It may have been Greg Schermbeck’s learning curve that sent him straight to education management. In any event, he’s found his niche. SchermCo links the public, private, and nonprofit sectors together to implement programs for low-income students. Growing up in a low-income area of Toledo, Ohio, he has seen the inequities of public education.
“But I also know that a lot of time and money was invested to help and support those public schools,” he said.
His background in education began with Teach for America at West Charlotte High School and continued through earning his Master of Education from Vanderbilt University. As a for-profit business with a social-impact practice, SchermCo reinvests one percent of its time and funds back into the communities it serves. A recent example of this partnership approach is the Charlotte NEXT initiative, which helped expand quality after-school programs to middle-school students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
“It’s really important to have a true mission and a true belief in what you want to accomplish and the people you’re working to serve.” In SchermCo’s case, that means underserved students.
His fondness for East Charlotte is directly tied to the cultural stew for which it is known. “The area is diverse in all ways—the food scene, the people, the access to all the different stores and cultural entities. That makes it very easy to gather different perspectives. I think that’s really important for an organization like ours whose focus is on public education.”
He attends a lot of shows at the Neighborhood Theatre and is a huge fan of Boudreaux’s Louisiana Kitchen. He’s looking forward to the LYNX Blue Line extension. Improvements he’d like to see in the area? Great public schools, naturally. But he’s working on that.
Nominated by Epic Capital
Photo by Sofi Preslar
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