Guest Taran Lent, Dartmouth '96, knew he wanted to study engineering, even if he didn't see himself becoming an engineering. Learning how to scope a problem, build a toolkit of tactics and encyclopedia of methodologies, and solve real-world problems appealed to him. As he juggled the coursework and his role as captain of the varsity football team, he found a way to put the engineering mindset to action: He approached a slew of Hanover-area eateries—including the old favorites EBA's, Panda House, Lou's—and built a system that allowed college students to use pre-paid cards in college town eateries, something absolutely new in the late 90s. When corporate recruiting found him with a number of offers at the big consulting firms, he decided to turn them down and to go all in on his business.

In time, the business grew beyond Hanover to other campuses and Taran's company also took over Dartmouth College’s on-campus card system. When he realized he could solve problems at scale, he ended up building enterprise-wide payment processing systems that were ahead of their time and that ultimately paid off.

In this episode, find out from Taran how somtimes you just need to pay attention to see how you can make things better and more efficient...on today's ROADS TAKEN with met....on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.

About This Episode's Guest

Taran Lent has been building and operating payment technology companies his entire professional career from the Hanover Green Card back in the day to his current role as Vice President of Product Development at Transact Campus. When he's not processing your tuition payments, he enjoys windsurfing and spending time with his wife and two kids and extended family in Texas.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

Paying Attention: Taran Lent on serving a need and having it pay off

Roads Taken