We think it is probably human nature—and the statistics seem to bear it out—that many graduates of Scottsdale Leadership finish their class year, have a great experience, and then move on to other things. Brian Brookman of Forever Class 31 apparently never got that memo.

 

Nearly a decade after his Scottsdale Leadership experience began, Brian still has that spirit of wanting to take a good thing and make it better. When we sat down with him recently, we realized that he is exactly the kind of person an organization like ours needs to keep growing and improving.

 

Brian sees a need and tries to fill it. He learns new skills when he needs them. He is not afraid to try something different, and he certainly isn’t afraid to put an idea out there and see where it goes. Most importantly, Brian doesn’t just talk about ideas. He builds things.

 

And his latest project could give Scottsdale Leadership alumni an entirely new way to connect, help one another and share their expertise. Brian is that guy—the one who actually did it. We think you will enjoy his story as much as we did.

 

Brian was born in Brooklyn, New York, but his family moved to Walnut Creek, California, outside San Francisco, when he was three. His family was in the hair care supply business in California. After vacationing in Arizona, the family, including his younger brother, decided to make our area home when Brian was in high school.

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Brian graduated from Horizon High School and went on to study finance at Arizona State University. After graduating, he worked for the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, first as an intern and then as a full-time employee.

 

Like a lot of smart and ambitious young people at the time, Brian also caught a little dotcom fever. He and some friends created a website called VarsitySoup.com, which he describes as sort of a Yahoo for college students. It was a real business and even made money, but eventually reality intervened and the founders realized they probably needed to get “real jobs” as their passion for the idea started to fade.

 

Looking back, however, VarsitySoup was more important than it might have seemed at the time. Brian learned that he could take an idea, figure out how to build it and turn it into something real. That would become a recurring theme in his life.

 

Brian began working at Arizona Public Service (APS), where his finance and IT background led him into the complicated world of software integration—still relatively new territory for many large companies in the early 2000s.

 

After establishing himself as a leader inside the company and completing a major accomplishment, he asked management to let him leave the office every other Friday for nine months to pursue something else he was interested in—Scottsdale Leadership. Brian did just that when he joined Forever Class 31 in 2017.

 

By then, he had also served as treasurer on the board of a children’s nonprofit called The New Foundation, which was later acquired by A New Leaf. He enjoyed the experience and the opportunity to serve but wanted a broader understanding of community leadership.

 

Scottsdale Leadership turned out to be exactly what he was looking for. Brian loved the program, the people and the exposure to the community. More importantly, it gave him another building block for whatever would come next.

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After 17 years with APS, Brian left the company in 2020. He had enjoyed his career there, but the urge to build something on his own was calling again. Walking away from a large company and a long career to essentially live on your investments, your ideas and your own initiative takes a certain amount of courage and confidence. Trust us, Brian has both.

 

Fortunately for Scottsdale Leadership, some of that energy came right back to us. Brian joined the Mentorship Committee after his Class 31 friend Bill Scarbrough suggested he hop on board. He began thinking about how Scottsdale Leadership alumni could better tap into the tremendous amount of experience that already exists within our organization. We have well over 1,400 accomplished alumni with knowledge, connections and a willingness to help. The question was: How do we connect them? Brian decided to build an answer.

 

Anyone who has experimented with artificial intelligence tools knows that AI is very real and has enormous potential. Brian, naturally, is all over this stuff.

 

Scottsdale Leadership Connect

 

So he began using AI and other technology to develop Scottsdale Leadership Connect, a platform designed to help our alumni find and interact with one another. He developed a social website that facilitates mentorship and networking through an algorithm that 

matches alumni based on the experience listed in their profiles and the types of connections they are seeking.

 

Need advice from someone with experience in a particular industry? Looking for a mentor? Have expertise you would like to share? Want to find another Scottsdale Leadership graduate who has dealt with exactly the issue sitting in front of you? Brian’s vision is to make those connections easier. When he showed us what he has been building, we immediately saw the possibilities.

 

The platform is now ready to be rolled out to Scottsdale Leadership Alumni, and he is excited to see broad participation so the idea can reach its full potential. Brian has taken something many people have talked about—better connecting our alumni network—and actually started building it. There is that theme again. And Brian isn’t stopping there.

 

One of the most interesting things we learned during our conversation is how he treats every project as a classroom for the next one. While developing Scottsdale Leadership Connect, he taught himself new technology and new ways of organizing and accessing information.

 

Now he is taking what he learned and applying it to another major interest in his life: investing. Brian is exploring ways to combine several methods for analyzing stocks into one easy-to-use, personalized tool—first for himself and, possibly, later for others looking for a tool that solves a problem they see too. There may be no better teacher than actually doing something, and Brian seems perfectly happy teaching himself whatever he needs to know to get to the next step.

 

Brian told us he has recently been spending around 15 hours a day researching and working on these projects. Fortunately, there is much more to Brian’s life than computer screens, AI and stock market data.

 

A few years ago, Brian met Joanna, a doctor from Brazil, and they are now engaged.  Joanna completed her medical training in Brazil and is now exploring how to translate that education and experience into a career in the United States.

 

As we wound down our conversation, it became clear that Brian’s personal life is every bit as important to him as his projects.

He plays plenty of pickleball and loves the competition. He and Joanna enjoy spending time with Brian’s family. They cook together, take exercise classes, enjoy their social life and are looking forward to building a family of their own.

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For someone who seems to operate at about 100 miles an hour, Brian also seems genuinely happy about where life is taking him. Scottsdale Leadership brings all kinds of people into our fold. Our classes expose them to new ideas, new people and new ways to serve their community. What happens after graduation is largely up to them.

 

For a builder like Brian, apparently graduation was just the beginning. We fully expect Scottsdale Leadership Connect to become another tool that brings our alumni community closer together. And we should be grateful for people like Brian who see something that could be better and simply decide to go after it.

 

After all, that spirit is part of how Scottsdale Leadership came into existence in the first place—and it is how organizations like ours continue to grow. It was a pleasure getting to know Brian better. Something tells us he isn’t anywhere close to being finished building.