Worksighted Expands Partnership with Holland Young Professionals
Most people are lucky to launch one successful organization in their 20s.
But for our longtime leaders, Mat Nguyen and Barry Rice, redefining IT support wasn’t the only goal for their post-college years.
Mat, Co-Founder of our company, and Barry, Director of Strategic growth, had another initiative in mind: starting a young professionals group for the Holland and Zeeland area.
In 2003, just three years into our company’s own story, they founded the Holland/Zeeland Young Professionals (HYP) group with the help of Robyn Wennersten.
While young professional groups are fairly common in 2018, they were rare back then. Unique. Outside the box. Innovative. So it’s no surprise we were involved with the birth of HYP – disrupting the norm is how we roll.
The group was sparked, in part, by local discussions about Richard Florida’s book “Rise of the Creative Class.” Our guys were in the room for those instrumental conversations. They thought young professionals needed a space to connect and start working together on creative class initiatives, according to HYP’s Web site.
Fast forward to now and HYP has more than 1,000 members.
It introduces young professionals to each other. It develops strong leaders through its board. It gives back to the community through philanthropy. It provides countless volunteers for projects such as Habitat for Humanity.
All because our leaders had a vision for the community, one outside our four walls, and made it happen. Yet another trademark of our company – we explore, engage, and then execute. With relentless energy.
Mat and Barry were the keynote speakers at the 2016 HYP Annual Dinner, an event where they reflected on the success of HYP.
“Founding HYP was a game changer for us,” Mat said. “It started with the idea that the area was fortunate to have successful people who did great things and reinvested in the community. … There was a fear that there was a generational gap. We wanted to fill that gap, and cultivate the next level of leadership.”
Recently, we furthered our commitment to HYP by becoming a platinum sponsor of the organization. We couldn’t be more excited about where things are headed.
“Worksighted is just about the most naturally-fitting sponsorship that we could receive, as the roots of our organization took hold with the guidance of Mat Nguyen and Barry Rice,” said Alex Zucco, Vice President of HYP. “Now, with Worksighted’s financial support, we are able to continue innovating, particularly by honing in on adding the type of value that our membership has asked for in recent years – more professional development events, more community involvement events, and continuing to expand our abilities as an organization to promote opportunities for young professionals along the lakeshore in West Michigan.”