39% in Austin, Texas, and 38% in Denver.
As Wark and others looked at the issue of
tech talent almost a decade ago, a few coding
schools were beginning to pop up in other
areas, but the concept was still fairly new. With
the support of local music tech entrepreneur
Mark Montgomery, Wark was able to raise
$35,000 from a handful of other business leaders
and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce
to launch the program.
“The new economy is based on jobs of the
future, and those jobs are going to be in the
digital arts,” Montgomery said. “We really didn’t
have anyone filing that huge hole in the market.”
Wark said he and his wife moved to Nashville in
part to pursue a more relaxed pace of life, free
of creating startups and venture capital raises.
He had battled cancer and other health issues in
California and needed to “downshift.” His wife’s
family lived in Kentucky, so they chose Nashville
over Austin and Raleigh-Durham.
“I can’t stay on the stress train anymore,” he said
of his thinking at the time.
Once again in startup mode in 2012, Wark
pitched in on rent, office supplies and whatever
else needed to be paid for at the Nashville
Software School as he put together a staff and
a board. The program has been self-sustaining
since 2015, when Wark began accepting a salary.
“It’s been an important part of the story that
Nashville’s tech talent is rising,” Nashville Area
Chamber of Commerce CEO Ralph Schulz said.
“It is tangible evidence that Nashville and its
people are investing in tech education.”
While the school has helped develop a new
generation of hundreds of coders, the need for
more tech workers in Nashville still far exceeds
supply as the city’s tech sector continues to grow.
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