At Jenzabar in the 1990s, Daryl Myers ’84 (right) was a colleague of Dave Smucker, a graduate of Goshen College. In 2001-02, the two struck out on their own, forming VistaShare to serve small businesses and non-profit organizations. Today, VistaShare’s headquarters happen to be next door to Jenzabar’s in Harrisonburg (note the Jenzabar sign in the background). (Photo by Kara Lofton)
As a teenager in the mid-1970s, Daryl Myers ’84 didn’t know anyone who owned a computer in his town of Lowville, New York. But he took his own money, trekked to a Radio Shack store and bought a TRS 80.
“It was really just a calculator on steroids,” he laughs now. It had no games, no word processing. Later the TRS 80 was derided as “Trash 80.” But Myers caught the computer bug.
Today Myers is exercising his gifts in technology and business leadership as the co-founder and vice president of VistaShare, a computer software company in Harrisonburg. Travelers from the north on their way to the Eastern Mennonite University campus pass the sleekly glassed VistaShare building at 1400 Technology Dr. off Mt. Clinton Pike.
At Hesston, a Mennonite junior college in Kansas, Myers majored in aviation. However, he did take courses in the two popular computer programming languages of the time – Fortran and Basic.
After Hesston, Myers transferred to EMU to major in psychology and play varsity soccer. His roommate one year was Eric Shenk ‘84, a computer whiz and son of his soccer coach. He was one of the few people who had a computer in his room. It was an early Apple model.
During this early ‘80s period, Dwight Wyse ’68, a former EMU administrator, started a software company called Computer Management and Development Services (CMDS). In 1986 the company, with offices on Virginia Avenue in Harrisonburg, decided to double its work force from 16 to 32.
Myers was hired on the basis of his skills in math and logic – and not on the basis of his computer knowledge and college major. It turned out that CMDS was the perfect fit for him. “I loved the job and the culture of the place,” he said. “I was a fish in water!”
In 2000, a relatively new Boston-based company called Jenzabar bought CMDS and three of its competitors.
“The culture changed completely,” said Myers. “Everything became more political, and the staff argued over issues like what software products to highlight.” Former CMDS employees began leaving Jenzabar.
Myers started talking with a Jenzabar colleague, Dave Smucker, about launching their own company. Smucker, a graduate of a sister Mennonite college, Goshen, was already involved in an effort by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) to help disadvantaged people start small businesses. He noticed that small businesses, as well as small non-profit organizations, needed computer software to organize and keep track of their activities.
Myers and Smucker founded VistaShare in one rented room in 2001, holding onto their day jobs initially – Smucker left Jenzabar in October 2001 and Myers in January 2002.
Today VistaShare’s primary product is Outcome Tracker, a software package that helps over 500 non-profit organizations keep track of their clients and outcomes. The organizations they serve fall into three categories − community and economic development agencies, social-service agencies, and asset-building programs.
“It took us three years until the product [Outcome Tracker] was ready and another five to seven years until we turned a profit with it,” Myers said. “We grossly underestimated how much time and money it would take to get rolling.”
In 2011 they purchased their futuristic-looking building that was previously known as an “incubator” for start-up technology firms. Today they have 11 employees, six (not counting Myers) being EMU alumni: Chris Kratz ’95, Matt Trost ’98, Sam Kauffman ’12, Peter Nelson ‘08, Patrick Ressler ’09 and Tim Shoemaker ’03.