{"id":2690,"date":"2015-01-13T12:46:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T17:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=2690"},"modified":"2016-05-24T16:37:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T20:37:04","slug":"former-jenzabar-men-co-own-vistashare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2015\/01\/13\/former-jenzabar-men-co-own-vistashare\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Jenzabar men co-own VistaShare\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"At<\/a>

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)<\/p><\/div>\n

As a teenager in the mid-1970s, <\/span>Daryl Myers \u201984 <\/b>didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really just a calculator on steroids,\u201d he laughs now. It had no games, no word processing. Later the TRS 80 was derided as \u201cTrash 80.\u201d But Myers caught the computer bug.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 Fortran and Basic.<\/p>\n

After Hesston, Myers transferred to EMU to major in psychology and play varsity soccer. His roommate one year was Eric Shenk \u201884<\/b>, 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.<\/p>\n

During this early \u201880s period, Dwight Wyse \u201968<\/b>, 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.<\/p>\n

Myers was hired on the basis of his skills in math and logic \u2013 and not on the basis of his computer knowledge and college major. It turned out that CMDS was the perfect fit for him. \u201cI loved the job and the culture of the place,\u201d he said. \u201cI was a fish in <\/i>water!\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2000, a relatively new Boston-based company called Jenzabar bought CMDS and three of its competitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe culture changed completely,\u201d said Myers. \u201cEverything became more political, and the staff argued over issues like what software products to highlight.\u201d Former CMDS employees began leaving Jenzabar.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Myers and Smucker founded VistaShare in one rented room in 2001, holding onto their day jobs initially \u2013 Smucker left Jenzabar in October 2001 and Myers in January 2002.<\/p>\n

Today VistaShare\u2019s 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 \u2212 community and economic development agencies, social-service agencies, and asset-building programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us three years until the product [Outcome Tracker] was ready and another five to seven years until we turned a profit with it,\u201d Myers said. \u201cWe grossly underestimated how much time and money it would take to get rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2011 they purchased their futuristic-looking building that was previously known as an \u201cincubator\u201d for start-up technology firms. Today they have 11 employees, six (not counting Myers) being EMU alumni:\u00a0 Chris Kratz ’95<\/b>, Matt Trost ’98<\/b>, Sam Kauffman \u201912<\/b>, Peter Nelson \u201808<\/b>, Patrick Ressler \u201909 <\/b>and Tim Shoemaker \u201903<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a teenager in the mid-1970s, Daryl Myers \u201984 didn\u2019t 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. \u201cIt was really just a calculator on steroids,\u201d he laughs now. It had no games, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":2691,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[466,6],"tags":[714,784,786,530,529,767,769,785],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fallwinter-2014-15","category-magazine","tag-alumni","tag-computer-information-systems","tag-computer-software","tag-daryl-myers","tag-dave-smucker","tag-information-technology","tag-software-development","tag-vistashare","issues-fallwinter-2014-15"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2692,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions\/2692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}