From a conversation with Elizabeth Hay on Connect Happy Valley AM | July 22, 2026
Elizabeth Hay never planned to stay in Happy Valley. She was a Florida girl, grew up in Tampa, went to UCF, and thought she knew what her life would look like. Then she met a doctoral student at Penn State.
Those weekend visits to State College introduced her to something unfamiliar: snow. Real snow. The kind that transforms a landscape and makes you wonder what else you might not know about yourself yet.
When her husband finished his doctorate, a job opportunity gave them a reason to stay. They bought a house across from Pine Grove Hall in Pine Grove Mills and started figuring out what “home” meant in a place so different from where Elizabeth had begun.
That was more than twenty years ago.
From Newlyweds to Business Owners
Elizabeth and her husband did not wait until they had it all figured out to start their company, TechKnowServ Corp. They were young. They made mistakes. They hired friends and learned why that gets complicated. They raised six children while learning how to make payroll.
They had more enthusiasm than experience, and they figured things out as they went.
That engineering business still sits just down the road from where their Happy Valley story started. But for Elizabeth, building one company was never going to be enough.
Helping Others Ask the Hard Questions
Today, Elizabeth leads Happy Valley LaunchBox, Penn State’s free startup accelerator. Her job is to help students and community members figure out whether their business idea has legs before they pour in too much time or money.
She does not sugarcoat it.
Will someone actually pay for this? What problem does it solve? Are you willing to talk to customers, really listen, and change direction if you are wrong?
Her honesty is not harsh. It is hopeful. Elizabeth calls her approach “grace and grit.” She wants people to feel supported, but she also wants them to do the work.
“I see things that a lot of people don’t want to deal with,” she explained on Connect Happy Valley AM, “and I’m like, ‘I’ll do that.'”
800 Women and Counting
Happy Valley Change Makers started with a conference for women entrepreneurs. It sold out. They ran it again. It sold out again.
The message was clear: women in this region wanted more than one event per year. They wanted ongoing spaces to meet, talk, learn, and lead together.
So, Elizabeth and her fellow organizers built those spaces. Today, Change Makers includes more than 800 women and six collectives centered on various aspects of life: entrepreneurship, professional development, wellness, creativity, and personal growth.
But here is what makes Elizabeth different from a lot of community leaders: she does not try to run everything herself.
Her role is to make it easier for other women to step forward. Change Makers provides the infrastructure, including meeting space, technology, social media support, and a welcoming network. Then it trusts its members to bring ideas and shape the conversations.
One of her rules: no leader leads alone. Want to start something new? Find a partner first. Leadership becomes shared, sustainable, lighter.
A Local Approach
Elizabeth’s philosophy is simple.
Find the people who care. Bring them together. Give them enough support to begin. Then trust them to make the idea their own.
She came to Happy Valley because of Penn State and stayed because it became home. Now she is helping hundreds of others do the same thing: put down roots, find their people, and make this place a little stronger than they found it.
That might be her most important contribution. Not the programs she runs or the events she hosts, but the way she helps people recognize they have something valuable to offer.
You Belong Here is not just a tagline. For Elizabeth Hay, it is an invitation and a promise.
Watch Elizabeth’s full conversation on Connect Happy Valley AM to learn more about LaunchBox, Change Makers, and her belief that we are better when we build together.
