The Company
Scenario Learning is the leading developer of safety and compliance solutions for the education market. Helping to create safer and more nurturing learning environments for every student in the world is at the heart of what we do.
The premise for our products is simple. Safety and compliance resources for general industry and manufacturing fail to meet the unique needs of schools and districts. That's why our products are 100% school-focused. You may know us best for our SafeSchools' suite of award-winning products with online solutions for staff training, bullying incident reporting and tracking and MSDS management. Districts that have implemented our programs well have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while increasing safety and compliance.
We currently serve thousands of districts in the U.S. and Canada as well as 19 strategic partners including Liberty Mutual, Utica National, and Keenan.
History
Co-Founders.
Brian Taylor and Greg Estep co-founded Scenario Learning in 2004 with the idea of creating Web-based safety and compliance resources to meet the unique needs of academic institutions. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, the company has quickly grown to serve customers in all 50 states as well as internationally.
Focus.
The premise for Scenario Learning’s products is simple. Safety and compliance resources for general industry or manufacturing fail to meet the unique needs of academic institutions. With that simple idea, Scenario Learning built SafeSchools Training, which was initially comprised of a half-dozen online safety training courses. These online courses were coupled with a state-of-the-art Compliance Management System to deploy the courses through the Internet and track all the training for compliance purposes.
Content Expertise.
From the beginning, each SafeSchools Training course was authored by a recognized, national expert to ensure that the content met the specialized needs of school and academic administrators. In particular, Brian leveraged his expertise as a publisher with Thomson Learning to procure the very best authors across the United States to create training content specifically for the SafeSchools system. Today, there are more than sixty nationally-prominent authors who are part of the SafeSchools Training team – helping to ensure that participating districts and schools enjoy the most dependable content in the most critical area – safety.
Flexibility and Scalability.
SafeSchools Training's revolutionary Compliance Management System (CMS) is unlike any other.
The system has an array of features that are uniquely suited to simplifying safety and compliance tasks for school and college administrators. This includes seamlessly integrating online and offline learning. Leveraging Greg Estep’s background as an architect of Internet-based systems, the CMS enables the busy safety administrator to have all relevant compliance data at their fingertips and to analyze the data for process improvement.
Expanding and Growing.
SafeSchools Training courses now number in the hundreds with more to be announced every year—school-specific, of course, and with nationally-renowned authorship. We're also publishing state-specific and job-specific courses in many areas as well. SafeSchools Training is now the clear industry leader in school district staff training and compliance, serving thousands of districts nationally. Moreover, the company has demonstrated success forging partnerships with insurance and workers' comp providers who serve school districts as well.
Management Team
Brian Taylor: CEO, Co-Founder
Brian honed his leadership skills over 15 years with Thomson Learning, one of the nation's largest publishers, where he held a number of executive management positions. Brian left Thomson to co-found netTrekker, where he was COO. Brian helped conceptualize netTrekker, which is now a widely adopted curriculum-based search engine serving 11 million students. Brian has excelled in alliances throughout his career, having formed successful partnerships with Apple, Pioneer, Microsoft, Autodesk, Intel, McGraw-Hill, Follett, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin. Brian has a BA from Judson University, an MBA from Xavier University, and executive education from Columbia University.
Gregory Estep: COO, Co-Founder
Greg is renowned for the development of pioneering Web-based technology applications for education. His engineering innovations have garnered numerous awards and recognitions from USA Today, WSJ, and Technology & Learning. Greg was the Chief Technology Officer at Hobsons, the publisher of CollegeView and CareerView. Greg also designed the architecture for netTrekker, the nation's leading academic search engine, which is now a market standard. Greg has a BS in Information Systems from the University of Kentucky.
Mark Armstrong: Director of Creative Services
Mark
was a core software engineering leader for WebTV Networks, a company
that enables households to access the Internet through their
televisions. Following the acquisition of WebTV by Microsoft in 1997,
Mark remained with Microsoft for 12 years where he led teams to ship
hardware and software products and services including Internet-TV and
integrated satellite DVR solutions. Before his work in consumer
products, Mark was a software architect at Symantec, co-founder of a
Cincinnati-based software startup and a video game designer. He is
credited with more than a dozen major commercial software releases. Mark
has a BS in Physics from Stanford University.
Steve Holland: Editor-in-Chief
Steve is a seasoned educational publishing executive with experience in
all facets of content development and instructional design. He began his career as the Business
Development Director of Pharos Technologies, a successful venture-funded
network software firm. He also was
the Publisher of Computer Education at South-Western/Thomson Learning. Steve then became a Product Manager for
CNN and many of their education initiatives. He started with Scenario Learning as both a contract
editor and author, before joining the business in a full-time role in 2009 as
Editor-in-Chief. Steve has a BA
from Miami University and a MA from the University of Southern California.
Donna McMullin: Director of Marketing
Donna
is an experienced education marketer with an unusually good balance of
creative and strategic sensitivity. She has enjoyed the good fortune of
leading the marketing efforts at a large publisher as well as a
high-growth, successful startup named to the Inc. 500 list of
fastest-growing companies. Donna is formerly the Director of Marketing
Communications for South-Western Educational Publishing as well as VP of
Marketing for Thinkronize, developers of netTrekker. Most recently, she
led the development and marketing efforts of a new Educator Community
for one of the nation's leading assessment providers, eInstruction.
Donna has a BSBA and an MBA in Marketing from Xavier University.
Jim Nulsen: Director of Business Development
Jim was Scenario Learning's first employee and has worked in nearly every position in the firm except for programming. He has often been Scenario Learning's leading salesperson as well as leading the marketing efforts through the initial stages of growth. More recently Jim has helped lead the company's growth through partnerships with insurance and workers' compensation providers in his role as Director of Business Development. Jim has a BS from Miami University.
Joel Petersen: Director of Sales
Joel is an experienced education sales executive who has helped companies consistently exceed revenue goals through direct-to-district selling and strategic distribution partnerships with Apple, Dell, Scantron, BrainPop and many others. His philosophy of putting the customer first has helped him establish key relationships with district and state level administrators and key consortia, always delivering solutions that meet their unique needs, with renewal rates of over 95%. He was formerly the Vice President of Sales for netTrekker, a startup named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies, as well as for Hobsons. He holds a BA in Social Science from Carthage College and post-graduate work in School Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Chuck Phillips: Director of Software Development
Chuck
is an expert in system architecture and software development. He leads
the Programming Team and has been instrumental in the design and
development of the company's product portfolio, including the flagship
product, SafeSchools Training. Chuck’s ability to move from needs
analysis, to product design, to successful implementations quickly and
cost-effectively has been a key factor in the company’s ability to
consistently deliver high quality solutions that meet customer’s needs.
Chuck has a BS in Systems Analysis from Miami University in Ohio.
