For as long as he can remember, Ali Ahmadi has had an infatuation with technology. For example, he built a computer when he was only 11 years old.
“I was always fascinated with trying to figure out how things work and I'm always fascinated with the technical side,” Ahmadi said.
A native of Queens, New York, Ahmadi has made a career out of that passion for technology. He’s held technology roles within the U.S. Navy, a global conglomerate and within the St. Louis startup sector.
Today, Ahmadi is co-founder and CEO of fast-growing St. Louis startup TCARE. Created out of Ahmadi’s own experience caring for a loved one, TCARE produces an evidence-based analytics program that allows social workers, care managers and care coordinators to help family members and caregivers responsible for seniors, foster care children and kids with special needs.
How did you end up in St. Louis? After the military, I was recruited by the German company Siemens to be an international nuclear project engineer. For the next eight years, I traveled to 30-plus countries and spent one to three months at a time onsite at the nuclear power plants helping them with upgrade and project needs. That was the point where I was burnt out and I thought I had hit my technical ceiling in my career. So I decided to get an MBA at Washington University in St. Louis. It has a program called the Yellow Ribbon Program and I got a free ride to the executive MBA program because of the military benefits.
Why did you decide to join the military? My father has been a New York city union welder for the subway system for 40 years of his life. The day after 9/11, New York Gov. George Pataki summoned all the craft labor unions to ground zero to help with the rescue efforts. On September 13, 2001, my father and I were able to, on our bicycles from Queens, cross the Queensboro bridge into Manhattan and make our way down to the Javits Center, which was the rendezvous point for all the craft labor unions to assemble. For the next four days, my father and I were part of the rescue efforts, being bused in from the Javits Center into Ground Zero. That was the point in my life where I wanted to do something bigger than myself. That was the decision point of me joining the military.
What was it that drew you to the Navy? I wanted to be on the aviation side and I was looking for a technical engineering role and in the Navy I was able to enlist as an aviation electrician. Then later, I was promoted to an aviator and I started flying different drone systems in the Navy. I was an autonomous drone operator for several years.
How did you end up becoming an entrepreneur? While I was at Wash U, I took over as the president of the entrepreneurial club. Through that, I got into the startup ecosystem where I became a judge for Arch Grants and a mentor for Capital Innovators. I did some angel investing in some Arch Grants companies. Through that, I personally got exposed to the startup side. With another Wash U classmate, we co-founded our first company called Strayos.
What’s the origin story behind your current startup, TCARE? Three days after my departure from Strayos, I was talking to a friend of mine about how much my wife and I were struggling with taking care of my mother-in-law, who had stage-four lymphoma cancer and was living with us. My buddy said, “Hey, my mom was a 30 year researcher at University of Wisconsin studying this caregiving phenomenon. Can I introduce you to the research team? They can possibly help you and your wife.” I was introduced to the research team and they helped us through a clinical protocol that tremendously helped my wife and I through the psychosocial impact of the caregiving that we had. And I was amazed at why this clinical protocol was sitting on a shelf at the university. In 2017, I partnered with a couple of other Wash U classmates and we negotiated with the University of Wisconsin to pull this out of the university and start productizing that clinical protocol in the form of an automated software system. At that time it was literally a paper binder that we inherited.
TCARE is growing rapidly and currently has more than 75 employees. What’s driving the growth? There's a lot of tailwind behind us. The pandemic has raised the awareness in elder care and senior care, specifically elder care with respect to aging at home versus placing elders into nursing homes. Because of that, there’s a lot of tailwind that has led to our growth. But also, almost every startup would say when you start that you go through numerous pivots and iterations of your product before you find that fit. I credit my chief technology officer Vijay Anand and chief product officer Mike Mings with being agile and being able to revise and customize and enhance and improve our product until we got that product market fit.
What do you like to do in your free time? My wife and I and my six year-old son, we travel the world and do a lot of hiking. Most recently we just came back from Machu Picchu in Peru and we are planning this upcoming March for the three of us to hike Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. We love the outdoors and are avid hikers.
More about Ali Ahmadi
Title: Co-founder and CEO of TCARE
Age: 40
Education: Ahmadi earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He received his MBA degree from Washington University.
Family: Ahmadi and his wife Sara have a six-year-old son.
