Regina Miolan, Scrum Master

I'm definitely a person that was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, and upon completion of high school, I went straight into the army. It's something I always knew I wanted to do. I served 10 years in the army and after the army, my family and I moved to Houston, and we were there five years and then I wanted to come back. I wanted to be around my family. There are experiences and memories here that I can't give my daughter anywhere else. I think that Ohio is definitely a welcoming state for veterans. What I appreciate here, within the Dayton community, the Dayton VA, they build a women's center just for women vets to pay attention to us because a lot of the issues, the health issues that we encounter, might not be that of our male counterpart.

I am a scrum master here at CareSource. I help teams mature. I help them identify gaps, and come up with solutions to fill those gaps to make them more efficient and more effective. I pretty much just took the talents and the skill sets I learned in the military with building teams, with creating comradery, and with leadership and just translated them into the role I'm in now. I like that moving to Ohio, or more specifically Dayton, I was afforded the opportunities to kind of explore where I wanted to take my IT career because there's so many different avenues that you can take. With that work-like balance, it affords me the opportunity to leave work at work, and be able to be of service to others in my personal time.

I think it's imperative to work with kids at a very young age, to show them what their possibilities are. Sometimes it's very hard to envision yourself somewhere that you've never seen. So to introduce kids to a woman in IT, or a woman veteran, it's impactful. In Ohio, I found growth.

Avishek Datta, Senior Developer

I did my masters in Connecticut. After that I moved to Seattle, Texas, Milwaukee Was all over the places but over here, that's when I said this is it, I am gonna settle over here. I work here as a senior developer and that means that you get to be a part of a team member of a team and then you... I do a lot of coding. In India I was born in a completely... within the hustle and bustle of a city. So everywhere else other than Seattle, I was missing that kind of a vibe. And when I came here, I kind of got that vibe back again. What makes Ohio really special is, not only the people, not only the job scenario, not only the convenient location.

It's a place with which you can do something more with. Ohio has a lot of potential right now and I have seen that happening. Take for example, this company. We started off in Columbus when we first opened our office. We were only six people over here, now we are close to 20 now. It's just been a year. I come from India and then finding a place which you can truly call home. And then having a job that you can be actually happy about.

That I think builds my Ohio story. In Ohio I found my home.

Andrew Hulse, Client Relations Manager

I actually grew up in a small town about an hour and 20 minutes north of Columbus. From a very young age, I always kind of dreamed of moving to a bigger city. I didn't necessarily think it would be Columbus, but when I went here for college at Capital University, once I kind of just fell in love with the city. While I love small town Ohio, it's kind of always in my blood and my roots, I just couldn't bring myself to leave. I am a client relations manager here at Futurety, and I kind of do a little bit of managing some of our key accounts and then focusing a lot on new business and strategic partnerships.

I think there's kind of this culture that is really unique to Ohio, that people are willing to just take a moment to enjoy what it has to offer, and then in turn, it honestly improves your quality of life and the ability to work and really do quality work. I think one of the greatest things about Columbus is that it doesn't really matter what the organization is. They wanna think about what the future looks like. It's not all about just capitalizing and maximizing on what is now. It's about what there is to be in the future.

There's not really any one type of tech startup or technology company that isn't represented, almost, in Columbus. Everybody's thinking about what they can do to change the world, and I think everybody in Columbus has kind of got that bug now, to where it's almost contagious. In Ohio, I found opportunity.

Rian Beckham, Director of Communications

I was born and raised in Cincinnati. I moved out to the Hill after graduation in Washington, and each time I came home, I noticed change in the city. It was positive change. It was almost transforming every time I came home even if it was only a three-month period since I had been gone. And after about two years in D.C., I decided I needed to get back to Cincinnati. I needed to get back to Ohio. I think what makes Ohio so special is the people that live here and embrace what it means to be an Ohioan.

Right now, I'm the communications director for Kingsgate, and I'm responsible for fostering this relationship with the 1819 Innovation Hub. Just speaking of my industry specifically, people do refer to Cincinnati as the Silicon Valley of logistics. I mean, if you look at the Innovation Hub, we've got everything from nonprofits, to logistics businesses, to startups. There are people doing groundbreaking work and using this tech space to change their industry, and there's a reason that people come from other cities.

There's a reason that people move to other cities and then come back, and it's really, really exciting to be a part of that.

Bakari Levy, Full Stack Software Developer

Originally from Brooklyn, New York. I went to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. I was a math major there. Currently, I'm a full-stack software developer.

One thing that I noticed about Ohio is that it seems to be a hub for a lot of other, you know, states and cities that are outside of Ohio. So I have noticed in my personal experience, a lot of people coming from Washington, D.C. I've seen people coming from Chicago, Detroit, all sorts of areas around here. I wasn't really expecting it, expecting downtown Columbus to be pretty similar to home. I think of it as downtown, similar to downtown Brooklyn in many ways.

But, if you're the type of person who you want to be challenged by your work and you want to experience, you know, working in a fast paced environment, but you don't necessarily wanna deal with the certain associations and culture that comes with being in a Silicon Valley, then there are great opportunities here in Ohio. There's something for everyone here. From a technology standpoint as well as a cultural standpoint. I'm a big proponent of encouraging people back home who I know to come and at least go to school out here because it's a different environment.

In Ohio, I found adventure.

Kelsey Pool, Client Success Associate

I think Ohio is special to me, because it just feels like home. I've only lived in Columbus for about three years. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting. Coming from a small town, it just was much larger than I thought it would be. It's definitely a lot busier than I thought it would be. Then there's almost too much to do.

There's just so much to explore. There's galleries, there's theaters, and I don't think I've even scratched the surface of it. I am a client success associate. My role here is basically a lot of learning the ends and outs of digital marketing and data analytics. I definitely don't think it is necessary to move away to find an opportunity in data analytics or digital marketing. There's tons of networking groups that you can get involved in. I'm really starting to realize how big of a support group there is for digital marketing and data analytics.

I feel like Ohio is the place that I can grow my career. In Ohio, I found professional growth.

Iulia Poe, Digital Marketing Specialist

I moved here about three years ago from Romania. We decided to stay in Ohio just because it's a central location and it has great higher educational programs. It's really close to Cincinnati, it's really close to Cleveland, and a lot of bands also come here, so it's really easy for us to catch as many concerts as we can. 

I'm a digital marketer. I mostly work with email marketing and PPC. I found a lot of community here, and just a sense of belonging. And, everyone is included. That was a nice change. There are so many groups here, and there's such an amazing community support for growth and entrepreneurship as well. I've actually recently went to a few for machine learning and its helped me kind of figure out some other areas to expand in.

In Ohio, I found home. I found a supportive community that understands that the best way to get to the top is together.

Louis John Murray, Lead Data Analyst

I was originally recruited to come here to come play rugby. And then, got the job as kind of a bonus of coming to Ohio. I'm the data leader at Futurety. I mainly focus on data visualization and data analysis, driving business insight based off of the data that a business has. In general, from what I've seen, Ohio tends to have a lot more opportunity when it comes to marketing and data analytics, specifically. You do have this growing economy, a lot of smaller companies that are looking for talented people straight out of college. And then, that gives you the opportunity to grow however you see fit.

Living in Ohio, you do have an opportunity for great work-life balance. For me, personally, that it's really easy to go straight from work to the gym, to rugby practice or anything that else I wanna do. And then, still have more time to spend with friends, family, things like that. I've got my mom in Louisville and then my sister in Indianapolis. It really is easy on a weekend, or anything like that, if you wanna shoot back home.

Rich Hill, Leader of Strategy & Architecture

My Ohio story is I was born and raised in Cincinnati. Lived my entire life in Ohio. I think my career in Ohio has been fantastic. I think Ohio offers some really unique opportunities. We've got some of the worlds biggest and strongest companies all based out of Ohio and many of them based out of Cincinnati.

At the same time, you got a great work life balance where you've really got the opportunity to do great things from a career perspective. But also, I think the standards and values are really around making sure that you can balance that with that's important to you personally. Whether that's having a family, whether it's going out and hiking, whether it's sports. I think Ohio's really special for the community and for the sense of collaboration. The people here really love being here and they really also care about each other.

In Ohio, I found opportunity.

Charles Green, Software Developer

I wasn't raised here. I'm actually from Bluefield, West Virginia. What made Ohio special was the fact that it's very welcoming to veterans. One of the things that Ohio allowed me to do was establish residency right out of the military. I am developer for Salesforce CRM platform, customer relationship management, as well as a military veteran.

Even if you don't really wanna go to school, I feel as though Columbus is really pushing for even alternative ways of actually getting into this industry. Say, for example, they have apprentice programs, also bootcamps, Tech Elevator. Everybody's reaching out so you can do software development, get into the industry in a nontraditional way.

Coming to Ohio, it just felt comfortable.