An alumnus on the tech company he started in his dorm room

Mac Clemmans (’05) was born and grew up in the very diverse Sacramento area, where there was no racial or ethnic majority at his high school. He would carry that formative experience forward into adulthood.

He chose to attend CSUMB to study computer science —in his time it was called Telecommunication, Multimedia and Applied Computing — because it was the first program he encountered to integrate technology and design.

“I thought that was very visionary,” he said.

He calls his time at CSUMB transformative: “Not just for what I learned, but for who I became.”

His stint in Service Learning put his skills to the test in the real world, where he navigated around systemic stereotypes, and he learned how technology impacts communities.

“How to apply technology to the real world,” he said. “It’s exactly what I do today.”

What he does today is run Sacramento-based custom website solutions companies as CEO of Digital Deployment and Streamline.

He began Digital Deployment from his dorm room at CSUMB, building websites and offering tech help on the side to pay his way through school. He did that through grad school too. Then in 2015 he went all in on the business.

Digital Deployment builds websites for community organizations. In 2018 his company was awarded an Access Award from Disability Rights California for its work on website accessibility.

He grew the Streamline part of the business by focusing in on online communication and collaboration tools for special districts, which provide services like water and fire protection, what Clemmens calls “the most local form of democracy.”

Some clients include the Monterey Regional Airport, Aromas Water District, and Camarillo Health Care District. He says they have 625 districts in eight states.

Clemmens said he still uses skills and values that he honed at CSUMB, including applying technology in a responsible and socially conscious way, bridging digital divides, going into rural areas where people struggle to have reliable internet.

“Good governance and transparency are coming into focus,” he said.

Several alumni are being highlighted as part of a soon-to-come CSUMB Alumni Business Directory.