dec-2017

60 61 T here is an old saying: “Adversity breeds creativity.” This was certainly true in the case of Marc Netka, President and CEO of STS Education, an Ed-Tech company based in Simi Valley, California.“My com- pany started out of desperation,”he relates.“I just got laid off, I just had my third kid, and I had nothing else to do.”Luckily, Netka had a friend who worked in what was then known as the “greymarket” for computers,“taking used computers and, in those days, breaking them apart and selling the parts, because that’s when a 40 gig hard drive was worth $500.” Without any real knowledge of computer technology, but with a talent for sales and marketing,Netka jumped at the opportunity. “When I came on board, I looked at the market and thought there was an opportunity to sell used computers to schools,”he recounts.“In California, there was a program called the Digital High School Program,which was giving $300 per student to every high school in California for a one- BEST IN CLASS STS Education STS EDUCATION AT A GLANCE STS EDUCATION WHAT: A provider of built-for-education products, services, and solutions WHERE: Simi Valley, California WEBSITE: www.stseducation-us.com