Luke St. Amand, South Windsor High School class of 2018 alum, pitched his STEM-based business, LecTec, on the Friday, February 7th, episode of ABC’s Shark Tank, which aired at 8pm.
South Windsor High School business teacher, Mrs. Ellen Festi remembers St. Amand well.
“What I remember most about Luke as a student was his enthusiasm for promoting business field trips to go behind the scenes of the JETS at the MetLife Stadium and the sports-marketing day at XL Center, as well as his outstanding presentation skills, his creativity in finding solutions to problems, and his desire for continuous self-improvement in all aspects of life,” Festi said.
Festi is not surprised that St. Amand’s entrepreneurial aptitudes have led to his business development and “Shark Tank” pitch.
“It was an honor to teach him, and his brothers, Zach and Tyler, who were also Bobcat superstars!” Festi said.
School was always very important to both St. Amand and his family.
“I tried hard to get good grades…mostly to brag to my older brothers,” St. Amand remembers.
However, he always struggled in one subject – science. From middle school to high school, it was the class he put the most effort into, but got the lowest grades, which caused him to lose confidence and to think a career in STEM wasn’t for him. But one experience changed everything.
“The moment that changed everything came late into my educational journey and I was super lucky that I was able to pivot – but sadly many others might not be as lucky,” St. Amand explained.
In the summer of 2020, while St. Amand was in college, a close friend of his from SWHS, Femi, was interning as a software engineer at Snapchat. One evening, Femi asked if he wanted to learn to code.
“I shrugged and said, ‘Why not?” With my internship canceled due to COVID, I had nothing else going on,” St. Amand said.
Femi had just launched a side project on the iOS App Store, so Femi walked him through building a simple app in Swift. The moment St. Amand saw his first lines of code come to life, he was hooked.
“That single moment reshaped my entire life and career trajectory,” St. Amand explained.
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St. Amand with his business partner Jared Ebersole celebrating at the viewing of their Shark Tank episode. (Mrs. Barrett)
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A viewing party held to watch Season 16, episode 11 of Shark Tank where St. Amand and Ebersole presented. (Mrs. Barrett)
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Barrett giving a congratulatory hug to St. Amand. (Mr. Barrett)
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St. Amand with his business partner and the Barretts. (Mrs. Barrett)
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For the rest of the summer, he poured endless hours into online coding courses, and fortunately he was able to add a Data Analytics major for the next semester.
St. Amand earned a full-tuition scholarship to attend Long Island University and six years later graduated as co-valedictorian with two technical degrees and a minor. This helped him earn an engineering position on a top data science team at Amazon in NYC.
“Amazon was the best job I could have asked for, and I was so lucky to have had the opportunity,” St. Amand said. “I worked on projects I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to tackle during my entire career. My role quickly progressed as I was promoted twice in 1.5 years, an achievement that typically takes 5 years. However, I was convinced by my best friend from college, Jared, to leave that comfortable and thriving career behind to start Lectec.”
His finance background in college helped with forming the company, understanding the many business intricacies, and even handling their accounting.
“Working at Amazon gave me the technical skills and the mindset to figure things out on my own. And honestly, AI has been a huge help in speeding things up too!”
For St. Amand, Lectec isn’t just a fun project – it is that one experience. The one experience that changed everything for me – and Jared – and now he wants to give that to the next generation.”
“We got Lectec up and running fast thanks to a few key things. Jared, my co-founder, had already built a company before, so he knew what mistakes to avoid and kept us focused on progress instead of getting stuck chasing perfection.
St. Amand’s trajectory being changed caused both his business partner, Jared, to ask, “What if we had been exposed to STEM in the way we wish we had been introduced to it- years earlier?”
He wonders if many others out there had, or better yet, could have had this experience, would they have become an engineer, scientist, or mathematician?
