Scott Leavitt has been appointed as the new Vice President of Academics. Recently Scott served as the Director of Employer Services and then the Director of the Business & Innovation Center. Over the years, Scott and his team have developed a robust department supporting custom fit, continuing education, and job upgrade training.
“Southwest Tech has proven itself as an excellent place to work,” said Scott Leavitt. “Our academic programs have built a strong reputation of innovative hands-on learning. I look forward to contributing to the long-term success and legacy of the college.”
Scott Leavitt Bio: Scott has had a lifelong passion for education and entrepreneurship. In his current role with Southwest Tech, he is living his dream and gets to be involved in both. He now considers himself an intrapreneur. As the Director of Business and Innovation Center, Scott developed the vision, procedures, policies, events, pipelines, and committees that will ultimately redefine how businesses launch and growth happen in the Southwest region of Utah. The Innovation Center weaves Southwest Tech’s short-term, custom fit, corporate retreats, events, makerspace, along with services from 14 other partners into a cohesive business growth experience for new and experienced businesses and entrepreneurs.
Before joining the Southwest Tech team, Scott has been building businesses and improving organization operations for years. His latest ventures included building three separate businesses from the ground up. He taught himself to program web applications to create iYearbook, an online yearbook provider that now provides the yearbook to more than 250,000 students in 35 states. After wrapping up version 4 of iYearbook, Scott opened two soda shops, one in Idaho and the other in Reno. Building new businesses more than 8 hours away in separate states with different regulations is a daunting task, but taking on new challenges is something Scott always welcomes.
One such challenge was the great recession. As available jobs dwindled, Scott headed back to Southern Utah University for his Masters Degree in Public Administration. Not long after enrolling in the program, he was given a shot at the Five County Association of Governments as a Transportation Planner. After creating a brand-new Rural Planning Organization in Iron County, Scott found an innovative way to start a bus route to Ivins. It didn’t take long at Five County AOG for the leadership to promote him to the position of Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, Scott successfully managed an 8-million-dollar annual budget, with more than 25 state and federal programs. He continued optimizing processes by digitizing a paper system, and streamlining reporting and billing processes to ensure steady cash flow that was critical for the health of the organization.
Scott loves meeting new people and establishing meaningful relationships with those with whom he associates. He is most proud of his family. He has been married to his wife, Krista, for 18 years and has 5 children. When Scott has free time, you can usually find him somewhere on the golf course, boating, riding dirt bikes with his kids, coming up with some new theory, or programming a new project.