Successful consulting is often about building a strong capability where there was previously a void. Scott Haug, a partner with the strategy firm Waterstone Management Group, has applied that notion to his local community in a big way by helping to establish and a build a school for autistic kids, like his.
Consulting: In what ways have you leaned on your strategy consulting skills (honed throughout a career at firms including: A.T. Kearney, Ernst & Young and Capgemini) in founding the Pyramid Autism Center?
Haug: Going back about 10 years, there was a huge void within the public sector for autism education. Kids that are non-verbal are not easily mainstreamed. At the time, there were a number of us struggling with what do we do with our kids. There were schools in New Jersey and Delaware, but California was not as far along in autism education. So, in the beginning, I approached it using classic strategy consulting skills: I looked at a market, identified an unmet need, and worked to understand what 'the product' would be.
Consulting: What 'product' did you determine was needed?
Haug: There were a number of good programs for blind or deaf children, but not for children with autism. So, I came up with a school operating model, and determined what it would take to build it from scratch. I started by finding an educator who was an expert in autism. I'm a business guy, I can raise funds and build a budget and think about staffing, but I knew
I didn't know how to run a school for autistic kids.
Consulting: How has the school grown?
Haug : When we opened in 1999, my kid was one of six kids in the school. And in the last 10 years, we've continued to expand from that base. We were originally only focused on kindergarten through sixth grade. Then we expanded through twelfth grade. And we've just added a vocational program that enables kids to stay with us through age 21.
Consulting: What were some of the challenges you faced?
Haug: As we expanded, we quickly outgrew our first site. As you might imagine, there are not a lot of empty schools for us to move into. As many small schools do at first, we originally bolted ourselves onto a church preschool. Churches tend to have a lot of empty space during the week. But three years ago we were able to move into a 20-classroom site with a full playground. We've filled 12 classrooms and have 30 kids.
Consulting: How much bigger would you like to grow?
Haug: There are thousands of kids with autism in Southern California. Our objective isn't to conquer the world. We'd rather remain a center of excellence and serve as a demonstration site. Our goals is to grow our ability to innovate and train others around next-generation approaches to teaching this population.
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