PACE / NTI

PACE was a startup internet based communication tool used for K-12 schools.  It was sold about 3 years later to NTI and then later sold to Blackboard, which is now a multi-billion dollar organization.

PACE started when one day Bennett Liss' (Co-Founder) child came home from school with a note from his teacher pinned on his shirt.  His child had spilled apple juice on it and the note was no longer legible.  He said, "There has to be a better way to communicate between parents and school faculty!"  He and John Gamba Sr. then proceeded to create PACE in Westwood, CA.  PACE started out by creating the program and then selling it to smaller private schools and then eventually branched out to many schools all across the country.  

I came to PACE after they had been in business for a few months and was brought in to do the day-to-day accounting.  I reported to the CEO and we had a CPA that would go through the books at the end of each month and do our bank reconciliations.  

Working for PACE became one of the best jobs I ever had in that I worked with a great team, much that are still friends of mine to this day and we accomplished so much so quickly.  

This is a list that could go on for a very long time but in "short", I brought real order and process to a company that was in dire need of process.  I built the books from scratch, created the client care training format that is still used at Blackboard, brought order to commissions, managed all day-to-day operations, all accounting (AP, AR, Payroll and commissions), put together all the presentations for sales, created two "Community Action Committees" managed all HR and anything else that needed to be done. I am very proud of what I was able to accomplish at PACE and learned a lot from a lot of great people.

The Community Action Committees were my creation to give back to the schools that were our clients.  We supported our schools in food drives, blood drives and toy drives.  This and creating a 24/7 real human customer service department is why we had nearly 100% contract renewals.  We gave our customers our time, energy and even our blood.

After the company was sold they laid off 50% of the PACE employees (this is common when a company is old), I stayed on mostly advising the new people on processes, as I had created them.  There was another round of layoffs of and they moved me to Client Care where I traveled the country teaching faculty how to use the tool.  There was a 3rd round of layoffs of old PACE employees and I didn't survive that one.  In the end, all PACE employees were replaced by new NTI people.  It's a sad reality of that process but I had to accept that reality and move forward.

Software Used

QuickBooks

Excel

Word

PowerPoint