Reach for the Sky: GSATC founder helping tech companies to 'dream big enough'

By Tim Ronaldson

Upstate Business Trends

September 2010

Sometime in the near future, the Greenville Spartanburg Anderson Technology Council might have to change its name.

The organization is no longer an “Upstate phenomenon,” as founder Phil Yanov called it. It is now a mainstay in the Midlands, Charleston and, in September, it will expand to Charlotte. Through its weekly luncheons and Tech After Five events, the GSATC is seeking to connect technology professionals in a way they’re not often connected – offline.

“We are relentless advocates for technology and entrepreneurship,” Yanov said.

Much like technology itself, the GSATC is expanding at a rapid pace. In September, the organization will celebrate its eighth birthday and venture into its fourth city.

“Our success baffles me,” Yanov said. “It’s a very simple idea. We’re very careful how we frame the conversation. We’re really trying to help (our members) get something done.”

The GSATC accomplishes this by taking the extra step for its networking attendees. In advance of the event, the group asks attendees what they’re looking to get out of the event, and they publish that on each person’s name badge. They also print a brochure with who’s attending to let others know who they can expect to see at the meeting. Following events, Yanov and his team follow up with attendees to share their stories about their experiences, and opportunities both capitalized on and missed.

The core members of the GSATC are tech professionals who are working inside another “non-tech” business. A company such a BI-LO, for example, needs a sophisticated IT network in the background that happens on the end-point to move its groceries, so while it wouldn’t be considered a tech company, it is sinks or swims based on the functionality of its technology.

“The fact is that tech is a lever for many businesses,” Yanov said. “Sometimes, it’s simply the price of doing business, but very clever companies are using it to leapfrog others.”

In the Upstate, this can be seen first-hand with the University Center of Greenville. Last fall, the UCG was inducted into the Virtual World Consortium to expand access for faculty and students into virtual world platforms. This spring, the University connected through Clemson University to Internet2, a private high-speed fiber network. And this month, the UCG plans to launch SimHub, an immersive technology center, to serve as a connection site to support and experience simulated environments, augmented reality applications with smart phones, gaming applications and expand virtual world use.

Above is a screen shot inside the virtual world platform in which the University Center of Greenville's member institutions have classes or projects. The various outlets can simulate more traditional settings like a board meeting room, as well as more abstract or imaginative settings, such as a 3D shape outlining a complicated process.

“Combining the resources of Internet2 with the VWC will exponentially increase the quantity and quality of teaching and research possibilities at the University Center,” said UCB President & CEO Fred Baus. “This partnership allows UCG to remain at the forefront of technologies for teaching and learning, as well as advance new models for immersive learning in virtual environments.”

Projects such as SimHub are helping to build the information technology industry’s leaders of tomorrow – people who could one day follow the path of Yanov.

Yanov has been a techie for as long as he can remember. He built his own information technology company that he eventually sold to Kyrus Corp. – a firm that sold computers, cash registers and networks for large grocery store chains – and became that company’s e-business executive and CIO.

While he was working professionally at his regular job in 1983, he started the first IBM PC users group in the Upstate. While it was simply a hobby group at first, his interest in “getting tech people together” grew, which lead to him founding the GSATC, his current full-time job, in September 2002.

The GSATC’s “strongest reach” is with information technology professionals. While the organization has reached out to other areas of technology, such as GE wind experts, the IT professional is its core demographic because Yanov believes it is a great platform to build business and build wealth. A smart person with good people and the right skills can build a great technology business, he said.

“IT is the world’s longest-running IQ test,” he said. “It continues to get more sophisticated.”

The ever-advancing nature of the technology business is both a blessing and a curse to industry professionals. While it allows for continual advancement, it also forces people to re-train quite often.

Plumbers do their work quite similarly to the way they did it 20 or 30 years ago, Yanov said, but computer programmers are constantly forced to learn new computer languages that may only have a 10-year lifespan.

“The problem I see in what we’ve done is you have to re-learn your toolset regularly,” he said.

What Yanov would love to see technology professionals do is stop thinking too small, and that is one goal of the GSATC. He tells a story of a member of the IBM PC users group who used to bring his kid to meetings as a way to bond. Today, the two have built an international tech company because they were able to think big and take chances.

“I think we don’t dream big enough. Our concept of money and success in this community is sometimes kind of limiting,” Yanov said.

“We’ve had some beautiful, great big wins. We need more of them. We need more people to see them.”