PROVIDENCE – Among the things outgoing Tech Collective Executive Director Joe Devine is most proud of about his tenure is the nonprofit’s rise from the brink of failure, then, in the midst of a pandemic, helping small businesses quickly adapt to technology their very survival depended on.
Now he hopes the technology workforce development nonprofit’s new leader will share the same passion and work ethic to continue to grow the organization.
Rhode Island FC To Offer Local Businesses Top-Notch Networking Opportunities in 2025
The perfect atmosphere for entertaining clients or hosting employees, The Stadium at Tidewater Landing will…
Learn More
Wednesday marks Devine’s final day as Tech Collective’s executive director after nearly three years at the helm and five years since returning to the organization following a decade-long hiatus.
Creusa Michelazzo, who served as Tech Collective’s director of strategic partnerships, will become the organization’s new executive director.
Devine, the former partner of North Kingstown-based tech firm Bridge Technical Talent for 18 years before selling his firm in December, recently told Providence Business News that he took over the executive director role in July 2018 on a volunteer basis and it was initially meant to be interim. However, the sustainability issues that plagued the organization in prior years prevented Tech Collective from hiring a new director, he said, and subsequently he stayed on.
Devine said Tech Collective’s board of directors – on which he will continue to serve as vice chairman after stepping down as executive director – had discussed transitioning to a new executive director for the last nine months.
“That process is coming to fruition,” Devine said.
Michelazzo, who first joined Tech Collective in March 2019 as a program director and initially applied for a marketing position, told PBN that it was Devine’s positive passion for the organization that attracted her to be part of Tech Collective. From there, it was about learning the culture and the needs of the community Tech Collective serves, she said.
“We are the connectors,” Michelazzo said. “We listen to the members. We then develop the programs and we connect those programs to the people who need it.”
Michelazzo in the last year has been the interim industry liaison for the Pathways in Technology Early College High School program, also known as P-TECH. She said there was an influx of students going into the P-TECH program at the Providence Career and Technical Academy, going from 50 students there to between 140 and 160.
In response, Michelazzo helped develop a pod program where two mentors and a college student would mentor four P-TECH students in the school and made the program a bit more flexible to meet the students’ needs.
Devine said he is unsure what will be next for him and will take at least a month to evaluate what he wants to do moving forward. In the meantime, Devine said he signed up to be a mentor to help entrepreneurs who are starting new businesses.
Devine has been involved with Tech Collective since the early 2000s, but took a decade-long hiatus from the organization. Then, in 2016, Tech Collective was in trouble. Tim Hebert, founder and CEO of Trilix LLC, was asked by then-Gov. Gina M. Raimondo to create a board of directors to resuscitate the organization and its original vision, Devine said.
At the time, Tech Collective received a U.S. Department of Labor grant after the 2008 financial crisis to help put 350 underemployed and unemployed individuals into new technology jobs to help restart the economy, Devine recalled. But, he said that program alienated Tech Collective’s original member organizations, and the board needed to help restore confidence in Tech Collective’s membership.
“We’re a membership organization and our membership suffered. They weren’t seeing the same kind of programs. They weren’t seeing the same sharing of ideas and pushing tech forward. It became more about finding people these jobs,” Devine said. Naturally, the relationship spoiled with a lot of our members.”
While the organization still has “work to do,” Devine said Tech Collective is convincing companies “one at a time” that the organization is back to serving its membership and assisting small business through technology.
Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic had not only prompted Tech Collective to lend a helping hand in getting small businesses to become more tech-savvy, but it also reshaped its own organization. For starters, Devine said Tech Collective will not return to its office space inside Rising Sun Mills on Valley Street and will opt for a “much smaller footprint” going forward, although he did not disclose where Tech Collective’s new office space will be.
In response to the pandemic, Tech Collective worked with R.I. Commerce Corp. and District Hall Providence to create a virtual “help desk” for thousands of new businesses who needed technology assistance in order to work from home.
“We have helped hundreds and hundreds of small businesses adjust to that new reality,” Devine said. “It wasn’t just the Tech Collective – we did help with the technical side – but marketing people came forward helping get businesses a website for the first time.” He also said the help desk will still be a fixture to assist small businesses and Tech Collective will offer technical support toward it.
Tech Collective also donated its own training laptops from the office to small businesses and various organizations that needed them, Devine said. He also noted that Tech Collective helped set up approximately 500 laptops that were donated to the state by Microsoft Corp. to be given to small businesses.
Devine, at Raimondo’s request, also helped over the summer oversee the formation of the COVID-19 Business Engagement Team when businesses were putting their reopening plans together and when testing was still a concern.
“We were reaching out with a common message to try to get everyone of understand what testing was about, making sure businesses had a reopening plan taken care of, trying to help them find out where to get tests if they wanted tests,” Devine said.
Moving forward, Devine said that Tech Collective’s Road to Resilience program, designed to help businesses with cybersecurity protection, will remain partially virtual since online one-on-one consultations have worked well. He also said the organization’s events, such as the annual Tech 10 Awards program, will have a hybrid component to attract more individuals to be part of the festivities. He noted that more than 330 people attended the virtual Tech 10 awards in 2020, which is more than double what Tech Collective would see from an in-person crowd.
“People who wouldn’t be able to watch their honoree, whether a family member or colleague, who couldn’t make it to the venue were able to attend. That will be a positive going forward,” Devine said.
Michelazzo, an immigrant from Brazil, said while Tech Collective will still be member driven, she wants to introduce more diversity and inclusion into the programs as executive director. In still remaining with the board, Devine will focus his efforts on building computer science career pathways for women and minorities in the community.
“We can connect with organizations who [understand diversity and inclusion] and bring them into our enterprise and to our members so that the programs we’re creating can continue with a high-quality level, but also bring what’s missing which is equity, diversity and inclusion,” Michelazzo said. “It’s a big goal, but if I think if I start small with a collaboration of the communities, I think we’ll get there.”
The day-to-day involvement with tech people across Rhode Island is what Devine will miss the most after Wednesday, he said.
“You never know from one day to the next who you are going to be talking to about technology and the learning I would gain from talking to people from all levels and different industries,” Devine said. “That I would miss the most.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
