Courtney has a passion for building startup communities and encouraging young professionals to pursue careers in technology and entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur at heart, she left her job as a power systems engineer at NASA to work for her own startup company.
She co-founded a clean energy startup company while studying electrical engineering at the University of Akron. During this time, she was named a Forbes “30 Under 30” in 2016 and has also been named to the “Top 40 Under 40” in Cleantech by Midwest Energy News and one of Crain’s “Twenty in their 20s”. She also received the ComEd Female Founder Prize for 2015 through the Clean Energy Challenge. Courtney authored the book “Entrepreneur is a Verb” to help inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs.
After 8 years at her startup, Courtney pivoted her career to help new founders. She helped launching the first innovation hub in Northeast Ohio, as Executive Director of a local founder community, where she organized hackathons and startup weekends. This fall, Courtney is moving into a new position with Techstars as LaunchPad Community Director, helping to expand student entrepreneurship programming across the globe.