Ryan York's (M. Ed) career started by co-founding a nonprofit that served hundreds of children each year through its flagship program "Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp" and opening a 6,000 sq. ft. after-school arts facility outside of Nashville. Transitioning into the classroom, he earned the district All-Star teacher award and developed a blended learning software management platform that led to enrolled teachers achieving the highest math growth in the district. Ryan's background in intersecting education with software development led to him being hired as RePublic Schools Chief Information Officer, where he oversaw Information Technology Infrastructure and internal software development for six charter schools located in Tennessee and Mississippi. During his time at Republic, Ryan was awarded the National Sally Ride & Deloitte Award for Innovation for developing a learning management system that housed an internally-created project-based computer science curriculum. Ryan grew the program to ultimately serve over 10,000 children across 8 states and resulted in the largest charter-district partnership in Nashville's history, bringing the curriculum to all middle schools in Metro Nashville Public Schools.Ryan then transitioned to school leadership at Republic Schools, a network that held the distinction of one of the highest performing school systems in Tennessee. While remaining in his role as a CIO, he served as principal during a school turnaround that ended with the highest staff retention, math scores, and 5th-grade reading growth within the network. After two years of principalship in Nashville, he was hired to coach and manage principals at Caliber Schools in San Francisco, while working evenings to prepare and defend the charter for The Gathering Place, which was ultimately approved by the Texas State Board of Education. Ryan has served as Co-founder as Co-CEO of The Gathering Place for the past 6 years. Ryan holds a Master's Degree in Educational Leadership, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Audio Production.