Phoenix Business Journals 2013 40 under 40

In 500 words or less, please tell us your nominees story. Be sure to include career highlights and community involvement. Jason Pistillo grew up immersed in the ideals and importance of education. His father founded, sacriced for, and built from the ground-up, an upstart technical education school over a dozen years before Jason joined him. Jason always found his fathers work inspiring, so when he joined the school, and the industry as an adult, he committed his life to building both the school and the educational community into a legacy. What his father started as a small 1 program career college, Jason spent the last 15 years growing into one of the most elite private colleges you've probably never heard of. The university now boasts the top cyber security graduates in the country, the most advancing computer science curriculum, and the broadest game development degree programs in the world. Students on-campus, living in the dorms, won't be the next NFL stars, but they will create the technical universe future generations will depend on. With that said, our educational foundations in the United States are awed. We are using the same system created more than 2,000 years ago in an era where knowledge and information was controlled by the elite few. In an effort to affect this reality, Jason helped bootstrap and found the Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking to help promulgate, research and educate the populous on the fact that it is more important to work on how we think, rather than just ll our brains with knowledge. Additionally, Jason is a member of a private higher education think tank "Private Education Research Council" dedicated to helping advance the state of private higher education across the nation. In more recent years, Jason was appointed by the Governor of Arizona to the Arizona Private Post-Secondary Education Board, to help govern and regulate all private postsecondary schools, colleges and universities in Arizona. He now serves as Chairman. Jason is also well engaged with our local community. As a Valley Leadership Class 27 graduate, he values the engagement with our broader community and brings his personal and professional resources, time and energy to bear. In a small sampling, Jason and the university has collaborated or supported such organizations as SAARC, Foster Angels,

TedX, MAC, EVIT, the cities of Tempe, Phoenix, Mesa and Surprise in various capacities. He is also actively involved as a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). This wasn't his fathers life work, but Jason is denitely making it his own. Jason feels that his father deserves this honor and the assurance that his legacy will continue. As I have had the distinct pleasure of working with, and for, Jason Pistillo for the past 13-years, I may be a little biased but can think of no one more deserved of this recognition than he. I thank the judges in advance for their time, consideration and continued dedication to the betterment of the Valley. In 250 words or less, tell the judges about one moment, turning point, or epiphany that made the difference in your nominees life. * One of my favorite stories Jason has shared over the years really personies, in my opinion, a moment that shaped him as an individual, and subsequently as a leader. Imagine a 10-year-old boy. A toe head with hair so blonde its white. This boy is frolicking along with his Dad and his uncle in some of the more wild terrain along Arizonas Black River. The sun was out, the company was great, the day was beautiful, and the weather was quintessential Arizona. The day started out pretty average but by lunch, Jason was holding a 12-gauge shot gun, pointing it at a large brown bear that was circling their camp. It had already chased the trio up a tree and his uncle was injured in the process. Jason stood guard while his father and uncle packed up the camp site and they ed. Jason has taught me, and I think his story really drives this ideal home, that as a leader, so much of what we have to do is to drive out the fear. Fear leads to many bad decisions in life, in business and in our community. That event, and many others like it, led Jason to embrace adventure, drive out fear and stand brave when meeting new challenges. Who does your nominee admire as a leader and why? In the space provided below, please share your thoughts in 250 words or less. Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager and many other works focused on managerial leadership, inspiration, servant leadership and personal development. Jason is a graduate from the Ken Blanchard Executive MBA program at Grand Canyon University. Through this program Jason had the opportunity to engage with Mr. Blanchard on multiple occasions and was always quick to express how amazed he was at how quickly Ken could form cohesive teams from total strangers. Jason found his honest and frank nature helped to cement teams quickly, but it was more than that. Ken wasnt afraid to say something taboo and he wore his beliefs on his sleeve. That unabashadness and fearlessness Ken exuded helped form Jasons own outlook on leadership in general

and, more specically on truly understanding and embracing the power of service in servant leadership. It is within these basic constructs that we are able to affect all aspects of our personal and professional lives, as well as the greater community at large.

According to you, or your nominee, in 100 words or less, tell the judges what 3 to 5 qualities combine to make a rock star business leader? (For example, dedication, creativity, passion for a cause, etc.)* Adventurous. Result Oriented. Irreverent. Several qualities warrant Jason being a rock star business leader. The rst is his ability to balance a seemingly inherent knowledge of business while affording staff amazing levels of empowerment and autonomy. The ideals of servant leadership are not merely lip service for Jason, he truly embodies this approach and is constantly one (usually more) step(s) ahead when it comes to anticipating and delivering on the needs of his employees. He is hyper results oriented, irreverent at times, adventurous. His accomplishments, and the life he leads, need neither exaggeration nor embellishment.