From the Ground Up

SciEdScrumming founder Heather Cowap explains how Agile Scrum can help students develop planning, time management, collaboration, and self-tracking skills inside ordinary classroom work. She argues that schools often expect students to manage complex workloads without explicitly teaching the executive function skills required to do it.

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https://sciedscrumming.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/heathercowap

Career Navy SEAL, Naval Postgraduate School lecturer, author, and caregiver Paul Shemella shares what he learned after his wife, Lena, developed Alzheimer’s disease. He explains why caregiving required him to abandon correction and confrontation, accept help, and learn how to meet his wife inside the reality she could still experience.

Precision Medicine CEO Christian Stella explains how a fourth-generation pharmacy business evolved into a nationwide compounding and fulfillment platform for telehealth brands. He also shares why the company chose to step back from compounded GLP-1 medications after shortages eased, even when those products had become a major source of revenue.

Vital Ventures chairman Sydney Thackray is building civic technology designed to make government spending, legislation, and public decision-making easier for ordinary people to understand. She explains why transparency is the first layer of her broader venture-building philosophy and why she believes better tools can help citizens and public officials make more informed decisions.

Identity coach Jasmine Jones helps women recognize the point where responsibility, ambition, and people pleasing begin to separate them from their own needs. Her work centers on self-awareness, journaling, emotional healing, and learning to make room for an identity that extends beyond work, motherhood, and other people's expectations.

Formaggio Cheese CEO Anthony Mongiello grew up around the Italian cheese business before starting his own company at 26. He explains how an early lesson in competing on price pushed him toward product innovation, why food safety became a defining operational priority, and how he built a 400-person company by finding products and formats that did not already exist on supermarket shelves.

Recovery advocate and educator Bill Houston draws on his own experience with alcoholism, liver failure, transplantation, and long-term recovery to explain why addiction treatment cannot rely on a single model. He argues that education, evidence-based care, and individualized support can help people understand what is driving their substance use and build a more durable path forward.

Nicki Walters, founder and CEO of Pooper Trooper, built a dog waste management company that has survived personal loss, labor shortages, economic downturns, and constant competition on price. She explains why a durable service business depends on disciplined pricing, community trust, strong employees, and a willingness to solve problems most people would rather ignore.

Ishan Jain founded YRI after discovering how difficult it was for ambitious students to access meaningful research mentorship. He discusses building a global platform that connects students with PhD mentors, supports peer-reviewed publication, and helps young researchers turn curiosity into measurable academic impact.

Candie Zar turned a lifelong love of movement and a background in education into SWEATWITHCANDIE, a women-only fitness community in Great Neck. She shares how persistence, positive reinforcement, and a commitment to belonging helped her grow from three participants to packed classes, a second studio space, and plans for online expansion.