Matthew Wallace understands the value of reinvention.
Over his 34-year career, Wallace has pivoted from teaching assistant to lawyer to his current role as CEO and president of VRSim, an East Hartford-based software company that provides virtual reality (VR) workforce training technology.
Like its leader, VRSim has evolved over the past two decades — moving from building simulation programs for large defense and aerospace contractors, including Pratt & Whitney and Boeing, to focusing on vocational training in manufacturing, health care and public safety.
The company’s programs — used by thousands of clients, including Bobcat, Lockheed Martin and NASA — incorporate built-in progress tracking, real-time skills assessment, scoring, feedback and instructional guidance into immersive training experiences to accelerate learning and career preparedness in Connecticut and beyond.
VRSim’s latest innovation is the infusion of artificial intelligence to evolve the human element of allied health and patient care training.
Wallace, who’s led VRSim since 2006, said his vision for the company and its continuing evolution has been driven by a recognition of the skills gap that exists in Connecticut’s key industry sectors, as well as the need to adapt learning to appeal to a younger generation of learners who are more accustomed to digital tools.
“We have to change the way we’re teaching,” Wallace said. “We need to provide the ‘TikTok generation’ more than textbooks and videos to keep them interested and engaged in learning.”
Forging a new path
Wallace’s journey to technology and learning innovator involved many geographic and career turns. Born in Tennessee, Wallace spent much of his childhood moving across the south, driven by his father’s career with Pitney Bowes.
In high school, he worked at Walt Disney World where he learned the value of teamwork and customer service.
After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of Texas at Arlington and a law degree from Mercer University School of Law, he worked at an Atlanta law firm before starting his own practice focused on small businesses, real estate law and bankruptcy.
“I gained firsthand insights into the common pitfalls and practices that make small businesses succeed or fail,” Wallace said.
Wallace’s interest in innovation began with the dawn of the internet in the 1990s.
“I was fascinated by how new innovations could disrupt established paradigms and reshape entire industries,” he said.
That curiosity evolved into a desire to build a business that could make a difference. In 2001, Wallace made an initial investment in VRSim, using his years of small business experience to help establish structure and process. By 2006, he had assumed control of the company’s strategic direction and acquired a controlling interest.
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‘Accelerated learning’
Under Wallace, VRSim’s first venture into skills training was SimsWelder — later renamed VRTEX — a simulated welding program designed to accelerate learning through an immersive environment with realistic visual and auditory components.
The program lets users practice welding techniques in a simulated environment, providing immediate feedback on quality and performance. Wallace said the benefits of immersive virtual simulations are especially impactful for early skills-based learning.
“The first twenty hours of skills development are the most important,” Wallace said. “That provides the most critical opportunity for objective feedback on basic skills and enables accelerated learning.”
In fact, a 2010 Iowa State University study of VRTEX found that students who used VRSim’s simulator alongside traditional welding instruction achieved 41% more certifications and completed training 23% faster than those using only conventional methods. The virtual group also showed greater team interaction, reduced training costs by an average of $263 per student and completed nearly twice as many practice welds as the non-VR group.
“Constant retraining is going to be a key component for employees across multiple sectors. “And it’s got to be faster, less expensive and effective in the results it delivers.” — Matthew Wallace
Wallace said VRSim’s technology drives those results by analyzing performance data and adapting the training to each user’s strengths and weaknesses.
“We improve outcomes by ensuring each participant progresses at their own pace,” Wallace said. “Adaptive learning also helps instructors by automating routine assessments and making training programs more efficient and cost-effective.”
In 2009, Lincoln Electric, the world’s largest supplier of welding products, purchased the rights to VRSim’s welding simulation tools. The product is now used in more than 120 countries around the globe.
Finding a competitive edge
Wallace said his company’s small-business footprint makes the pressure to innovate and deliver meaningful impact especially high in an increasingly competitive virtual reality market.
PwC projects the global VR training market will grow to $294 billion by 2030.
As a self-funded company with 14 employees, and annual revenue around $5 million, Wallace said VRSim has focused on opportunities with clear demand, emphasizing depth of specialization over a broad product or industry portfolio.
“Our innovations need to make an impact to survive in the market,” Wallace said, noting that bringing a new product to market typically takes about two years. “We’ve had to be very particular in developing products that address specific needs and make a difference.”
Wallace said the bottom-line impact has helped him build a committed culture of innovation.
“We have highly skilled employees who could work at Amazon or Google,” he said, “but they’ve seen the value our products make in the real world and how students react to our programs, and that’s important.”
Commercial painting
Building off the success of its welding product, VRSim in 2011 launched SimSpray, a virtual training tool for painting and coating. The product is used across industries, including automotive, aerospace, construction trades, furniture and cabinetry, and rail manufacturing.
For larger clients, cost savings from simulated painting — including reduced material and operational expenses — can run into the millions, Wallace said.
The company estimates SimSpray enables students to complete 80-plus virtual painting projects in the time required for 12 traditional projects. That added practice helps learners build muscle memory and confidence while learning from mistakes.
“Mistakes made in VR stay in VR, but learning from failure is the best way to translate to real-world success.” Wallace said. “Painting mistakes in the real world — for instance, on a 30-foot tail fin on a plane — can be very costly.”
The product is used by industry giants like Boeing, Airbus, Caterpillar and even the U.S. Army and Royal Canadian Air Force.
The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades has incorporated VRSim’s SimSpray system into training programs at more than 70 locations nationwide.
Wallace estimates that VRSim’s spray-painting and coating technologies — often customized for specific parts — now make up about 60% of the company’s client base.
Incorporating AI
A growing market for VRSim — one accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic — has been health care.
“Access to patients, or even traditional mannequin-based simulations for training were not an option during COVID,” Wallace said, “so we had to create a different way to deliver patient-care training.”
In 2022, the company launched VRNA, a virtual healthcare training program that debuted with a module for certified nursing assistants. A second module, for emergency medical services, launched in 2024.
Educators and healthcare organizations are turning to VR technology to help address ongoing shortages in entry-level roles, Wallace said.
Through VRNA, learners engage in immersive simulations that mirror real-world scenarios — including treating heart attacks and drug overdoses, performing CPR, delivering a baby at home and setting broken bones.
“All educational scenarios align to state and national skill and certification requirements,” Wallace said. He points out that VR is not intended to replace instructors, but rather to enhance blended learning.
Chris DeRosa, an emergency medical technician (EMT) trainer at Bullard-Haven Technical High School in Bridgeport, said VRSim’s virtual training tools benefit his students.
“My students are eager to use VR,” said DeRosa, who has incorporated virtual reality learning over the past year. “The program can also be projected onto a screen so students can help each other, which provides motivation and makes them want to participate.”
DeRosa said the technology has led to more students using VR after school — and that extra time is paying off. Last March, despite only two months of formal EMT training, two of his student teams finished second and third in a statewide SkillsUSA competition.
“The VR repetition really helped them prepare for the competition,” he said.
Wallace says VR is a tool in the toolbox that allows learners to develop basic skills so instructors can focus on teaching more advanced skills.
And that toolbox is expanding to increasingly include artificial intelligence.
“AI is going to make (healthcare training) more robust and more meaningful,” Wallace said. “Patient care can’t just be about the technical skills; incorporating the human element and soft skills should be a core element.”
For example, through AI-driven simulations, EMT or certified nursing assistant trainees can not only learn how to treat a patient suffering a seizure, but also navigate the emotional stress of a panicked parent. Wallace said that helps students practice communicating clearly and empathetically under pressure.
VRSim’s technology also provides feedback and scoring on both medical technique and communication — including tone of voice and intonation — making the experience more realistic and human.
“AI is going to make (healthcare training) more robust and more meaningful. Patient care can’t just be about the technical skills; incorporating the human element and soft skills should be a core element.” — Matthew Wallace
With demand for skilled healthcare workers expected to rise over the next decade as the Baby Boomer population ages, Wallace expects VRSim’s healthcare offerings to account for a growing share of the company’s revenue.
“The allied health roles like EMTs and certified nursing assistants are often underserved, undertrained and underpaid,” Wallace said.
These factors contribute to high turnover, staffing shortages and the need for accelerated and effective training for entry-level roles at hospitals, nursing homes and memory care centers.
Expanding markets
As Wallace looks ahead, he sees two key growth opportunities for AI-enabled virtual reality training: elder care and education.
Both sectors, he said, need more hands-on, simulation-based tools to help users practice communication and build empathy.
Specifically, VRSim is developing a new program aimed at helping families and caregivers better understand what it’s like to live with dementia. The need is growing: the National Institutes of Health projects that annual new dementia cases in the U.S. could double to about 1 million by 2060 — and it estimates that roughly 42 % of U.S. adults age 55 and older may develop the disease in their lifetime.
Through VR simulations, users can experience interactions with patients and gain insight into the sensory and cognitive challenges they face.
In addition, VRSim is developing an app designed to help teachers and school administrators practice de-escalation techniques. The program will use virtual scenarios — such as interacting with an upset student — to help educators learn how to communicate calmly and turn emotionally charged moments into constructive outcomes for both themselves and the student.
After nearly two decades in the virtual reality industry, Wallace said he remains confident in the technology’s future as a workforce training tool. He points to falling costs that make VR adoption more accessible, even for smaller organizations, and the growing need to continuously upskill both new and existing workers.
“Constant retraining is going to be a key component for employees across multiple sectors,” Wallace said. “And it’s got to be faster, less expensive and effective in the results it delivers.”