. I know that your time was extremely valuable. So, I really do appreciate you
Alicia: hanging out with us today. I really, I really appreciate you and everything that you’re doing for our community. So, it’s important.
Megan: Thank you.
So, a lot of people may not know a little bit about your background, but I have studied, studied hard on you and all the things. And you’ve been in Huntsville for a couple of years, but we’re in D. C. Prior to that. So, let’s just kind of go back to the beginning and talk a little bit about your background.
What eventually brought you here? I know your family is here with you as well. And yeah, So,
Alicia: so, it’s, it’s a pretty simple story. A story of life [00:01:00] and, and motherhood, really. But my career started in the Washington, D. C. area. I tried several times to leave the Washington, D. C. area, and it just didn’t work.
I moved away, got married, moved back, so I went back and forth. But I had a, my last job in, in the Virginia area was with a company called Booz Allen Hamilton, and I ran their strategic business intelligence group. At that time, I had a tiny baby and a five-year-old, I guess, a year and a half and a five-year-old.
And I went downstairs and, to see the nanny, and on all of the walls were pictures of my kids. And I looked at them and I said, I don’t remember this one. And she came up to me and she goes, oh I do, and told me all about it. And I walked upstairs, started bawling, and told my husband that was it. We were done.
So, this woman who swore she’d never live in the South was, happened to be studying, my group at Booz Allen was actually studying Huntsville as a potential place to live. And my husband who had been [00:02:00] here on travel because he’s, he was a civil servant with the, the government, said, let’s go to Huntsville.
I said, you’re absolutely crazy. There is no way I’m going to Huntsville. So, he got me in a camper. We came down here for the week, bought a house, and that’s the story.
Megan: And what did you think when you got here? Were you like most, where it took you a minute, but then you eventually fell in love with
Alicia: that? As it turned out, as much as I thought I’m done working, I’m going to stay at home, I stayed with Booz Allen for one more year and tried to do that out of my house.
At that time, it was not as easy to remote as it is today. However, I fell in love with Huntsville and then at that point I decided after a couple of years of staying home with my children that I wanted to go back to work and kind of like you, somebody in my family basically said, no, this is what you need to do.
You need to start a company. And I said, Yeah, no way. I’m not starting a company. I know exactly what it takes to do that for leaders, and I’m not doing that. And so, after many fights, we then started LSINC.
Megan: So, you lost that [00:03:00] battle. Yeah. Well, and your, your background in industrial organization psychology and organizational leadership.
I, I’ve, in, in doing some research, I learned that you kind of lean a little bit more towards the organizational leadership as your passion a little bit. But talk a little bit about how that has sort of helped shape your, the role that you play today and really what you learned from that and kind of how that influenced things for you.
Alicia: So, when I went to work on my master’s in organizational leadership, I specialized in servant leadership and systems thinking. So, although I’m not an engineer, my brain is very analytical in that way, and I tend to analyze data and chop it up and put it together and kind of look at it from different perspectives.
And I found that I loved seeing leaders learn how to grow themselves and their businesses. And so, what most people don’t know is that LSINC actually starts for Leadership Strategies Incorporated. We started the company doing exactly what I had done in my previous life, which was Business analyst, business strategist.
[00:04:00] And our job was to figure out how to help companies create their growth path, you know, their growth plans. After a couple years of doing that, we ended up acquiring a company that did product development and ended up then saying, well, are we going to continue to do leadership strategies for the world or are we going to do it for our clients that buy the technologies that we make?
And that’s how my shift happened. It was not a very natural shift because I’m a business strategist. That’s what I do by trade. So, I had to learn to do it internally instead of necessarily as a consultant. But I also believe the experiences that I had had watching so many different companies grow and learn and the market analysis that we did to help them greatly helps LSINC obviously.
Megan: I love that. So that I have personally, and I know our team has been very familiar with the brand of LSINC for quite some time. It’s very prominent in the community and you have such an established, incredible reputation for what you do and the team that you have. I know you know that. I mean, you’ve worked really hard for that, [00:05:00] but very, very highly regarded.
And I did not know that that’s what else think actually stood for it, which is really interesting. And just looking back, it was You’re creating a bridge between people working in technology and business. Right. And found that engineers don’t always tell the best story sometimes, right? And so how do you kind of give them a voice and give them the tools they need to be successful?
Which has been a very interesting career. Which is exactly
Alicia: what we do. Yeah. So now, now we build new technologies, and we still take them to clients and help them think through, how do I innovate with this new technology? Can I even do it? I mean, what would it take for me to change my company to bring in a new innovation?
So, we still do it, it’s just very different.
Megan: Yeah. Where would you say most businesses fail as it relates to that piece of it, where you, where LSINC can really bring the greatest value? Oh, goodness. For all the reasons
Alicia: we failed, I can tell you. I think that one of the things that we tend to do in product development is sometimes keep trying too hard when a product should just be, decide that it was not a good [00:06:00] product.
You try to force it. Yeah, I definitely had that happen at LSINC where I put a lot of money into something that, probably if I thought about it longer, the market changed so fast and the timeline that we were building it didn’t meet the market. But on the other hand, had we not done that, we wouldn’t have built a lot of other things.
So, it’s just knowing how to fail faster in that product development cycle and being okay with that. So, that’s the other problem I think that many people have in business is they think it’s supposed to go perfect. I’m supposed to like to come up with this idea, the idea is supposed to work, I’m gonna build this capability, I’m gonna, or this machine, and then it’s gonna go to market and everybody’s gonna love it.
Okay. That’s not how it goes. You build a prototype and then you figure out all the things you didn’t do that you thought you should do, or you figure out that the person starts using it and punching it and pushing it. And you know, you got to change it to make it really work. And so that ability to fail fast, but of being okay with it is extremely important.
Megan: How would you say [00:07:00] that has been part of your culture since day one is sort of that mindset, or did it take you a minute to get to that place?
Alicia: Okay. So definitely took me a minute to get to that place. I, I, I tell this story that if you’re a type A personality, some people that are younger don’t remember what type A means anymore, but if you’re a really driven person at work, you tend to be a really driven person at home and you tend to be a really driven person in the community and you’re just a driven person.
And so, one of the things that I did is that because I was taking other people’s technologies or things that they had built, the team has to be that expertise. So, I might be great in business strategy, but I have an entire team that is, they’re phenomenal engineers. They’re all type A, really driven people, so trying to get them okay with it’s not right the first time, you know.
One of the things that we do with our engineers, for example, is that when we come up with a new machine, that engineer is part of the patent that’s on the machine, that the one that’s leading it. But they also have to go through the first [00:08:00] probably 20 builds of those machines. And oversee the building of it.
Because what they learn, watching it being built, is invaluable. Right? Because they learn a lot more and then put it back into the system.
Megan: Yeah, absolutely. And them having their name on the patent, I mean, that’s gotta be They’re the ones doing it. That is insane. Yeah, that’s gotta be A huge reward in the aspect of all of that hard work obviously coming to play, but wow, yeah.
So, talk a little bit about, with some of the product development pieces that you guys have been involved with, seeing these massive printing machines where y’all are doing things that, it took me a minute to, to wrap my head around it. I’m like, are they making wine bottles? Or is it a demonstration of, of the printing of it?
One of the things that we kind of laughed about and talked about offline prior to this was there was a wine bottle that was out there that LSINC had that had the name Flourish on it. And of course, unlike anything that has Flourish on it, I just want to snag it. But ironically, that was when, that [00:09:00] was a word of the year, Flourish we’ll talk about in a second, but talk to us a little bit about the digital platform.
Printing component and what makes some of the technology of LSINC unique to that aspect of thing from a product development perspective You may think I would just put a label on it and we’re good to go Right, but why that approach versus others?
Alicia: So, first of all, we don’t just design and build printers We’ve designed and built a lot of things but they’re mostly for clients and they’re usually for very large clients So we don’t typically put on our website that we made a machine for a large packaging company if they’re launching a new product.
Yeah. But that’s what we’re known for. We’re known for taking an idea on a napkin or working directly with another group’s engineers and coming up with a machine. Anything from you know, a hand scanner. You take your fingerprints to a printer. I mean, that’s what we know, that’s what we’re known for. So, it’s the mechanical engineering.
Along the way, so many of our clients were clients in the print world [00:10:00] that we finally decided that we were going to come up with our own product as well. So those are the products that you see on our website that can really be advertised. Now what that is, is it’s a printer, not very much different than a printer you’d have on your desktop, but the difference is it’s printing on something.
So, it’s called a direct to object printer. So, if you have to imagine a wine bottle going through that machine so fast and that, it’s just spinning really fast, and the ink is dropping on it precisely. It’s now the business strategy, the engineering. And the art that matters. And so, we kind of put the third leg of our company in when we brought in the whole applications of art on substrates, or what we call media.
So, we have experts that actually now train you how to use printers, how to get art on objects, and how to make them really pop.
Megan: That’s so cool. That is so cool. What are some of the, what are some of the customer solutions that you all have designed and developed? I know you can’t speak about them specifically, but can you give me some examples [00:11:00] of what some of those big
Alicia: I can
Megan: give you some
Alicia: examples of some that allow us to.
So, if you go to a store and you pick up a DeMarini baseball bat, it’s printed on one of our machines. Oh,
Megan: cool.
Alicia: I think they printed over 350, 000 this year. I mean, very amazing company. But that was a client. We have other clients that do promo, a lot of promotional cosmetics. We 65 different paint stores and all of their paint cans and all the different sizes.
I get printed on our machine, so now they can put the name of the paint, the color of the paint, and everything that’s in it, in the container, on the directly to the container. Now, one of the reasons why this technology is really cool, though, is because it’s pretty eco-friendly. So, the ink will basically evaporate, burn up, when you’re doing the recycling process.
For instance, if you’re on, on with glass. So, that makes it really eco-friendly. You’re not using paper; you’re not using adhesives. You’re getting that label right directly [00:12:00] onto the, to either the bottle or yeah.
Megan: So, I’d imagine that yields, obviously, being eco-friendly, but also a lot of less waste. A lot less waste.
A lot less waste, less cost. Okay, those are some of the benefits to that.
Alicia: Right, because another advantage when you think about printing, it’s gotten pretty, you know advanced. I mean, you can take and print a different picture in every tunnel, a different serialization. You can number them, you can put names on them, I mean, you can customize them.
So, it’s really definitely much more efficient
Megan: and
Alicia: cheaper.
Megan: That’s amazing. So, what’s what are some exciting things that’s next for LSINC in relation to product development and some of the things you guys are working on?
Alicia: So, I can’t tell you that yet, but we do have a new printer coming out that we’re very excited about.
That will be coming out in January and February. But more importantly we’ve My word for last year, we talked about words. One of my words a couple years ago was flourish which we did through COVID. But 2024’s word [00:13:00] was global. And so, LSINC along with ASETE, which is the Alabama School for Cyber Engineering and Technology I’m on that board and I run that board, and so I wanted to make sure that all the leaders in LSINC and all the leaders in ASETE all got behind this.
I want to make a global impact. So last year I gave every one of them from Cook’s Museum one of those globes that kind of magnets that kind of moves us this global. So, who the heck knew? That we would go that global. So, we gave them those presents in October last year to go for all of 2024. So, it was supposed to kick them off in January.
By January, we had our first dealer in the Middle East. We had our first machines in the Middle East, and now we have them in Saudi Arabia. We, our dealers in Europe and Poland also expanded. Our dealer in Mexico expanded, expanded. We’ve got dealers that are now global. I mean, we’re getting ready to bring [00:14:00] on some in Australia.
So, it was definitely a year of global. It was now, the lesson learned from that is everything that’s, Not the way it should be. It has to come up first, you know. It’s like they tell you, don’t pray for patience. Yeah, don’t pray for global. Because it definitely. And so, we went through a lot of lessons learned.
A lot of trying to figure out how you go grow fast internationally.
Megan: It was a
Alicia: Ooh,
Megan: a try in here. I could only imagine the set of challenges that would come with that approach. What, what were one or two big things that caught you off guard, maybe you weren’t prepared for?
Alicia: I think for me, personally, I was not prepared for all the travel.
We are in a different country almost every month. It was, it was very, because you, you can’t change who you are as a leader. And so, I’m one of these leaders that likes to go meet the people, make sure we’re going to be good partners. Go on their turf, you know, understand them. I think that’s really important when you have a partnership to really appreciate each other.
[00:15:00] And so I want to make sure I go out and do that. So, there’s a lot of travel. Also understanding that the, even when you work with one company, and you think oh, I’ve only got to do one agreement with one company. That’s not true going global You end up with an agreement with every single one of their Cost structures or P& Ls or however, they break up their company.
So, we’ve probably spent more on legal fees
Megan: Legal team is busy, huh?
Alicia: Yeah, but those are things that are worth
Megan: Yeah, I bet what’s I’m not sure about you’re the amount of travel that you did previously, what’s been your one or two favorite places you’ve been to that surprised you that you weren’t expecting?
Alicia: Dubai and Japan. So, Dubai was absolutely beautiful, and it was heartfelt because we ended up meeting other dealers and other partners from all over the world at this at this show and so to sit at the table and have [00:16:00] So many different nationalities kicking off the year. Global was pretty amazing. That was in Dubai.
And then Japan. Japan was not at all what I expected. Really? It’s beautiful. It’s hard to get around without a lot of English. I had to learn a little bit quickly,
Megan: but no, it’s absolutely beautiful. Hmm. I’ve never been to Japan, but I’ve heard beautiful things about it. It’s beautiful. Any plans to take your kids?
Alicia: Okay, so I remember I told you that I started and the reason why I moved to Huntsville. Well after I started at LSINC, fighting and kicking because I didn’t really want to start. We never had a day that wasn’t part of our kids. I learned the hard way that we could not I could never be the person who could separate my life out, and I was all about children.
And plus, a little earlier on, one of my mentors had told me a lot about giving back, and I was, again, two small kids, and, and she said, Well, you gotta learn to get back, and I was thinking, Heck, I can’t even figure out how to get through the day, you know? Like, how am I gonna get back? I can’t get back [00:17:00] to anybody else.
I got two kids. Surprisingly though, she said, figure out what you want to do in your life, and make sure you’re doing that. For the benefit of somebody else and so it’s a great piece of advice. That is why I’m so into children So it’s the schools. It’s the camps. It’s You know the ASCTE I’m very proud of it You know the legislation that we did make it so a child from every district in the state of Alabama can come if they choose and so to me, bringing my kids into it was very, very important.
So, I don’t know that I’ve been on travel without my children this year, except for Japan. Because my son is now working in sales. And then we also bring my daughter with us occasionally as well, because she’s very good with Understanding different, you know, nationalities and That’s great. Yeah, before I went to Dubai, she sat me down for two whole days and I had to watch every YouTube you could imagine.
Is she prepared you for that? She gave me an entire [00:18:00] Wow, that’s amazing. This is how you do business in Dubai; this is how you dress in Dubai. It was really sweet. Wow. So, they each have become part of LSINC, and my husband also works at the company now. So, it’s, he’s always worked there. Just part time now, he’s a lot more.
But That atmosphere is how we try to live our life.
Megan: Yeah, I love that. So, they, we talked a little bit about this before. I mean, your family is involved in the business, and your business is involved in the family. And that, you know, which I think teaches a lot of great lessons as well and has them. You know, it’s not just, oh, my mom works in Engineering, or she, you know what I mean?
Like they truly understand who you are, and it gets you up every day, which is exciting, yeah. Can I ask where your, this may seem like a silly question, but can I ask where your passion for kids came from?
Alicia: Can I ask? I love children. I mean, I’ve always loved children. When we have two, we have two biological children, we have two adopted children.
And so, my, my [00:19:00] passion has always been about helping children and, and usually ones that are a little less fortunate, you know. It’s something that my family did together. So even when we adopted, we adopted a five- and seven-year-old when my kids were 14 and 16. And the day I turned 50. And so even that was part of a family thing, so to me, I’d been given two beautiful children and then I felt that we had the right and the responsibility to give back as well.
And then just knowing that there are so many incredibly intelligent, Children that just get missed all the time and, you know, you bring them in and, you know, I live in Decatur, and I love Decatur. And the more I get to meet people in Decatur, the more I’m like, I wish they had more opportunities too. So, every time we can give other communities in Alabama an opportunity.
To help teach your children. I’m hoping that we’re doing it.
Megan: Yeah, that’s amazing. How was, if you don’t mind me asking, how was the adoption process for you? Was that [00:20:00] something that was a little bit of a smooth ride, or was it challenging? And then also curious how that was for your older children, too. It must have been, it’s not an easy thing to go through that, I would imagine.
Alicia: No, it was not an easy thing to go through. But it’s definitely one that has blessed us. We didn’t recognize that blessing for six years, but looking back on it, it was a little, you know, why we chose two instead of one, you know, one time. Did you go
Megan: through that at the same time?
Alicia: We did.
Megan: Okay. Maybe that made it easier?
I don’t
Alicia: know. It was kind of interesting. So, we thought we were adopting two children that both spoke mandarin and didn’t find out until when nobody understood the, the, my youngest daughter that she didn’t speak Mandarin, she spoke, spoke Cantonese. And so, unfortunately, they didn’t get to talk to each other, which made, made it easier.
But then they learned English very fast. Wow. Because they didn’t know, there was no way they could talk to each other either.
Megan: [00:21:00] Yeah. So, did you or, I mean, did your whole family kind of go through language barrier 101? And did they
Alicia: try to, wow, wow. And we all traveled. So, we all went to see, and we went behind the scenes.
We went to see the, the orphanages and actually went in the orphanage. And, and so my children got to see it and understand it and go through it.
Megan: What was that like for them?
Alicia: It was, it was experience. It
Megan: was scary and yeah. A lot. Yeah. I couldn’t, I couldn’t even imagine that. I mean, that would However, I, I would imagine that that leaves such an imprint on your older kids to really have, I don’t mean this in a negative way, but just to have such an appreciation, you know, for, for where they are and where they’re at and, and the parents and the resources that they have.
But, what an amazing experience. But we did it together.
Alicia: Awesome. We didn’t actually make it easy. By any means, but
Megan: we did it together well. There’s something to be said for that, and we’re on the other side of it now, so yeah. And there’s something to be said [00:22:00] for that, for sure. Yeah. So, let’s talk a little bit about the cyber and technology school.
Okay. That has been just a s. such a blessing here in North Alabama and something that has gotten just a lot of publicity around what is going on. My youngest son, Jack, is 11. And he we always talk about him potentially going there because he wants to do gaming and all the things and but talk a little bit just about a little bit about the school and really the process upon which it took to get that I mean, you were really instrumental from the ground up with everything, right?
Alicia: Yes, yes, yes. So, first of all, it took a lot of people. You know, I like to give this lecture sometimes about how do you take an idea to reality and by the time that idea has hit several new people coming on board, it’s not your idea anymore, right? And so, understanding that the only way something like that is going to get pulled off is if the idea becomes.
So collaborative and it’s as it morphs that it [00:23:00] includes enough people to make it sustainable. And so, I think that I got asked by accident. This is my belief. I don’t know for sure. But somehow along the way I was working for the chamber and that heading up the state and Federal financial
Megan: affairs.
Alicia: And we had just kicked off supporting getting the space and rocket center money from the government governor to support with the cyber camp. And so, Senator Orr that time would come and say, what do you think about a school? I said, nope. So, the next year, I’m in the same position again. And he goes, what do you think about a school?
Okay. You know but it’s his vision. And Tommy, Mayor Battles, I mean, They, by far, had a vision that really was outstanding. Somehow, I became the person to help make the vision happen. But they brought in a phenomenal team. I had another person that worked really, really close with me. His name is Pat Sullivan.
He and I were just, had to continuously figure out how we were going to do [00:24:00] it. Everything from, are we going to take an old building and renovate it, or are we going to build a new one? All the analysis of that, creating the legislation, and then, of course, it really took off when the governor took it.
And made it hers, which was really important. In addition, we started with the premise that it had to be something that pretty much mimicked the way that Huntsville works, right? But it also had to be the market timing. So, there had to be, is it, is it supportive of something in the federal government?
Yes. Is it supportive of the state? Yes. Is it supportive of the industry? Yes. Yes. Is it supportive of the city? Yes. Okay, if that’s the case, where is that middle ground where it all works for everybody? And that’s how we came up with the mission. So, the mission was cyber within the engineering lifecycle.
That’s what makes it different. So, you have, you learn engineering and then you, you learn cyber within building something, which [00:25:00]
Megan: It’s different from
Alicia: traditional
Megan: cyber, right?
Alicia: Well, it’s, it’s cyber within everything, but it’s everything from my, how do I think about it during my design, all the way through the suppliers I picked.
So, and if you think about Huntsville being one of the largest research and development arms, that became a natural fit.
Megan: Yeah, absolutely. Would you say, and I’m not familiar if there are other Not that there’s comparable, but if there are other schools out there that sort of have a similar curriculum or focus Is that if there are it very different of kind of you know?
How what how that’s being run here in Huntsville compared to some other schools that offer similar?
Alicia: It’s my understanding in there that there isn’t a lot of them will focus on the IT portion Specifically the forensics portion specifically and ours is looking at it through the engineering lifecycle.
Megan: Gotcha. Okay,
Alicia: it’s still gonna have Aspects of all that, but your goal is can I design and build something that I can ensure is going to be safe.
Megan: That’s awesome. I think there’s been, so I have three kids and they’re not that there’s been confusion on [00:26:00] this by any means, but I think a lot of people wonder about what type of student is a good fit.
For that school. And what potential opportunities would they have at their disposal that might be different from going to, you know, Madison City or Huntsville City schools? What would be your response to that?
Alicia: So, the first thing is, it is a school that’s designed to be somewhat different. Along with the other two schools, they sit on top of the education within the state of Alabama.
So, it’s really there, their curriculum is going to be different, right? So, off the bat, your curriculum is going to be different. That doesn’t make it better, necessarily. I, I, I’m just as high on all the public schools out there as well. Where it starts to make a difference is because, like I said earlier, the people that you brought in to be part of that group.
So, it’s, you’re going to have the industry, the government. The state, the city, all of that together really plays a part. So, a child goes from 9th to 11th, and there, or a young adult at this point, but, and they’re learning all the, [00:27:00] the things they need to learn in school. They’re 12th year. They’re senior.
It’s all intern. It’s an entire year of intern. And so, we’ve already made MOUs with NASA, Memorandums of Understanding with NASA and other agencies. And then you have a lot of companies out there. So LSINC has six interns this year. You know, I have six interns. Six interns that are learning all about LSINC.
And so, they just presented to me, for instance, this morning an entire analysis on how to set up a print shop. How does the, how does the material run it, come in? How does it look like? And they presented it to me today. So, the, it’s, it’s a really good school for helping you get into the industry. Now understanding We knew in the beginning that these were not going to just be kids that were whiz biz.
I mean, you know, I mean, a lot of really intelligent kids, as I said earlier about my passion. They’re kind of down in their basement. They’re not really getting that A’s and Bs on all of their [00:28:00] classes, but they have the aptitude. It’s demonstrated differently. Demonstrated differently. And so, we spend a lot of time, Matt’s team, Matt Massey, who’s the president, his team is phenomenal.
And they spend a lot of time thinking through how to market across the entire state of Alabama. Because they want to attract children, and a lot of those children don’t even have You know, the basis the background into the math that they would normally need, I mean, because they’re going to be learning physics, so that you have to get them quickly through, you know, into, into ninth grade, and then they spend a lot of time catching them all up, and then, yeah.
Megan: Wow. What you know, from a, from a parent’s perspective, I would be curious on what has been some of the feedback from parents who maybe had their kids in traditional public school compared to that. Have you gotten some feedback around that? Just to hear.
Alicia: So, you know, it’s kind of interesting because tying it back to adopting you go to other countries and, and children go to boarding schools.
But if you’d asked me, [00:29:00] myself, if I’d have put one of my biological children in a boarding school, I would have been, no way, right? So, it’s not our culture in the United States to do that. It’s just not. But you go abroad, and it is definitely a culture that’s more accepted, if not envied, right, across the board.
And so, when we first started this, I wondered how many people in Alabama would truly want to send their child to a boarding school. But then you have to go back and say, well, you have to go where the market is. So, if your market right here in Huntsville has those, you know, pieces that all work together and give an opportunity that can’t be seen somewhere else.
Megan: Yeah.
Alicia: Yeah. I might send my kid up there. Yeah.
Megan: Right. Because
Alicia: they’re going to have the opportunity. So, to me, it ended up being way more successful than we thought it would be.
Megan: That’s fantastic. Has the admission number sort of exceeded what you were thinking, or the applicant, I should say, compared to, I mean, are you guys always over?
Or what does that look like? Oh, 100’s over.
Alicia: [00:30:00] Oh yeah. So, there’s a pretty
Megan: stringent selective process.
Alicia: 400, and we could only accept 100 this last year. Wow. But the oh, it’s so amazing though. So those children, not all of them are gonna go to college either, by the way. So, I mean, we knew that as well. We knew that some of them would go into trade.
Cyber itself can sometimes be a trade that you don’t, you get certifications versus college, and then a lot of them go to college.
Megan: Yeah,
Alicia: yeah.
Megan: I mean the opportunities now are so different from where they were. Even 10 years ago, as it relates to the path to college, you know, when I just look at a program like K tech, for example, you know, and being able to provide these kids just a great program and just, you know, avoid having to go a four-year route.
And for most kids, put yourself into debt and this and that. And depending on your field of study, you know. I don’t know. I think some of those traditional approaches may be not as relevant, right? As if you’re in some of these, you know, more aggressive type of programs, but. So, out of curiosity, is the foundation, [00:31:00] does the foundation do things specifically for the school, or is that just sort of the, is it a nonprofit arm of the school?
So, there’s
Alicia: two boards. One board runs the school, and that was a board put together through legislation that Governor Ivey Appoints and then there’s certain positions for a lot of different colleges on that board. Gotcha So Sarah or runs that board on the vice chair. So that board helps with what is, where is the school going and, you know, managing the school itself.
Yeah. The foundation board manages the fundraising as well as the building of any building.
Megan: Gotcha. Okay. And there’s, is there an expansion underway?
Alicia: Or? So, yes. And, and so in the foundation when we first designed the building, we did not anticipate that we would have so many children in art and sports.
It just, when we did all the studies and what the school needed, you know, we were thinking drones, not soccer fields. And they proved us wrong. They’re [00:32:00] phenomenal. They’re first in drama, first in theater. I mean, they’ve done phenomenal across the arts and the sports. And so, we’ve decided to build a sports complex.
And they broke ground the other day. They’re already starting to build.
Megan: Yeah. So, offering pretty traditional sports. Yeah.
Alicia: You’d be surprised. They have a swimming, archery, I mean, they have a ton. That’s fantastic. That
Megan: is fantastic. Cross country, they have way more than you can imagine. I, I lost track. That’s great.
And, and what, what’s the, how many students go there? Like, what’s your average? So, it’s over 350. Okay. That’s a, that’s a hefty size. It’ll be interesting to see, you know, 10 years from now, what the trajectory of some of those students ends up being. You know, of course very scratching the surface of their careers, but it’ll be neat to see if you can almost do some studies side by side comparison of, you know.
It’s not meant to replace
Alicia: anything, it’s definitely meant to, to support. We have a lot of [00:33:00] really great schools. Yeah. And, and, you know, Alabama, but this is just a specific area to really Yeah. help bring that out.
Megan: Well, and to your point, I think it mirrors so closely with what Huntsville is all about and what’s really fueling the economy here and, and really what’s putting it on the map a little bit, you know?
So, let’s shift gears just a little bit. I know that you have won a million awards. And I love to see that you know, were the Girl Scouts, what, 2019 Women of Distinction, which I just loved so much, and Women Honoring Women nominee as well former WEDC member. So, such a great organization and then part of Business Alabama’s 22 in 22, Women in Tech to Watch, which was very exciting.
Talk to me a little bit about Just your journey in business as a woman in any particular challenges or things that you’ve had to overcome looking back. And as you think about, you know, speaking to a primarily female audience, right? What is some of those, those things that sort of stick out that if you could kind of go back and tell your former [00:34:00] self that may help you a little bit with this path that you’ve been on?
Alicia: So, First of all, I was a woman in defense at a time when women, you know, were not mostly not in defense. And so, I can still remember many, many comments. I mean, just walking down the halls, I can remember being younger and one time I went to give a presentation, and I had this nice dress on and, and my hair done up nice and everything and my father came to hear me speak and I had big fluffy hair, you know, and all this stuff.
Father came to hear me speaking afterwards. He goes, it’s a great speech, but it took me full, five full minutes to figure out you had something to say. And I said, what? He said, you’d have to change the look. And so, I learned how important it was to be who I wanted to be and to have the look I needed to have and not be so focused on what it meant to everybody else, but to also be comfortable and not try to overdo.
[00:35:00] Right? Yeah. And I also, I think, I’m really glad that I was a woman who grew up in defense, because now that I’m in print, the industries are actually quite Yeah, it’s easier to learn, yeah. And maybe a little bit different, but very similar, and I, I worry about women today that don’t go through the struggle.
Now granted, I don’t want to have the struggle, I’m not saying that, but everybody needs to have something that allows them to push past. their comfort zone. And I think that’s important. And I think a little bit of, you know, constructive stress can help you do that. And sometimes I think we’re so afraid of it, we walk away from it.
Yeah. Or, you know, that person just makes me uncomfortable. So, I’m just not going to work there. Well, you know, early in my career, you didn’t have those choices. You had to work there. And so, I think some of that stress. And actually helps
Megan: me become a
Alicia: very strong woman.
Megan: I could see that. I mean, I think friction in life helps you [00:36:00] grow, right?
And if things are too comfortable, you’re unable to push yourself in ways where you can kind of see truly what you’re made of. You know, I think it’s in those moments where you’re truly able to thrive. You may not realize it in that moment, resiliency across the board, I think. I could see that. I worked for the Army for about five and a half years, and it was my job to educate brigade commanders on how to spend their ad dollars.
And not having any military experience in my background, it was such an intimidating challenge and one that you absolutely had to have thick skin for. But I agree with you. It was, I think it took a minute to, for them to take me seriously in a way. But, you know, similar to you, you know, you, you run into some of those obstacles, and you overcome them, and you don’t go anywhere.
You just keep going through, you know, and it, it was such a phenomenal learning experience for me personally too. Where you are just. You know, build your confidence in ways that I think you just can’t do otherwise, right? Yeah, it’s huge. So [00:37:00] so I know you haven’t talked about it just yet but thinking through what’s next for L sink I know we don’t have your word.
The word will come right for 2025 But what are some big things on the horizon that we can look forward to helping you celebrate from the sidelines?
Alicia: I think you’ll see several more dealers Globally come on board in the next couple months, which will be pretty exciting. I’m, I’m very excited about some of the areas that we’re moving into.
And then we’ve got a really cool new machine coming out in January, February.
Megan: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, thank you, Alicia. So much for joining us today. I really do appreciate it. It’s been a fascinating peek behind the scenes a little bit just to kind of here about your journey and what you guys have going on.
And you know, also just about some of the things that you’ve been involved in. And you’ve played such a critical role here in Huntsville community, truly, and just helping to shape things that are going to have such a generational impact. So, thank you for that. And thank you for playing that role.
Alicia: So, if you stop the video I’ll tell you the word to [00:38:00]
Megan: Tell us your word.