CEO Stories: Marrying Personal Passion and Disruptive Technology

PERSONAL MOTIVATION

SCRAM--the company whose products include the alcohol-monitoring device made famous by a post-rehab Lindsay Lohan--is in some ways a typical tech startup. For years it was a shoestring operation with fewer than 10 employees, run out of a basement by its hopeful founders. But for CEO Mike Iiams, who joined the company some 20 years ago, it was an opportunity to leverage his knowledge of large software systems with personal motivation. For many years, his maternal grandfather was, in Iiam's words "a skid row drunk" who eventually became sober. "I had this picture of my grandfather in the back of my mind that kept tugging on me," he says of his desire bring something new to the marketplace and make a difference in people's lives.

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP

Disruptive technology--such as SCRAM's device that can accurately measure alcohol transdermally--isn't enough to make an impact in the market, Iiams stresses. A willing, early customer who can be a partner that helps keep the company accountable is just as essential as capital and other resources. SCRAM found such a partner in Michigan Department of Corrections Electronic Monitoring Group, for whom it ran a beta program. The department is now one of its top five customers.

SOCIAL BENEFITS

SCRAM has projects in virtually every state focused on keeping people out of prison, provided they as long can demonstrate that they’re not drinking for the time that they're being monitored. This helps the criminal justice system make a distinction, in Iiam’s words, between “people we're mad at and people we're afraid of.”