Boyer & Associates’ CRM practice continues to grow with the addition of Training and Education Director Dave Kuntz. Kuntz is a former social studies teacher with a background in Microsoft technology.
“I have a strong passion for learning about different industries and how people operate and how technology and what we build for them can benefit them,” Kuntz said.
With a master’s degree in history, Kuntz had initially planned to go into museum work but instead became a teacher. He spent 16 years teaching middle school social studies at Benilde-St. Margaret’s School in St. Louis Park, Minn. and earned a Faculty of the Year award in 2016.
There he developed an experiential travel program that allowed his students to see firsthand key locations related to their lessons, including Minnesota’s Iron Range, Boston and Washington D.C. As part of a class on genocide and social justice, he also chaperoned four high school trips to Rwanda in East Africa.
“I really liked the experiential aspect of it. I tried to incorporate that into my teaching,” he said. Like most teachers, he particularly enjoyed those “lightbulb moments” when his students began to understand the topic at hand. An experiential method of teaching brought history to life even more readily.
When the school instituted a one-to-one laptop program for the students, he quickly ditched the textbooks for a more immersive learning experience that relied heavily on technology. That made a huge difference for the students who weren’t able to participate in the travel portion of his classes.
“We were able to experience things using technology that couldn’t be recreated with a whiteboard and markers. I really enjoyed exploring online resources for kids and bringing those into the classroom,” Kuntz said.
One of the school’s math teachers started a coding bootcamp for the students, which also intrigued him. Suddenly, he found himself hooked on technology. At the same time, administrative changes at the school resulted in a change in his teaching role.
He decided it was time to pursue his new love and enrolled in a 20-week coding course. Through the intense training he learned 10 different computer languages — but decided that wasn’t quite the technology route he wanted to pursue.
“When our customers see the value of the technology that we’re implementing for them, it’s really exciting to see that transformation.”
Dave Kuntz
Wanting to blend his teaching background with his newfound passion for technology, he accepted a position as a learning and change management consultant at Minneapolis-based Power Objects. In that role he focused on end-user adoption of Microsoft Power Platform and CRM. He also helped directly with implementations whenever he could.
“It opened up this whole new world for me. I was able to step into different industries and learn their processes and how they operated,” he said. He enjoyed learning how each company operated and how the technology could best fit their needs.
When the opportunity arose to work with a couple of his former coworkers who were now at Boyer & Associates, he took it. He’s wasted no time jumping in feet first. He has already created Power BI reports that helped a client greatly improve his interactive reporting capabilities.
“Right now we‘re all hands on deck doing everything we can on our projects,” he said. As the practice grows, he hopes to return his focus to training and education. He also likes the chance to learn about Microsoft’s ERP technologies, an aspect of the Microsoft stack he has yet to explore.
For Kuntz, the transition from teaching to technology flowed naturally. “I really like the way the Power Platform and Microsoft Dynamics can transform the way companies operate and the processes they follow,” he said. “It’s similar to that lightbulb moment that I saw with my students in the classroom. When our customers see the value of the technology that we’re implementing for them, it’s really exciting to see that transformation.”
Kuntz lives in south Minneapolis with his wife and three teenage daughters. The family enjoys traveling and frequents his home state of Colorado for skiing and fishing. Kuntz is an avid fly fisherman, participating in Wisconsin’s annual Treeland Premier Musky Fly Fishing Championships — which he won in 2015.
