Jody Mitchell and Brenton Moss

Co-owners, Directed Analytics

What they do:
Problem-solving technology

Website:
Directedanalytics.com

Trained as engineers, Brenton Moss and Jody Mitchell (pictured, right) launched Directed Analytics with the goal of using engineering processes and technology to solve non-engineering problems.  After incorporating in March 2014, the pair wanted to create a technological solution to help better prepare students for college and developed 4SightGPS-their problem-solving software.  The desire to help students came from personal experience, Mitchell says.  “I went to high school in Baton Rouge, but I didn’t hear about the ACT until my senior year,” Mitchell says.  “I wanted to be an engineer, but I didn’t know the curriculum involved.  I wanted to give people a detailed road map—this is when you take the ACT, these are the classes and scores you need for your intended college major.”

After meeting with education leaders, Moss and Mitchell found the education market to be overrun with different types of software.  They pivoted in 2016 and began applying their technology to helping individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities establish employable skills.  Studies show that nearly half of the state’s disabled population wants to work but only about 15% is employed.  “Relative to their peers, there are big gaps in employment within this population,” Mitchell says.  Last fall, the pair learned that Directed Analytics—based out of Nexus Louisiana—won a National Science Foundation grant to support its work with Texas Christian University’s Alice Neeley Special Education Research and Service Institute.  With a full-time team of four, Moss and Mitchell look to contractors to supplement the company’s workforce, although the pair hope to eventually grow the sales staff.  Mitchell identifies school districts, higher ed systems and state vocational rehabilitation services as potential business clients.


-By Holly Duchmann
Photography by Collin Richie