MATC made almost everything in my life possible. If it wasn’t for MATC, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today.
Unprepared, unenthusiastic and unmotivated, Steve Glynn trudged to Milwaukee Area Technical College’s Oak Creek Campus for another lost day.
For three years starting in 1992, he had been schlepping to the college and he had bubkes to show for it. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
And he didn’t really care.
“When I started college, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Glynn said. “I didn’t know the logistics. I didn’t understand financial aid. I didn’t even know how to turn a computer on and off.”
On that day in 1995, as Glynn shuffled to his classroom, his instructor stood at the door. Glynn tried to walk through the door, but the teacher moved forward. Glynn retreated.
He felt the corridor’s hard wall on his back.
He felt the instructor’s hard words in his face.
“He asked me what the hell I was doing there,” Glynn recalled. “I wasn’t coming to class; I wasn’t applying myself. He told me I had potential and that I was wasting my time and wasting my money.”
Glynn stood in a daze as the words sunk in.
“That moment changed everything,” he said. “That instructor didn’t have to do that, but he did because he cared. After that, everything flipped.”
Twelve months later, in 1996, Glynn graduated from MATC with an associate degree in Banking and Financial Services.
“Getting my degree from MATC filled me with the feeling of success,” he said. “It was different from anything I had felt before, and I learned to really enjoy that.”
The enjoyable success continued as Glynn went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree.
“MATC was my launchpad, providing me with the essential foundation, discipline and focus,” Glynn said. “It’s where I first glimpsed the boundless possibilities for my own growth. MATC made almost everything in my life possible. If it wasn’t for MATC, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today.”
A high-tech connector
Today, Glynn is a successful writer, podcaster, entrepreneur, innovator, community builder, marketing professional and self-styled tech connector, working to optimize Milwaukee’s use of technology. His LinkedIn profile lists him as: Steve Glynn: Chief Milwaukee Officer + Co-Founder of Milwaukee’s First Innovation District.
“I’m all about making Milwaukee smarter,” the 52-year-old said. “My goal is to shorten everyone’s curve. I want Milwaukee to be the best city it can be by using technology in the best ways possible. I’ve spent 20 years building companies and innovation communities in Milwaukee,” he added. “Now, I want to share what I’ve learned.”
Glynn is heavily involved in Milwaukee's tech community and his passion for the city is real to the people who work with him.
“Steve is an important part of our community and a critical partner in our mission to bring people to Milwaukee and for Milwaukeeans to find new ways to experience the city,” said Josh Albrecht, the chief marketing officer of Visit Milwaukee.
Lena DeLaet, director of Summerfest TechAI, added, “Steve’s commitment to telling the stories of everything our city has to offer is why we have partnered with him year after year. He is Milwaukee.”
Disconnected upbringing
Before becoming one of Milwaukee’s biggest cheerleaders, Glynn was a kid growing up poor on the city’s south side. His father was in prison during Glynn’s entire childhood. Glynn was an average student who graduated from Hamilton High School in 1992. College was on his mind, but few of his friends were enrolling. Those who did dropped out quickly, he said.
He enrolled at MATC not really knowing what he wanted to do. He drifted from class to class without much thought until that fateful day when one of his instructors delivered some difficult truths.
After that conversation, Glynn applied himself. He became more familiar with the campus, figured out his financial aid, landed a job loading trucks with UPS and accepted assistance when offered.
“The people at MATC were very, very helpful,” he said. “For people who might feel lost or think they’re unseen, MATC is a great home to get your bearings. The instructors have careers in what they’re teaching. They understand that students have challenges.”
After graduating from MATC, Glynn earned a degree in business, management, marketing and related support services from the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 1998, and a master’s degree in business from DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management in 2002.
He worked at BMO Bank for a few years before becoming an account supervisor at DCI Marketing. “I learned about marketing, product management, compliance, operations and technology,” he said. “It was a great first lesson.”
He later worked at several advertising agencies, handling brands like Harley-Davidson, Hitachi, Ford, Motorola, Tyson Foods and Subaru.
In 2007, he launched Spreenkler as a meetup. In 2009 it became what Glynn called “a marketing and technology agency and a community of innovators.” The agency hired college students, accelerated what they were learning and connected them to businesses that needed talent. Spreenkler eventually became the largest community of its kind in the Midwest, Glynn said.
He sold Spreenkler in 2014. After serving as a consultant for several companies, Glynn started a podcast called “Experience Milwaukee” in 2018. “My mission was to connect Milwaukeeans to businesses and truly network the city with the people and places that move Milwaukee forward,” he said.
Planning Milwaukee’s future
In October 2025, a concept Glynn had presented to Milwaukee Common Council President Jose Perez for an innovation district in Walker's Point was approved. The aim of the district was to attract, expand and retain technology-focused businesses in an area generally bounded by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences on East Greenfield Avenue and MATC’s Walker’s Square location on West National Avenue.
“This is a critical first step toward building a 21st-century urban economy,” Milwaukee Common Council President Jose Perez said last October. “We want to put Milwaukee on the map with national visibility to attract talent and companies.”
Notable organizations within the district’s boundaries include Rockwell Automation, Rite-Hite, Komatsu Mining, Zurn Elkay Water Solutions, PKWARE, Digital Bridge, Gateway Capital Partners and The Water Council, Glynn said.
In early 2026, Glynn moved his podcast to Substack. He also started traveling to other cities to check out their technology ecosystems. He has found that Milwaukee lags behind some urban areas in tech and innovation, he said, but he hopes his work will help raise awareness and close the gap. He has a vision of how to get there.
“What the city needs most is a unified and communicated vision of the role technology will play in this town, from inclusive input from business founders, civic leaders and corporate executives in and outside of Milwaukee,” Glynn said.
This kind of collaboration could help Milwaukee plan for and create infrastructure that makes the city more attractive to tech companies, he said.
“Milwaukee, if it wants to, could become the central hub for technology in the Midwest — a wired-in metropolis that connects Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit like the spokes of a wheel,” he said. “Technology is always filled with what ifs and if thens. It never really ends, but the question is can we have the infrastructure to handle what comes next. I think we should always look to the future.
“I just want to make Milwaukee more confident in how it uses technology in business,” Glynn added with a smile. “If I can do that, that would be pretty good for a poor kid from the south side who went to MATC with huge question marks in his head about the future.”
About MATC: As Wisconsin’s largest technical college and one of the most diverse two-year institutions in the Midwest, Milwaukee Area Technical College is a key driver of southeastern Wisconsin’s economy and has provided innovative education in the region since 1912. More than 35,000 students per year attend the college’s four campuses and community-based sites or learn online. MATC offers affordable and accessible education and training opportunities that empower and transform lives in the community. The college offers more than 180 academic programs — many that prepare students for jobs immediately upon completion and others that provide transfer options leading to bachelor’s degrees with more than 45 four-year colleges and universities. Overwhelmingly, MATC graduates build careers and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.