Who We Are

We are Kurt and Kent Symanzik, brothers who grew up on a Michigan strawberry farm. Our parents exemplified entrepreneurial spirit, showing grit and innovation to succeed in our business. If a machine didn’t exist for the job, our dad built whatever was needed. If there was any obstacle to the farm or business, they demonstrated enduring work ethic. Their determination to make a living from farming taught us lessons we only fully appreciated later. Farming is no easy task—just ask any farmer.

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Kurt

I am Kurt Symanzik and have been married to my wonderful wife for 34 years as well. We have 4 children ranging in ages from 30 to 17.

I accepted Christ as a teen after picking up my Bible and reading. I attended Taylor University and received a B.A. in Biblical Literature in 1987. In the early 90’s I taught myself to program computers and started my career as a professional software engineer.

As the years passed I found myself serving as deacon and later elder at our local church. I enjoyed teaching many adult and children Sunday School classes and organized a small group ministry.

In 2006 we moved to the Philippines for 12 years to serve as missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators and later with LightSys Technological Services, both Christian mission organizations. With Wycliffe I used my software engineering skills to help design and develop a highly secure collaboration platform for missionaries across mission organizations throughout Asia.

For LightSys I created a custom electronic medical records system for Christian maternity clinics serving the marginalized and poor that is still used in the Philippines to this day. The project required a custom web application that ran 24/7 even when there was no power, was affordable, and highly secure without requiring Internet access. Using IoT devices, I designed and implemented a system with a total server hardware cost of under $300 that ran on batteries when the power went out. It currently supports dozens of staff using tablets, phones, laptops, and desktops to access the web application allowing staff to monitor a pregnancy from the beginning pregnancy through delivery and through postpartum care. Each year over 20,000 prenatal exams and 2,000 babies are delivered using this software which is helping to bring high quality maternity care to those who cannot afford care otherwise.

In 2018 we moved back to Michigan from the Philippines where I continued my career as a software engineer including the roles of team lead and staff software engineer. In 2024 my wife and I became a licensed ministers with the Brethren in Christ denomination and we currently serve as volunteer associate pastors of our local church.

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    Kent

    I am Kent Symanzik, married for 34 awesome years to my lovely wife Anne. We have 2 children who are both in their 20’s. We have attended and are very active in an Evangelical Presbyterian Church for the past 24 years.

    I became a believer in Jesus Christ as a teen after non-stop preaching from my brother Kurt. Graduated from Taylor University with a B.S. in Computer Science in 1989. Living in Michigan I have worked in some capacity for all 3 auto companies as a software developer.

    In the mid 90’s, while working at Chrysler Financial I had the privilege of meeting Steve Jobs. We were using his NextStep platform to develop financial apps in Objective-C and he stopped in to visit our team on his way to meet with Lee Iacocca.

    In 2011, I bought my wife an iPhone and became curious about how the apps were built. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the new Apple was really an extension of the NextStep platform that I had worked on years earlier. I determined at that time to focus on native mobile apps and published my first app that same year.

    In 2015, my kids were playing on homeschool basketball teams and I became frustrated trying to get video of them making a basket. It seemed that just when I would stop recording they would finally score. So, I created AfterCam which is an app which enables you to capture video after it happens. The app enables you to wait until your child makes the basket before deciding to save the last 5, 10, 20 seconds of video to your photo library.

    Since, then I have continued to work in the mobile app space and have expanded my capabilities to use the latest cross-platform approaches. Currently, my main area of expertise and tech stack of choice is Flutter.