As president and chief executive officer of Rawhide Youth Services, Alan Loux said his passion is to transform companies, industries, sectors and people. “While I may be able to manage the status quo and existing businesses and programs, I don’t get energy from that – I thrive on change and transformation,” said Loux. “I want to be part of something bigger than myself. I want to look back on my life and see that I made a big difference in this world, and I absolutely love big challenges and big problems and engaging with teams of people smarter than me to help solve them.”
Rawhide Youth Services is a premier mental and behavioral health care agency in Wisconsin. The organization’s mission is to be dependent on God and to inspire and equip at-risk youth and their families to lead healthy and responsible lives through family-centered care, treatment and education.
In the past year, Rawhide has expanded its community-based therapy services by going directly to students in their schools to provide professional mental health services where and when they need it, eliminating transportation and financial challenges that can limit services. In 2023, Rawhide provided life-changing therapy services to over 1,500 youth and served in 43 schools throughout Wisconsin. Currently, that number has expanded to over 50 schools and will likely exceed 60 schools by the end of the year. Unlike many other agencies, Rawhide chooses to provide therapy services to all youth, regardless of financial means.
A two-time Titan 100, Loux said he strives to embrace change through his work at Rawhide Youth Services and in the community. “We always need to be perpetually changing and reinventing ourselves, our companies, our markets and our industries,” he said. “I am a believer that in order to have a material impact on our own company or life, we need to be part of solving systemic issues that are bigger than each of us or our own organizations.”
This is why Loux shares his talents outside of the organization by serving on the board of the Wisconsin Association of Family and Children’s Agencies (WAFCA) for the last four years. “In this role, Loux has used his voice to meet with the secretary of the Department of Children and Families and her leadership team on multiple occasions and has provided expert testimony for two critical bills in the Wisconsin Legislature to improve his members’ ability to serve youth.
Within the last year, the greatest leadership lesson Loux has learned is that his team is everything. “A great team will be able to ‘move mountains’ in spite of the greatest obstacles, and team members that don’t support direction or are ‘not on the bus’ can do more damage than is imaginable,” he said. “My lesson this year is to do everything to pour into my great staff.”