Shop Talk: Q&A With Vincent Strully Jr., NECC
Photo/Christina H. Davis
J. Vincent Strully Jr., CEO and founder, New England Center For Children
J. Vincent Strully Jr., founder and CEO of the nonprofit New England Center for Children, simply exudes energy and passion for his work. And his work for the last 30-plus years has been overseeing tremendous growth at NECC, which is a worldwide leader in treating children with autism, a brain disorder whose symptoms often include impaired social interaction. Founded in 1975, the Southborough-based NECC now reports more than $47 million in annual revenues. Here, he talks about how NECC ended up opening a branch in the United Arab Emirates as well as his growth strategy for the future.
>> How did you manage to grow the organization over the years?
We grew fast because we used a lot of entrepreneurial approaches that you don’t normally see in other parts of the nonprofit sector. We always paid attention to the bottom line and to the strategy of the management practices that are typically found in profit-making businesses because we knew that was essential to survive.
>> When you started, you couldn’t have foreseen where you are today, right?
The vision was that we would have a world class program for children with autism and its own facilities and that it would be recognized in the United States as an effective program. I did not envision at the time that we would become a major resource for the intervention and education of children with autism in terms of research and high-quality materials. There is a real research and development engine here that translates into educational programs for our kids. We get better and better at what we do every year. That’s why we’ve grown; that’s why we’re successful.
>> Last year NECC opened up a location in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. How did that come about?
In 1997, an influential family from the UAE was referred to us by Children’s Hospital in Boston. We sent some people over there and we established a program for that one child. It went very well and snowballed from there. Various governmental health authorities created a series of initiatives in Abu Dhabi over the last five years to bring world class medicine, culture and services to their own people. When they turned to autism services, they asked us to recreate the New England Center for Children there with all of its capabilities, including research and professional development.
>> Was opening in Abu Dhabi a difficult decision for you and your organization?
No, it was a no-brainer because it was 100 percent financed and they included significant incentives for us to literally create a branch of the center there.
>> Is the organization open to expanding in other locations as well?
Where the center is committed to growing is where it is not going to take this kind of overhead. We see our headquarters functioning as the intellectual engine of the organization that really has high-quality programs and packages of programs not only to educate children with autism, but to train teachers to educate children with autism. We have a signature product under development called the “Autism Curriculum Encyclopedia.” It’s a software database and archive, a virtual toolbox for teachers of everything we’ve ever done in terms of teaching of children with autism.
>> What’s the next step for your autism curriculum?
That’s an area where we certainly will look for some sort of venture partner. We educate children with autism, we don’t sell educational software. So, we are certainly beginning to explore and study the kinds of partners that would be necessary to help us bring this product to completion and help us scale it so that it could achieve some sort of global distribution or national distribution.
>> What’s been the biggest management challenge that you’ve had to overcome?
I think managing lots of people is always complicated. And balancing their needs, desires and goals with the complexity of children with autism is always an interesting task. This is very labor intensive work and you need very motivated people to do it. I think managing people is the challenge.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments