Alumni Business Owner Profile
Master Blender: Scott Carson BSc’03
Scott Carson, BSc’03 is one of those people who knew what he wanted to do from a young age. Bitten by the computer bug as a child, Carson went on to earn his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the University of Regina in 2003 and opened his first business, Storm Applied Technologies, an international consulting and design software company.
His future career revealed itself when Carson was just eight years old, when he was given the opportunity to see 3-D model renderings created by combining computers with LEGO, and he was hooked. He convinced his parents to buy a family computer, which he recalls promptly crashing, leaving young Carson in the position of having to figure out how to rebuild it.
Carson was also keen on art and drawing and enrolled in classes with Ward Schell, a longtime instructor at the Neil Balkwill Civic Arts Centre in Regina. This experience exposed him to many forms of media, from pastels to screen printing.
With an imagination ignited by art and computer science, Carson didn’t know how to apply these interests until he started studying at the University of Regina and saw the potential for his education to “bridge the gap between having the idea and knowing how to make it happen”. He started his Computer Science undergrad degree while continuing to take Visual Arts classes, appeasing his passion for both.
Nurturing and knowledgeable professors can make deep impressions on students, and the University of Regina didn’t disappoint. Of particular influence, past instructor Dianne Anderson MFA’99 in the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance fuelled Carson’s interest in visual arts with the words, “anybody can design anything, they just need to see!”. Brien Maguire in the Faculty of Science, now retired, took Carson under his wing and helped him thrive, gain confidence, and make the Dean’s list three times. Carson recognized the mastery of Dr. Howard Hamilton, still teaching at the U of R who, Carson says “could take a concept like memory management in operating systems and equate it to a trip to an amusement park." Co-operative education advisor, Kevin Fiessel BAdmin’92, BA’93, MPA’09 encouraged Carson to grow a tech-heavy, visually-focused portfolio of his work to showcase it online. And Dr. Daryl Hepting, recipient of the 2025 Faculty of Science Award for Teaching Excellence, to whom Carson says he “will forever be indebted to for opening such a huge door."
Like all new UR grads with heads full of knowledge, Carson was ready to take on the world with his new Computer Science degree but by the time he graduated in 2003, the dot-com bubble had burst and companies that once offered open invitations to apply were no longer hiring. Though many of his peers left the province for greener pastures, Carson wanted to stay in the city that raised him. He leveraged the skills gained from his co-operative education and started a tech consulting firm.
In 2004, Storm Applied Technologies was born and continues to grow to this day. He’s excited to keep growing Storm’s managed, dedicated cloud data centre with AI to further expand into the future.
Long before he entered university, Carson developed a third passion: martial arts. He had been training at a school operated by Master Ross Wilkinson BA’75, a fifth-degree black belt and a pioneer of Saskatchewan martial arts. Upon retirement, Wilkinson offered Carson the school, complete with a space, equipment, and a couple of students. Working with black belt instructor, Sifu (master or teacher in Cantonese) Chris Olmstead, they built on Wilkinson’s curriculum and changed the school’s name. “My students came up with the name, ‘Shaolin Dragon Kenpo’, to acknowledge our history and represent a well-rounded martial arts education,” Carson explains. With roots spanning China, Japan and Hawaii, students of Kenpo (meaning “law of the fist”) are taught speed, control, discipline, honour, and respect.
Currently, Carson’s professional practice merges not only art and technology, but martial arts and technology: video games that follow your movements while giving a great workout, and projectors that display interactive training rings. Similarly, Carson combines technology with other fun stuff, like 3-D digital pinball machines that track the user’s body as they move in the playing field.
Carson has carved out a unique career path, blending a rich educational background with passions for computers, art, and martial arts, helping people improve their digital presence, move, play, and best of all, to have fun.
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