Before the pandemic, Occidental students could participate in J-term Oxypreneurship programming before the spring semester buzz filled campus. One of these students was Ethan Glass ’19, a Media Arts & Culture (MAC) major with an economics minor, who said he participated in 2016*. Now, Glass and his co-founder are recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the transportation and mobility category.
Both MAC Director of Digital Media and Production Diana Keeler ’09 and Resident Associate Professor of Mathematics Jeffrey Miller helped mentor students in the J-term program, Glass said. Keeler said there were two tracks, a creative track and a data science track, from which students formed teams.
“They would put together an entire […] business proposal, both with statistics and data, and then people in my section would put together the graphics and the pitch deck and the marketing materials,” Keeler said.
At the end of the term, the teams presented their pitches to select members of the Board of Trustees and other alumni entrepreneurs, according to Keeler. Miller said the program ran for about seven years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“[Glass] was the one who pushed for it to grow and brought me on because he said that it’s not just about creating a business, it’s about being able to do a good pitch,” Keeler said. “He had taken my MAC 110 Digital Design course and was like, ‘This is actually what students need to be able to do a good pitch and a good design deck.’”
This is where Glass began his current company, Ocra, alongside former Occidental student Nate Dunning. The duo were teammates on the Occidental men’s soccer team under current head coach Rod Lafaurie, who said Glass always proved to be a valuable human being and soccer player.
“We have an 85-page culture book and try to live that out every day, so my hope is that all of the values we have resonate with our players for life,” Lafaurie said via email. “Our core principles are based around Family, Legacy Creation, Integrity, Servant Leadership, The Standard, and Mindset, and starting a company and succeeding requires a high understanding of all of those things.”
According to Lafaurie, Glass made the All-SCIAC second team in 2018, and there is currently a photo of him in Lafaurie’s office under “Legacy Creators.”
Off the field, Glass continued his work in Keeler’s digital design class, which, according to Keeler, involved asking about problems in the world and how media can provide solutions or start conversations. Glass said this revolved around the fragmentation of technologies in the parking industry.
“For many years, it’s been excruciatingly difficult for parking companies to communicate with one another because of a lack of APIs in the industry and a lot of legacy equipment and technology,” Glass said. “So, we’ve partnered with all the leading parking technology companies as well as the leading parking operators for us to kind of be the ‘Switzerland’ of the industry and help build an API layer and enable different technologies to communicate.”
Glass also said the interdisciplinary nature of Occidental’s degree aids his work. Keeler said liberal arts education helps foster teamwork by understanding each others strengths and weaknesses, as people from different backgrounds and majors come together to approach a problem.
“Entrepreneurship is very much a multidisciplinary field where diversity of thought, opinions [and] value can take a company to new heights,” Glass said.
As for their recognition by Forbes, Glass said he and Dunning felt appreciative and humbled after learning they would make it on the list.
“It takes a village to raise a business, so Nate and I were happy to be on there, but it’s really a testament and an award that the whole team shares,” Glass said.
Miller said that the mentors in the J-term program knew Glass’s group would be successful from the start.
“I think that it speaks volumes about the amount of talent, enthusiasm and hard work which comes from our students, and what can happen when that talent is mentored and nurtured by faculty and staff who see its potential,” Miller said. “I still receive regular emails from Ethan’s company, which makes my day every time.”
Keeler said that one of Glass’ standout qualities is that he wants everybody to come up with him, as he’s driven for his own success and the success of others.
“I like to hire a team that’s far more accomplished and better than I am at each of their responsibilities, and so over time, now we have an all-star team that can really drive the ship forward,” Glass said. “I’m just here to plug any holes and help elevate where I can.”
Glass said his day-to-day responsibilities at Ocra include sales, partnerships, hiring, raising capital from investors, client success and account management. He said he views his job as unblocking and empowering his team members, including Dunning, to help them succeed.
“I’ve been very fortunate to work with Nate, this has really deepened our friendship [and] our partnership because this is so much about trust,” Glass said. “I feel like I can trust him with my life, and he feels the same way.”
Glass said his company will continue to invest in the Occidental community, as it has hired several other alumni. He also said that he would welcome any opportunity to speak with current students interested in entrepreneurship, building a business, solving a problem and raising venture capital.
“If I were to give advice to Oxy students, it would be to really embrace the relationships around Occidental, not just current students and faculty but also former students and faculty,” Glass said.
Contact Mollie Barnes at mbarnes@oxy.edu
*A correction was made at 12:34 p.m. to reflect that Glass participated in the program in 2016, and led the program in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
