Years ago, UNeTech met to discuss its mission, vision and values. In the session, our facilitator asked everyone to describe UNeTech in a word. Scrappy came up a lot.
The UNeTech team in the “Church Basement” viewing a demonstration of a 3D printer.
I took ownership of that. UNeTech started out scrappy but had to grow up. Though that process is far from a straight line, it’s trending upward. Flashes of innovation replaced by steady progress, surprising novelty replaced by reliable performance, the new kid on the block becoming a trusted fixture in a community.
Still, some things are harder to shake. The Omaha VR Pipeline occupied the ground floor of Annex 32. For years, UNeTech shared its home with the Center for Intelligent Healthcare. The entire east wing of the first floor – a makeshift conference space – was filled with handwritten whiteboards showing spring progress and Post-it notes indicating completed sprints. It all dripped with the casual creativity of artistic spirits. By summer 2025, generations of students had completed certificates, delivered projects and completed sprints in that room. The proof was everywhere.
We affectionately called it the Church Basement. From the mismatched second-hand furniture, the abundant board games, to the handmade awards and achievements – no one ever questioned the name. It always felt like the perfect embodiment of determined scrappiness. It also felt like the institute I am so proud to have helped establish.
Now it’s an empty room. The Center for Intelligent Healthcare moved into the Vice Chancellor of Research’s offices and, sometime this fall, demolition will start on the main floor of annex 32. In its place will be modern classrooms, shared with the BEHCN (pronounced beacon) the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska. It will be a facility substantially more useful, more functional and more productive for our goals. It is the embodiment of the move away from scrappiness. Instead of making an old empty room work we will share purpose-made classrooms.
For the summer and the Fall, the OVRP will live in the teaching space at the Catalyst: the guests of our gracious hosts at UNeMed. Catalyst’s modern IT and entrepreneurial culture are already proving useful for OVRP students to complete the projects. The current space at the Catalyst is objectively better space to do the important workforce development and innovation work required by UNeTech. I am grateful for the opportunity, I am appreciative of our sister office’s hospitality, and I am inspired by the vision of our leadership to build new spaces to meet the challenge of a new economy.
OVRP Students working in the “Church Basement”.
OVRP meeting as a team in “Church Basement”.
The ambition of our program matches the dedication of their vision. But I miss scrappy. Standing in the empty room, I imagine the handmade awards, colorful whiteboards, and creative doodles. No matter how far we go, how much we achieve, or where this project heads next: I’ll never forget where it began, or how it felt to start it.
