By most measures, Steve Davis had grown successful in the years since graduating from the University of Iowa in 2003. Yet, he still battled imposter syndrome, particularly around bearing a lofty chief executive officer title.
The year of 2023 may have finally put those doubts to rest.
Davis's business Bio::Neos celebrated its 20-year anniversary. He earned the Prometheus Award for CEO of the year from the Technology Association of Iowa. And, the University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC) named Davis mentor of the year.
“The awards were very unexpected,” Davis said. "I’ve never been comfortable calling myself CEO, but I think it is time. I think I have to admit I’m running a big enough organization to have a three-letter acronym for a title.”
Bio::Neos, a company that creates custom innovative software tools in healthcare, education, and the life science fields, traces its roots to the classrooms and research laboratories of the College of Engineering.
Davis, a native of Mequon, Wisconsin, came to Iowa to continue competing in gymnastics. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science in 2001 and earned a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering (ECE) in 2003.
Davis began working with classmates Mike Smith and Brian O’Leary in the Coordinated Laboratory for Computational Genomics led by ECE professor Thomas Casavant. The lab provided bioinformatics tools and data analysis for ophthalmologists in the Carver College of Medicine (CCOM).
“Bioinformatics felt like a cool field that would make a big impact on a lot of things, including how we personalize medicine,” Davis said. “I’m not a lab guy. I’m a software guy. This was a way to have a close connection to people in the lab while contributing to big discoveries and impacts.”
After graduating, the students co-founded Bio::Neos. Smith serves as the chief technology officer and O’Leary eventually moved on. Postdocs from the lab—Todd Scheetz, now a professor at CCOM, and Terry Braun, now a biomedical engineering professor at Iowa—along with Casavant remain scientific advisors.
Davis reflects on lessons that helped at Iowa and the early years of establishing Bio::Neos: persistence, work ethic, innovation, a connection between team culture and success, and leaving the shell if it stood in the way of goals.
"I am looking for ways to keep getting better and keep improving,” Davis said. “That is part of why I am so bullish on our company’s future. But we need to make sure we don’t grow at an unsustainable rate to where we lose culture.”