Tracy Jon Sargeant has a vision: he wants to bring STEM education — and more importantly, STEM-related careers — to kids of color.

Full time, Sargeant is a cyber security engineer, but his “part-time” gig is founder and executive director of the Multicultural Development Center of Iowa (MDC Iowa), a nonprofit he started in 2017 to help students and young adults “imagine their unrealized potential in science, technology, engineering, math, and small business ownership.”

It’s not a small proposition.

“Throughout all of my career, at any conference, I am almost always the only person of color in the room,” Sargeant said. “I’ve always felt like an outsider.”

He started MDC Iowa with the sole purpose of addressing the lack of diversity in STEM-related businesses and projects, while at the same time removing any socioeconomic barriers that prevented people of color from taking classes or finding other opportunities to learn or participate. Classes are free to all participants.

“We were reaching some folks, but I really wanted to reach more,” he explained, but location was a major deterrent. “We were the couch surfers of the nonprofit world. We would hold classes in the library or other places we could find room.”

Then he met Audrey Wiedemeier, executive director of the Iowa City Bike Library. Through her leadership and with the help of countless volunteers, the bike library offers several programs designed to teach cyclists how to maintain and repair their own bikes on their own.