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TUTHILL BUSINESS ARTICLE

“It Started with a Spark”

The passion for disruption begins with a spark. A collaboration between Tuthill and Trinity
Christian College created an advantageous, invaluable relationship between business
professionals in the workforce and undergraduate students in the classroom. President Ruth
Nelson at Tuthill and Trinity Professor Omar Sweiss joined forces and ignited that spark for
disruption with his Product Management class to create the pitch to incorporate IIOT (Industrial
Internet of Things) with Tuthill’s current pump technology.

When Ruth and Omar met they connected on their disruptive style of leadership and applied that
to an experimental, project-based curriculum for the students. This cross-pollinated, hands-on
approach to real-world issues in the classroom fostered a "contagious creativity" within the
students.

The relationship between the two started when President Ruth Nelson began looking outside of
Tuthill for opportunities to give back. She contacted Trinity during her search and met with Dr.
Shaniqua Jones, who then connected Ruth with Omar, as well as other staff members at Trinity.
The connection was evident; Trinity Christian College and Tuthill are both dedicated to giving
back to the community and fostering real change that makes a difference

As Ruth reflected on this initial encounter at Trinity, she referenced her company’s “Compass,"
which is an outline of their purpose, vision, and mission. She noted, “It was the culture of Trinity
and what Trinity is trying to create with its students, which is very much in line with what we're
doing [at Tuthill] with our employees.” This became clear to the Trinity faculty as well after
watching Tuthill’s “Purpose” video.

As Omar and Ruth continued to talk more, Omar had the idea to do a collaboration between
Tuthill and his Product Management class. Ruth embraced this opportunity and agreed to work
with Omar’s class for the semester, suggesting to Omar, “We can tailor and customize your class
to what the business needs” because “we meet a need that Trinity has, and then Trinity will meet
the need that the business has.”

After this conversation and back at Trinity, Omar immediately reached out to Professor Jeff
Nyhoff from the Computer Services Department. He pitched to Jeff a co-teaching opportunity for
the semester which would require getting Computer Science students enrolled in the Product
Management class. This opportunity also allowed those students to receive CS credit for the
course. Once Jeff agreed, Omar crafted a rough skeleton of what the syllabus would look like as
a starting point for his collaboration on it with Ruth later. Omar decided to break the class time
up by days, with Mondays at Tuthill, Wednesdays at Trinity, and Fridays the students would
work individually outside of the classroom.

The next time Omar visited Ruth, they sat down in her office and mapped out week by week
what they were going to do with the class time at Tuthill and what topics would be covered. Ruth
arranged Tuthill’s “Courage” conference room to be a workspace for the 44 students in Omar’s
class. She didn’t tear down this set up until the end of the semester so that every Monday the
students could meet there at Tuthill.

During their time at Tuthill, the students focused on different aspects of product management:
sales, finance, marketing, engineering, and more. Ruth and Omar also held some leadership
workshops on those days, and each of the four business teams was assigned a Tuthill mentor for
the semester. Ruth commented on this experience, saying, “The students in that class brought a
level of energy here that we don't usually get and they were all curious. It was contagious, and it
made us ask more questions as well.”

Back in the classroom at Trinity on Wednesdays, the students were divided into four respective
business teams and each team had a diversity of student majors. The product management class
was taught utilizing these four groups. The students would work closely in their teams on
different aspects of product management such as understanding the problem, customer
discovery, ideation, pilot, marketing, launch, and so forth. During this busy time, Omar and Jeff
sat and worked with the separate teams and would rotate during the class period so that each
team had met with each of them by the end of every class. This approach was especially
beneficial for the students learning because they got to oscillate between both the business and
technical side of product management.

Another great element of this project was that on Fridays the students didn’t meet for class.
Instead, during that class time the product management students would do customer discovery
work. Omar framed this by noting that “you can’t begin building a solution without a thorough
understanding of the problem.” Each business team would contact specific, real-world business
employers to interview about their project for Tuthill. He pushed them to think critically during
this and ask questions such as “what keeps these businesses up at night? How do they deal with
the problem now? How do they solve it, if at all?” These interviews they conducted were used to
compile real-world data for their projects. It helped the students pinpoint the problem they were
solving and recognize why, how, and where it was a problem.

Instead of the Product Management course being filled with quizzes, exams, and reading
assignments, the focus was shifted to real day-to-day, hands-on experiences. The entire semester
went on like this each week, and the students were well aware that this class project was a real
competition. All of their work culminated into a “Pitch Day.” This event lasted four hours, and
the judges consisted of Tuthill leadership team members. President Ruth Nelson was asked to be
a judge since the “Pitch Day” was largely possible because of her but she declined. She
explained, “I didn't want it because I was spending time with the students and I didn't want to be
biased one way or the other.” Ruth then noted how fun that day was, and Omar commented on
how creative the students were with their presentations. He mentioned how he always pushes his
students to “find a way to stand out apart from everyone else.”

After the winners were announced and the “Pitch Day” drew to a close, there was a powerful
moment as Ruth asked permission to go up to the front and pray on the students. Omar
remembers this vividly, recounting, “That was the most powerful moment of the semester
because it highlighted the values behind the business mission accomplished by everyone. It made
you stand back and say, alright, let’s step back from the class and the experience for a moment.
It’s all about something more—it’s about human beings and relationships and something greater
than all of us, more than anything.”

The benefits of this new relationship and collaboration between Tuthill and Trinity Christian
College continued even after the class ended. Students received internship offers and speaking
opportunities, and Omar was able to introduce Ruth to Professor John Wightkin, the head of the
business department. After meeting, the three spoke more and agreed to begin working on new
disruptive initiatives by building upon the work that was accomplished with Omar’s Product
Management class. Explaining her conversation with Wightkin, Ruth said, “I thought, OK, we
impact 44 students now but maybe we can reach more. Let's go.” Trinity is now working with
Ruth to bring that vision to life.

Ruth also spoke about her experience working with Trinity, and she explained that there were
two sides to it. The first was the professional side. Ruth expressed her hopes and delights, noting
that the collaborative work she did with Trinity “really lived into Tuthill’s purpose of ‘Waking
the World.’” Tuthill’s vision to create “a legion of like-hearted people with astounding impact”
and their mission to make “real things that really make a difference” genuinely aligns with
Trinity Christian College’s own values. The other part of Ruth’s experience with Trinity was on
the personal side. Ruth recounted when she “saw the spark being lit up in the 44 students that
were in that class as they got a taste of what corporate America looks like and…that's the
experience that [she] hopes they have taken away with them.” She truly cares about the “whole
potential of each individual” and, while Ruth wasn’t able to touch each student personally, the
moments when she was able to directly impact a student was extremely meaningful for her.

When Omar spoke about his experience working with Tuthill, he expressed a similar attitude
towards the impact of their collaboration. He noted, “When I come [to Tuthill] I feel like I’m
home. My students graduate and move on, but I'm still here and I feel like I'm still a part of this
family.”

The time following the initial spark of disruptive collaboration between Tuthill and Trinity
Christian College has been capitalized on and artfully elaborated. The passion for this disruptive
style of learning has generated the current construction of similar experiences for students to
soon be a part of.

Interviewees: Kailah Price, Ryan Howey


Writer: Kailah Price
Editors: Kailah Price, Ruth Nelson, Omar Sweiss

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