Our Story
Connect 211 began in 2019 as a collaboration between Tim Sullivan, former Director of Washington 211, and Skyler Young — then a partner at a small web shop called Site Savvy.
Washington 211's public directory software had been acquired, increasing its cost 10-fold. They needed an improved, more cost-effective public resource directory; Skyler and team were consulted to develop one.
After several failed attempts using already existing software, Tim pivoted and asked our small team to build a solution instead.
As our first stakeholder, Tim had specific requirements for how we operate:
Founding requirements
Open source
The core must be open source to avoid vendor lock-in and give our clients options.
Open data standards
Use open data standards to improve industry interoperability.
Support as a service
Operate a profitable service to keep it all moving forward.
We agreed to the plan, and Connect 211 was born in 2020. After two years, two pilots, and three new customers, we incorporated in 2022.
Our Mission...
... is to help 211 and other I&Rs turn their incredibly valuable resource databases into organization-sustaining directory services.
Our Team
We are a light-weight leadership team supported by contractors, advisors, and most of all, stakeholders.
Leadership
Skyler Young
CEO
Lifelong business owner who loves music and playing with his kids. Skyler advanced his career through marketing and websites to application and data engineering. Long experience as a technical consultant has been useful turning client needs into software solutions.
David Botos
CTO
AI startup guru who helps the homeless on the streets of Seattle. David work in previous AI startups, and found our work while doing street ministry. He immediately started architecting our most important solutions for free, growing over time into the pillar of our engineering team.
Kylie Johnson
Head of Support
Teacher by trade and lover of cats; herding cats for us now. Kylie lived in Tokyo teaching English for six years. After returning home, she joined our team, capably taking care of our clients and making them feel heard and seen.
Advisors
Tim Sullivan
Former Director of Washington 211 and first stakeholder.
Chris Short
Our first employee and Chief Architect.
Interns
Connect 211 and the Silo Buster project have proudly mentored interns through our work, including notably: Jacob Fay, Timothy Hihn, and Brian Kanis.
Ready when you are.
We are a knowledge sharing company. Calls are short, fun, and full of useful information. Bring a data manager or engineer to maximize your value.