Career Cheat Code
Welcome to Career Cheat Code, a podcast that explores the stories of everyday people making an impact in the world through their careers and loving every minute of it. Whether you're already on your path or searching for your purpose, this podcast is for you.
Join us every Monday as we uncover the secrets behind successful careers and inspire you to make your own mark. Formerly known as Thank God It's Monday | TGIM, don't forget to subscribe for updates and share with your friends!
Career Cheat Code
056 | Workforce Development & Economic Growth feat. Ian Straughter
When life threw curveballs at Ian, he didn't just dodge; he hit them out of the park. Our latest episode of Career Cheat Code is a masterclass in resilience and adaptability, featuring Ian's remarkable ascension to Chief Program Officer at Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. His narrative isn't just about professional triumph; it's an intimate look at the crucible of experiences that shaped his journey from a gritty New Jersey childhood, through the high-stakes world of track and field, to the boardrooms where he champions economic empowerment in Central Brooklyn.
Pull up a chair and be inspired by tales of mentorship, hustle, and the relentless pursuit of passion that guided Ian's path. From his days as a teen navigating a complex relationship with law enforcement, through his dalliance with the music industry, to orchestrating innovative social impact programs, every anecdote peels back the layers of a man who has embraced every role with gusto and ingenuity. His story is peppered with wisdom gleaned from both disappointments, like being fired from Harlem United, and victories, such as forging game-changing partnerships in workforce development.
Wrap up your listening experience with a deeper understanding of what drives success in the face of adversity. Ian's embrace of literature for leadership insights and his bold foray into acting are a testament to his philosophy that career fulfillment often comes from the most unexpected places. This episode doesn't just spotlight a career; it's a tribute to the indefatigable human spirit and a playbook for anyone aiming to carve a path that’s as impactful as it is unconventional. Join us for an exploration of Ian's multifaceted life, where each chapter is a stepping stone to making a difference in the world.
If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you’re using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. For more #CareerCheatCode, visit linktr.ee/careercheatcode. Let's make an impact, one episode at a time!
Host - Radhy Miranda
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Producer - Gary Batista
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Remember the first Robin Thicke music video. He had the long hair, with no shirt, and he's like riding through New York City and he's da-da-da-da, and he's like doing his thing.
Speaker 1:That was me. I was in the flow. It was end of day two, toward the end of day two, and I'm like I got this and I'm coming down with my little backpack, turn the curb. I got skipped like a rock. You would have thought Thanos was real and picked me like about 30 feet and that's when I said I'm done with that. So I was all over. I was doing all these things and I think for me, in terms of just how you get over that adversity and how you got out of it, on the other side, I think sometimes it's just sheer will.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Career G-Code. In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you.
Speaker 3:Ian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks brother, appreciate you having me here, ryder, real excited, real excited About time had me waiting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. You and I have had this conversation about this interview for a while, so I'm just glad that it's coming together at this point. Let's dive right in, man. Let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm Chief Program Officer at Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation here in Bed-Stuy, brooklyn. Been in the role pretty new now to it. Been in the role for about six weeks now, but essentially I'm overseeing all of their programmatic work to drive economic impact to the central Brooklyn community, all toward disrupting the racial wealth gap. Got it? Is this what you?
Speaker 3:always wanted to do for a living.
Speaker 1:Growing up? No, no, it wasn't. I spent a lot of time vacillating between what I wanted to do and figuring that out. At one point I wanted to be a professional athlete. I was big into baseball growing up as a kid and then I got into the practice and watching that TV show for some reason put a habit into me of wanting to always be right with people as a kid and I really liked having a good debate about stuff. So I wanted to be a lawyer and kind of stuck with that. But my journey, as life does, as life goes right, you go in so many different, unpredictable directions. You think you know what's coming, but we don't. We just don't. So it led me here, to where I'm at now. Got it All right. So let's backtrack. Where'd you grow?
Speaker 3:up? Where were you born? What was your upbringing like?
Speaker 1:I grew up in Jersey, northern New Jersey, in a town called Hackensack. For those that are familiar, don't hold it for or against me. I was born in LA, though, to a single mother, and I have a little brother as well, but we moved from LA. When I was three, she had 85 cents in her pocket, me in a stroller and my brother in a belly, and we had nowhere to go. We were lucky enough to be taken in by a family, just a caring family, and as a kid all I knew was that we were in these folks' homes. They were not blood relatives, but they were family, and I lived there up until I was about 10 years old, and I saw my mother during that time put herself through school at a local community college sorry, not Bergen Passaic County Community College.
Speaker 1:She ultimately ended up teaching at Bergen County Community College for respiratory therapy and then saw her work no less than two to three jobs at any given time. In fact, my entire life. She's always had two jobs when she was working at the hospital. She would also teach part-time as well, and so I saw my mother do things all the way, from house cleaning to photography and being like background and lighting for that kind of stuff. And I was with her to see that because she had no one to watch us, me and my little brother when we were little all the time.
Speaker 1:So I got to see firsthand, you know, what hard work looked like, what hustle looked like, what it means to say you want to go for something and really not necessarily know how you're going to go about doing it, but just having faith and belief, you know, and your strengths and your ability to just just get it done, to make it happen. And that was very contagious for me. But yeah, that's that's where I grew up on the first part of my years as a young kid. At 10, I moved over to Hackensack from Teaneck, new Jersey, and that's where I started to form the relationships that I built throughout my childhood and that I have now, even to this day. And it was really there as a kid. I remember at 10, we were moving and I thought I said to my mother the kids in Hackensack coming from Teaneck, new Jersey, you know the kids in.
Speaker 1:Hackensack. You know they got their stuff together. You know they look like grown adults. We're all scared of them because they were big and tough and good at football.
Speaker 1:I just thought at 10, I was supposed to be paying rent or something if we're moving to this new place. Right, and I think, looking back on it, my subconscious was I was definitely connecting with what I had, what I was observing right as a kid, with my mom working these multiple jobs, trying to put herself through school, staying up all day, all night and then ultimately moving over to the night shift when she finished school for about 1011 years, while still showing up to all our baseball games and our track meets and everything like that. And so in Hackensack, it was really where I got to see, because I was of an age to be able to process these things, all the things she was trying to balance. It was very, most would say, aspirational, others might say aggressive, but if it were not for that, I don't think I'd be here where I am today.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean, those are the early age, formative years that bring your perspective in life, right. That just kind of let me know what that hard work looks like, seeing a single mother. A few questions there. One, how much older are you than your younger brother? And then two, as you're seeing this unfold, right, and you're kind of of high school age, talk to me about what kind of student you were at that time and what you thought you were going to be able to like do in life at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, my brother, my younger brother, he's four and a half years younger than me in high school in terms of I'm sorry, it was a question, just what I'm, what I want to do, what I wanted to do when I was in high school, you know and I think part of it right, because you mentioned like you wanted like basically pay rent at that age right.
Speaker 3:And I think that comes with like seeing your parents kind of struggle and go through it and feeling like you need to be much more grown than you are at that age, when at the age you really just needed to go playing hide and seek right or whatever right.
Speaker 3:But you know, I think in some ways like and I parallel this a lot to my story like my mother is a single parent immigrant that came to this country Same thing right, with no niggles in her pocket and trying to figure things out, and then you get here and similarly she found interesting that you said you know kind of like this extended family, but she found like a human that just took care of her while she was here, while she kind of set up her life from sleeping on a couch to then sleeping in a room, to then getting her own apartment and then getting me to come to this country, right. So like I understand, like seeing someone kind of go through that and what that does for you at an early perspective, at an early age, you're like, ok, this is what I need to do.
Speaker 3:I need to make sure she's fine, I need to make sure we get in a better situation. So I would just I'm just wondering what you were thinking that outlet was for you at that age. If it was sports, if it was something else that you're like, you know what I want to be able to like to do something.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, for me. For me, a lot of my childhood. I heard the phrase you know when it's your money, you have a job, you can get it. So that was you know I look. I may look young, but I'm old enough to remember what it's like to have to call, collect and always make sure you have 25, and then it went up to 35 cents in your pocket to be able to make a call for you and, you know, to be able to talk to folks. And that was even in the early days of people starting to get phones and pagers and beepers. So for me, my outlet was again going back to just all right, if I need to make money, then the first thing I want to do is make money. How can I do that outside of allowance or whatever?
Speaker 1:When I found out I can get working papers at 14 at the time, that was what started it all off, and so, in addition to my mother was around 14, where another really important, prominent figure came into my life. His name is Andre Reese, but I call him Pop. At the time I found myself getting caught up being a teenager, partying, drinking, and I got caught up one evening and my mother found out, got grounded for a few months and I was introduced to Andre Reese, a teen addiction counselor, and we developed a really tight knit relationship in the first few years of knowing each other and we just let that blossom and it grew to something way more and by the time I was in college he felt like a father figure to me, I felt like a son figure to him and so at 14, he was just my counselor at the time and he knew I was looking for work and I would always complain about the things I want but couldn't get. And he helped me get my first job, which was at the Englewood Police Department. I was working at the chief's office and what was amazing about that? Going into it I was nervous because, like every black boy, we have a fear of the police, or like many at least, that I know. I don't want to speak for others' experience, but for those that aren't fearful when they're in the presence of law enforcement assuming they're not their friend, that they know I'd love to meet those folks to understand what they're doing, to cope with that anxiety. That being said, he connected me to this job and I'm going in thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to work for the police. This is crazy. I want this money but I don't want to do this.
Speaker 1:I walk in and I meet a man who looks almost exactly like me, like 60 years from that point. I had freckles, light skin, dude, had a beard, just like how I got it now. And at the time I was the only person I knew that looked like me. I was a skinny kid. I was the shortest kid in my class. I had these big Coke bottle glasses. Everybody would joke on me and make fun of me, including my athlete friends. And so in high school going back to your question, what was my outlet? Having some form of work, I took a lot of pride in being able to make it rain for all my friends and buy them all a Pepsi and Pizza Hut in the world with that job.
Speaker 3:I had in the chief's office.
Speaker 1:A week into that job I got a job at a place called Straight Outta Philly, right around the corner by the bus stop. I would wait for the bus to get home and I saw this place and said I want that money too. So during the summer job I was working almost seven days a week, just making little money here and there, and in today's standards it's not much. But for me at the time at 14, I was able to pay my phone bill. I was able to upgrade a little phone. I had had a little Nokia block thing right. That was a big, big deal for me. I felt like I was going places. But outside of work, what really energized me and fueled me, yeah, was sports. Track is my through line. I'm a pole vaulter. That was my event In high school. I'm in the hurdles a bit too and did what you know all other duties assigned when it comes to track. That's your job description. You have one event, but then they throw you in the one that you don't want to do every track.
Speaker 1:So that was where I formed a lot of strong relationships, but I also started to learn what it meant to compete against yourself, work independently. It was through that, through track and through sports, where I really got to understand what it meant to have to fail but keep going right. So what does it mean when you don't reach the height that you want to clear, but you still have more attempts to go and you still are not in the top three finishers and scoring for your team right? You have to also wait another five to 10 minutes before you can go up again. So you got a lot of time to be in your head. So it takes a lot to understand how you can manage and cope with those voices in your head as you perceive yourself to be failing in the moment.
Speaker 1:And it was track that helped me to really get to a place where I can build that kind of confidence to know, yeah, that happened, I'm going to put that behind me. It's not a big deal right now. What is a big deal is continuing to do all the things that I've practiced a thousand times, literally over and over and over and over and over again, from pole plants, from hanging upside down, and understanding what it means to have the right form when I'm in the air. All these things. I need to focus on the fundamentals and I need to keep moving forward. These are things and tactics that I bring into my work life throughout my entire career. That was my outlet, for sure in high school.
Speaker 3:I mean, that makes a lot of sense and there's a lot that you learn from sports and just the consistency, the repetition, the building good habits that one can kind of take and carry for lifelong after that. Talk to me about senior year of high school. So you're a senior in high school. What do you think is going to happen? And then what actually happens for you?
Speaker 1:Oh man, senior year of high school what I think was going to happen. I probably thought I was going to win state championship in the pole vault, because if you go to pole vault camp, apparently you come back a champ. That didn't happen.
Speaker 1:But I got all league and I got all county and I was team captain. That was something, team captain, that I really wanted, probably since I was a freshman I was one of those folks coming in. I want to be the varsity letter winner all four years and be on varsity. I want to be captain as soon as possible and so I didn't achieve those things earlier than my. Well, the captainship earlier in my senior year. The letter I got in my junior year, but senior year for me it was really just leaning into that.
Speaker 1:I was really focused on my sports. I love music and I come from a family of musicians, artists, singers, so I was engaged in drama as well and I was a part of the school play which I had to ultimately give up. I was going to be the second lead and big tap, dance on piano, all that stuff, but I had to give it up because it competed with track. So again, you hear the focus on sports. Where did academics come in? I, honestly, was one of those folks that was just like I'm here because you know why I'm here. My parents told me to be here. My best Marshall Lynch voice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to be fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did not care about school whatsoever. I really didn't. I only cared so much as it meant that I can continue to run track and I'll have a good GPA when I apply to colleges, which also was a task for me. So my senior year was not consumed with college applications. At best, you can say it was consumed with figuring out how to, in the most efficient way, with minimal time spent, complete a college application and get accepted somewhere to say Mom, I'm in college, and get accepted somewhere to say mom, I'm in college. And so I ended up sending in an application to a university that sent me a mailer University of Hartford. They asked on the back of this four panel brochure name, address, hobbies. And I got another package in the mail a few weeks later saying I was accepted to college. I didn't even know I was applying, but there you go. And I got another package in the mail a few weeks later saying I was accepted to college. I didn't even know I was applying, but there you go. So I checked the box and I you know I was pushing to get on the track team to pull all these things. That's, you know, probably for some follow-ups. But that was my senior year, just really gearing up for that and doing what I needed to do to be able to finish high school, get accepted into college. And then you know to do to be able to finish high school, get accepted into college and then you know, have the flyest prom date that I can have. That's why I'm not even going to lie in front of you, I'm not going to sit here and say I was a valedictorian and all of that. I just I was there, got it. That's real. That's real. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Did you end up going to that school and what did you end up majoring in? Yeah, yeah. So I ended up going there for one semester. My major was political science. So at that point my senior year, I'd already known I wanted to go to school for law and I wanted to be a lawyer. Political science was so I was told, the best track. And again, this is where my pop came in and he introduced me to folks that he knew through his work. He had great relationships with local county judges, local prosecutors and defense attorneys who you know. I got to meet a few of them and he set up time for us to sit down and sit down at the diner in Bergenfield, new Jersey, with these folks and we would. They would give me all the all the scoop on what I need to be thinking about.
Speaker 1:When it comes to, you know, studying for law Pre-law is not the way to go. A lot of people kind of don't take that as serious as other, as other liberal arts educate, you know, pathways for education. It was kind of equivalent to, you know, getting a bartender certification. It's like you got to, you got it, but no one's going to hire you, kind of thing. So I went for political science. That was the next best thing, and at University of Hartford I ended up leaving after a semester only because I was too expensive for them.
Speaker 1:So my event, the pole vault, requires a specific level of insurance because they're human beings flinging their bodies with a tiny little pole more than 15 feet in the air. God forbid something happens to me. It's a huge liability. And so I spent all this time and this is where the hustle comes in right. All I knew is they don't want me to run track here anymore. I brought up my own equipment, which these poles cost $800. Yeah, yeah, they're pretty expensive, and my high school was kind enough to let me take, take the polls that I was using from their inventory to Hartford. I was programming my own workouts, all of these things, and the athletic director sat me down with half his team and was just saying, yeah, so you can't do this anymore. And this is where I came in and just started hustling. Right, this is a failure moment. Right, I can either retreat and let this be as it is or I can try to make a change here and meet all of their concerns. Right, and kind of, you know, check those boxes, address their concerns.
Speaker 1:And so what did I do? I reached out like just cold, called the 2000 Olympic silver medalist in the pole vault. He was black pole vaulter and for me at the time was my idol, because, again, there weren't there are not still many black pole vaulters. Oftentimes I'd be like fifth or sixth at at a meet with really good pole vaulters and I'll have the local paper coming to me for an interview because you look so athletic and these, all these things. Right, you hear some of the stereotypes coming in, though it's nice to see your name in the newspaper at the same time, right, you, you kind of know like, hey, you're not the greatest at what you're doing and and you know it's kind of tough because you don't have anyone to kind of commiserate over that with, because I have no one that looks like.
Speaker 1:So I followed this guy forever and when this moment came, I I said I'm going to reach out to him because he also happens to be an aspiring artist. He had some albums out, all these things. So I reached out to the music company. I asked his manager if I could connect with him because I'm desperately looking for someone to help me here and advocate. He offered to actually coach me remotely, like where I would send tapes in the mail to him of like me pole vaulting so he can give me tips. He would send me some workouts, all these things. Ultimately it wasn't enough to convince the school to keep me on board, but it was pretty cool to be interfacing with a former Olympian and someone for me who's a legend.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I ended up transferring over to Sacred Heart University where I finished out my undergraduate studies, and I went there specifically because I was receiving scholarship to pole vault and run track, which was very rare to receive a scholarship for running track unless you're doing multiple events or you're someone who's tracking to go to the Olympics. And so for me to get that, for pole vault, I got partial scholarship. It was very, very small to start but my my work grew that scholarship over time. But that that was a big deal for me, not the most cost-effective one in the longterm, but as a kid I got a D1 scholarship to run track, which many other folks couldn't say at the time, and I took a lot of pride in that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. At this time, you're a D1 athlete, a D1 scholarship athlete, that's looking to go to law school. Were you doing other things outside of those two very time-consuming things? And then tell me about what happens. Fast forward a few years when you're about to graduate college and figuring out what life looks like. Are you looking to be an Olympian? Are you looking to be a lawyer? What happens?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, so I'll say, probably early on the first couple of years, you know, in college running track, I was thinking, you know, I could be an Olympian. My performance wasn't where it needed to be, but I believed in my work ethic and I knew, just, with time, it will come, as long as I keep the ethic, the work ethic there, that that over time changed, as you know.
Speaker 1:I started getting closer to graduation so I realized, well, you probably not going to, you know, be in the Olympics, but you'll be really good in this conference, uh uh, which was the Northeast conference, very regional conference, not the SEC or anything like that or big East, but yeah, so I had those aspirations. Then, with school and my studies, again it was very, very similar here. So when I transferred, similar to high school, so when I transferred over to Sacred Heart, I actually decided to minor in philosophy. And that minor, that decision to go with that minor, had a lot to do with, again, my aspirations to become a lawyer and go to law school, so understanding politics, government, our constitution, but also balancing that with classroom understanding of ethics.
Speaker 1:And so in that I happened to be in a position where I actually decided to double minor about a year and a half in and getting to just like, how did you do all of that? Or like, what were you thinking toward the end of college and planning? None of this was something planned for me. It was. I was sitting down with my advisor and he said you need a class to fill out your schedule so you can, you know, have the full-time schedule and get all your credits. It just so happens you only need one class to be a double minor in business economics. So what's the class?
Speaker 3:Just sign me up for it. It's easy so.
Speaker 1:I have a minor like that too. So, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people you know I tell them the double minor like oh man, you're like, you really must love school. I hated school. I still hate school. I didn't like, I did not enjoy it at all. Lots of coffee to stay up in class, it was very dry material. But I knew that it was a piece of paper that would enable me to be more competitive than my peers who did not have it. And if I had the ability to say double minor, that made me more marketable.
Speaker 1:It was a huge differentiator and so I went for that and did that. So I'm doing all this and I'm pursuing my dreams to become a singer, songwriter, and I was really, really treated it like a job. To be honest with you, I was really aggressive about trying to break into the music industry and that was really motivated by one day in particular where my freshman year in the summer, I came home and my mother was crying hysterically and she was crying over bills. She just couldn't pay all the bills in that month and I didn't know how bad things were. And I just remember in that moment I walked away with this feeling of like scorched earth, like you know someone had done her wrong, that kind of reaction like who's going to get it? Who's getting these hands right? Who's coming after my brother, my family? So for me it was I need to find me a studio, because enough people tell me I can sing. I said, look, if I can just put something together, I know I could find a way to get myself signed and I can change all of this for the better for my mom, I can buy a house, I can do all these things, she'll never have to cry over bills again.
Speaker 1:And so, starting summer freshman year, all throughout college I was also recording, I was writing, I was performing and balancing all of these things and for me, when I finished school, it was I'm going to go to law school. But then, as I got closer to my senior year, you know, I had complete projects and I had enough to like have my own show and really fill out an hour's worth of music material. So I wanted to, at that point, actually take a break. And so I talked to my mother about taking a break between undergrad and law school to pursue music. And she said look, as long as you have a job she didn't necessarily agree with it, but she said as long as you have a job, then I'm fine with this and I'll support you. And so my senior year, as I got in toward my senior year, mid junior year, you know there's also the whole you're supposed to have internships piece and people are telling me do these things. And they were all free internships that were being thrown my way.
Speaker 3:I'm like look I got to make money.
Speaker 1:Like when I go home in the summer. I'm making $19 an hour at the hospital to sit around to sit with some folks who might be confused or you know, in the psych ward and just watch some TV. This was great for an 18-year-old to make money, just to sit around and watch TV and help out nurses every now and then.
Speaker 3:At the time, what minimum wage was like $5.75 or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that part right. So it was that Like that was a big deal for me to be able to do that and I didn't want to. I didn't want to work. I knew I'd have to work harder than what I was doing at the hospital. I was working three to 11 shifts. So which was the best part, right? Because at that age I don't leave the house till 11 at night to go out. I'm not really getting started until 12. You know I could sleep in and still not miss my day at the time, so it was perfect.
Speaker 1:So what was the middle ground here? Target they offered a paid internship that actually offered an hourly wage that was competitive with what I was earning at the hospital, and so I ended up doing the Target internship. For the paid internship, again to check a box, there's a theme here. I was not one of those folks who was proactively planning for the future and being strategic about that. It was I need to do this. I'll I'm going to be performing as many as at as many places as possible. I'm going to be writing as many songs as I can and recording as often and whenever possible to make that happen. Everything else will fall behind that. So I just need to find a job that will put money in my pocket to pay bills that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I mean Target has a good leadership intern program, executive leadership program. I think we call it. Yeah, makes sense. I mean Target has a good leadership intern program, executive leadership program. I think you can call it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my wife did that program, so I'm pretty familiar with it and I know they kind of prepare folks to be really good at what they do, whether that's on the floor, retail or back office, whatever it is. They kind of prepare you to really grow in that space Okay. So you graduate, what is your job and are you still making music?
Speaker 1:Yeah, still making music. So my job, my first job coming out I actually didn't have one for probably when was it? May Ended up not getting a job until October, but I was still working at the hospital, so I just picked up. I was part-time and I was usually every other weekend, so I just started to pick up as many shifts as I possibly could like in that time period while I look for jobs to perform and stuff like that. And so I ended up getting a job with Wells Fargo Financial and at the time I think I can say this now because they went to court and lost over this but the things that they got in trouble for a few years ago with, you know, bad lending practices there were things that I was observing while I was, while I was even working there, but in this first job that I had for me, it was I just knew I want to make money, like if I'm not doing music.
Speaker 1:I want to have a suit and a tie on. I want to be the boss. I want to be that dude Right and, like many folks, finish in college, you think because you have the degree. Now my title starts at manager or higher, like I'm running things. And so for me I was looking for those kinds of jobs, white collar jobs, that would make me feel important, I guess for my ego. And I get this job at Wells Fargo Financial and essentially it's subprime mortgages. It's positioned as a message of helping people to improve their finances, helping them refinance their car loan, for example, to consolidate other forms of debt, Same with mortgages, things of that nature. But after a few weeks I was starting to notice that wasn't the case, and a lot of that, I think, had to do with just what I was learning as an economics minor in terms of just standard practices, what's known to be true about the history of loans in this country.
Speaker 1:So I had that job but it wasn't as fulfilling as I thought it would be. And so then I left that job and picked up a job doing door-to-door sales. I was selling windows and siding vinyl windows and vinyl siding. Again. It it was just I just need a job so I can do music at night, right, and I just wanted to. At that time I was like I just needed to be like some type of title that I can maybe leverage and I think the time was like sales marketer and I thought that sounded nice enough for me to work with when I think about my next office job if music doesn't work out.
Speaker 1:But I kept performing. I was performing two to three nights a week in the city. So, driving 30-40 minutes from Jersey into the city, I was recording almost every night for anywhere from two to four hours like after work. I was pressing all of my own cds. You know they call it burning the cds at the time. So I was burning the cd, I was making a label, pressing it, I was putting it in a little cover, slip cover. I would sell these things. That shows keep up with mailing lists, social media. I even built myself a website. All while doing these things and trying to find, trying to find work. So that was my first year out of college.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, I love that and I appreciate you sharing that right, because I think there's a lot of stuff that people that see you at work today would never know right Like one. There's this creative side of you, there's this hustle side of you, there's this entrepreneur like being an independent artist is entrepreneurship right? Like bringing all that to the table and trying to like work on your dreams while you're trying to keep food at the table basically right the entire time. I think that's important to know and I also appreciate it because some of these jobs are very odd jobs that are not necessarily even things that we would put on our resumes on LinkedIn today, but like they're part of the journey that get us to where we are today and you know it's important because they helped shape that perspective and they played an important role at that time. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, look those jobs, those first two jobs I don't think you've seen on my LinkedIn, but I've had many. I've had many different odd jobs like since, since finishing college. But what's on LinkedIn, I think, is the main theme through line. But yeah, man, I think life is just filled with fits and starts right, and life is not always something that's planned.
Speaker 1:I think for me it's just like I just have a whole ton of confidence in what I think I can do, even when I'm not sure how to do it. That's just what's been imbued in me. Like eighth grade, which I had the yearbook here. It says Ian will be most determined. They had like eight things people voted on, like you know, most popular, most, most most determined, ian Strutter. So even like at the age of was I in eighth grade, 13,? Even at that age, like I was, you know, I was like a dog with a bone. If there was something that I wanted to do, it was very difficult to convince me that I wasn't capable of doing. I say capable is very different than being allowed or able to do it.
Speaker 3:So talk to me about what happens for the next few years until you get to this point.
Speaker 1:Like what is that, that first moment when you get a job that is kind of in that career through line that you're like, and how did that come about? Yeah, yeah, so the first job was with Bergen County Community Action Partnership, now known as Greater Bergen Community Action, and that job was by way of my pop. He was working there at the time. I think he was tired of hearing me complain about like the outdoor sales job that I had. It was very it became to be a very uncomfortable job. It was definitely like a boiler room you get dropped in the middle of like a neighborhood that is very affluent and easily made skeptical of these folks and hooded windbreakers who they know don't live there and are just knocking on doors and oddly staring at people's houses to try to figure out or even touching them to see all right, is that vinyl? Is that clad siding? What material is that? Can I talk to them and it was getting cold. So I started in the summer and now it's getting cold, daylight savings time, the day is shorter, it's dark at four o'clock and I'm still out there knocking on doors. I was telling all this to my pop and he's just like look, there's something here, I heard that's opened up. Would you mind being an administrative assistant? Nope, I would love that. I'll be inside. It is not cold and I don't have to do all this nonsense Like sometimes.
Speaker 1:People got stopped by the police, almost arrested for what they were doing, so I just need to get out of there. And so I got the job at a nonprofit and at the time like nonprofit is completely counter to what I described where I saw myself, you know, senior year, I'm your boss, make money, all these things. But I started off with the weatherization program and my job was just at the time I was just shuttling things back and forth from this satellite office that was three towns away to the main headquarters and then, after the first week, my boss at the time this is a guy that's on every APB and milk carton. You don't let him within 100 feet of a school. So nothing, the guys. It was about time he got let go. He was doing some really sketchy things and he was let go.
Speaker 1:They brought in someone from Johnson Controls to run the weatherization team and his name was Phil Glowie. He sat me down and he said look, you're the only one with a degree here, so I'd like you to be a purchasing agent. I don't know what that meant, but I did ask if I get a badge. I thought that'd be cool. And well, I also get some business cards, because I thought that would be nice to make me feel like an adult, to have business cards in my hand that I give to people.
Speaker 1:And so that's how I got my start, man, and when I in that role you know this was the first time I felt like I got real mentorship from my manager that I was working with. Like he told me, he taught me the odds and ends from negotiation to holding contractors accountable, to pipeline management, procurement rules, setting up processes, like all of these things I learned from him and in doing so, in that one one first, in that first year rather, of doing that work, I was able to save the company close to three hundred thousand dollars on all their materials purchases as well as their subcontractor costs, and so, yeah, it was a it was a big deal for me starting my career there. I ultimately moved on from that purchasing agent role into another role, and this was kind of unplanned. It was just I wanted to make more money. I had I'd been looking for other jobs at the time and I got an offer to be a purchase agent somewhere else. I don't even remember where it was. It's like one of those weird office parks, like you know, like a Teterboro like town in New Jersey which is office parks and you just go there to work. So nothing was really exciting about it.
Speaker 1:It was really B2B transactions, and so the CEO got wind that I was looking to leap. I was getting froggy and I was looking to leap and he said he pulled me in. They had this war room, him and the COO. They closed the door to this room. This room, it's small, 10 by 10 at most, and there's a square table that's probably six by six and they keep all these newspapers scattered on it. There's etchings on the wall of things they're working on, and I've only been in there maybe one other time. So my perception is, this is the room where things happen. And.
Speaker 1:I'm sweating bullets, I'm nervous, I think I'm in trouble. They're like what are you trying to do? Strong arm was I thought that's what I was walking into. Instead, I walked into a warm reception with this door closed, where I got to hear the CEO and the CEO play back to me, or give me a readout, rather, of all the great reviews I received from my manager with regards to the work that I was doing in weatherization and they said to me we'd like to keep you here. We have this amazing initiative that we're getting ready to launch, called CapSolar. It's going to be. It ended up being a $10 million initiative, but at that time they were speculating around $20 to $25 million in partnership with Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group.
Speaker 1:Now me, at this time I'm still in my music bag, right. So I got a little furrow hawk going, got the clean sides, got a little fake. You know, the only thing special about me was the collar button up shirt. I I had it right. I clearly look like this guy's committed to something else when he is leaving here and that is his real full time job. But they offer me this position. They told me to name my number and I named it. I should have went way higher, but I named my number and it was the most money I had ever made at that time and it was great. They made the immediate change the next day and I couldn't, I I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. I mean, that makes sense, right. I mean you named the number that is high to you at the moment, right now, like it was higher than whatever you had seen to that point. Uh, so, yeah, so that makes a lot of sense, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I didn't have people around me. I heard someone say this earlier today a DEI executive talking about their upbringing and being the first in their family. You hear a first-gen college student, but they're a first-gen corporate professional Me as well. My mother worked in a hospital setting. She was a respiratory therapist. What you get is what you get right In a union. The wage is there. I didn't really have anyone that talked to me about salary negotiation, even though I probably could lean on my pop for that. And so, yeah, in that room I mean, had I had that, I certainly would have probably asked for more. But yeah, you know, you live and you learn. That makes sense.
Speaker 3:So tell me about this role. So you stepped into this role, how long did you do that for, and what kind of comes after this, this chapter of your life, when you're, when you're in this organization?
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean the role. I was a part of all the work that our CEO and our board treasurer were doing with Goldman Sachs CFO as well. So to really model out what you know what the program would look like the financial waterfalls, all of that we were leveraging new market tax credits, something that was very foreign to all of us, including our CFO at the time. I knew nothing about solar, so we were really just kind of building the ship as it goes and we were learning how to actually drive a ship and I guess, for lack of better words in that analogy, I guess build the ship as well at the same time. And so once we started the program, my job is essentially to bring on nonprofits to fill in our pipeline commitment. So our goal was to install four megawatts of solar panels on the roofs of nonprofits throughout New Jersey for free, with the caveat that if they have asbestos laden roof or roof repair to that's required to be able to support those solar panels, that they would have to fund that. But there's an added benefit besides the free solar that you're getting right and that savings on electricity. We're giving up 50% of our developer fee for each of these projects with whomever signed on. This is unrestricted money now that can be programmed in any way that these nonprofits would like to see it programmed. You can give a raise to a frontline worker, you can give a scholarship to some frontline workers, especially single parents, who you know I've worked with many who aspire to go to college and I hear often, you know, once I save up enough to go to college, I'm going to go to college. College is very expensive and it's nearly impossible to save up for we know this, making a salary that's close to minimum wage, barely above it. So to be able to offer this developer fee, it went leaps and bounds. Some folks used it to help pay for the repairs that they needed to do on their roofs. Others did reprogram it and everyone that participated saw a 10 to 15% savings, or rather is seeing rather still 10 to 15% savings in their power bills. And for Greater Bergen, who developed this for-profit power company, they're receiving a whole ton of unrestricted revenue by way of these energy payments that are being made month over month. So it means a lot for the institution as well. So for me it was a phenomenal opportunity to be able to work with members of our board, our CEO, our COO, and just really expand my exposure across the organization, and in doing that, I was able to then get more responsibility. So I took on work to help to save our weatherization program.
Speaker 1:When Republicans took over in 2010, during Obama's first administration, and they completely defunded the weatherization program and the CDBG program in particular, there were monies coming from the American Restoration and Re-Innovation Act, or Recovery Act. I always get those R's wrong. That was added on top of what we normally get. So imagine going from $5 million in your bank account one day to $150,000 in your bank account one day. I'm sure if T-Pain's watching this, he's shaking his head right, he's like, yeah, that was me, but that's what. That's what literally happened to more than eleven hundred institutions providing this offering, this service offering, and so I was asked to zoom in to think about how we could develop a fee for service model around this so we could save and retain jobs, and so I work to develop grassroots strategies as well. To where in the weatherization team that already was there would simply do things as simple as going around the block introducing themselves to the neighbors.
Speaker 1:Not everyone qualifies for free services through this grant. You have to be at or below the poverty line, based on your family level. If you miss by a penny, you still have to pay. So let's market to everyone that we know won't qualify. Let's look at those folks that applied and were disqualified. For those folks that were disqualified, we want to be a responsible partner to them right in helping them to find savings in their electric bills month over month. So we can't just charge these people a fee. That's quite predatory. We happen to have, and it's misaligned with our values right as an anti-poverty agency. We happen to have, and it's misaligned with our values right as an anti-poverty agency. So let's leverage our credit union and let's open up more counseling credit union.
Speaker 1:A bank is in a business, that of giving loans. That's how they make money. So let's get them connected there. With that loan they're going to get a savings account that's opened up for them. They're going to get access to financial counseling, supports and services. That is there and this loan that we'll put that we would provide them. The loan would be structured so that the monthly payment aligns to the anticipated electric savings electric bill savings month over month. So, though they're not seeing in the beginning of savings over the longterm, once they're done paying that loan down, they'll be able to experience that. So it's basically no felt difference. But now your loan was more energy efficient and within the next two to five years, depending on how long your loan term was, you'd be in a position then to see that considerable savings, and now you can do so much more with that money. Right, got it.
Speaker 3:That makes a lot of sense to me, ok, and that kind of starts your career in building some of that through line, right when you talk about energy, when you talk about workforce, when you talk about all of these things kind of coming together boards.
Speaker 1:So it's not just a mid-level staff I'm dealing with the CEO and then I have to talk to, I have to present to a board or I have to prep the CEO to be able to give the right sell to the board. And so I really understood what it meant to have to adapt my communication style and really have a message that resonates with different audiences. And so that's for me what became very helpful. When you fast forward into where I went next after Greater Bergen, I ended up making a pivot into workforce development. I had a few fits and starts I could talk about, but that's ultimately what helped me the most when it came to my starting workforce where I was a job developer. It was that muscle I developed doing that kind of sale where I now can talk to a business owner, a small business owner around the block, or I can go to Kramer Levin and talk to folks in a big corporate environment and still meet them where they're at to convince them to create jobs for individuals who otherwise would not be able to have those positions.
Speaker 3:So tell me about that job where you were mostly focused on the workforce development and kind of. What were you tasked with doing there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was Fountain House where I got my start. They're based in Hell's Kitchen on 47th and 9th. They're a mental health organization. They're one of I think now about three let's call it over 300, call them clubhouses around the world. And these organizations, these institutions, they vary in size. They can be five staff, they can be 100. But the whole goal is to create an environment where the clients, who they call members, these individuals with mental illness, have a place to go, where they can feel their value once again. And so how was that done? Well, that's done by way of the relationship with their case managers. So members are working side by side with staff to help the organization advance toward its mission and its goals. Members are serving on the board, members are traveling with executives and staff at all levels, for that matter, or meetings that they might have, and they are participating in those meetings.
Speaker 1:So when I go to London to do work for Fountainhouse, I have someone with me meeting with local council members to talk about how we can have partnerships that enable us to be able to create opportunities for folks in places like Brixton where social classism prevents them from getting jobs, with folks like I won't name them, but American-based conglomerates. So it ran the gamut. But in that is where I really understood what workforce development is. I thought a job was a job you just go to Indeed and then you call them and then you can put somebody in it. But it's so much, so much, so much more than that. And so at Fountainhouse I really understood what it meant to take time to really understand the individuals that you're serving and really understand how you can craft a compelling narrative that doesn't position a partnership with an employer as charity, right, but it's an exchange of us helping them meet their business bottom line.
Speaker 1:But in doing so and having that be met, enabling an individual to tangibly feel what their value is right and see it by way of that paycheck that they're finally getting for the first time in five, 10 or more years, that they're finally getting for the first time in five, 10 or more years that they've not been able to get work because they just haven't had the strong system around them, a strong village around them, to help them enable their success, most importantly, enabling that success during their failures and their lows.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of this medication management that can impact an individual's ability to be able to show up effectively to work all of these things. And Fountainhouse provides supports to the point where, literally through one of their programs called transitional employment, staff are going onsite and they are literally filling, they're working the job if a member couldn't show up for their shift. So the Federal Reserve was one of our partners. The CFO was assigned to that. Every now and then you might see the CFO shoveling and sweeping and taking out trash outside of the Federal Reserve. That is the extent of the services that they were providing and that was my first like jump into workforce development.
Speaker 3:Yeah, also, I do want to point out the. There's a slight irony, as you mentioned in the, when you're about to graduate college and you're like I'm all about the money, I'm all about the money too, I'm going to work in nonprofits, basically, and then when I do make a pivot out of that.
Speaker 3:It's going to go into government. But I mean, in fairness, right, I do think that part of what I want to get across through this conversation and through this podcast generally is you know, you can continuously grow in your career in these sectors and you can make money in these sectors, and just because it's a nonprofit doesn't mean you're a nonprofit, like it doesn't mean that, right. So tell me about how you kind of transfer these skills then to positioning yourself for kind of pivoting sectors. Right, it was still mission aligned, but you did end up pivoting sectors at some point.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean, even when I moved over to Fountainhouse. It's a pivot from what I was doing over at Greater Bergen, right. So between Fountainhouse and Greater Bergen I got a job at the nonprofit Harlem United. I was really excited about the job. I interviewed for a job that was just above my reach, but they liked me so much they brought me on anyway and they created a salary line for me. They ultimately let me go about a month and a half in and at the time I had no idea, beyond the fact that I was told it was emails, strong word emails. I was like okay, show me examples. I couldn't get what I really was looking for or wanted, but as an at-will employee, they can get rid of me for whatever reasons they choose. On another EVP salary and they needed to make the money work, which I completely understand. But at the time I didn't know what to do because I was always this over performer, overachiever, this hit hard. We weren't playing basketball, so the only thing I'll tell you, I'm just horrible at. So I was wondering what was going on. And so what did it mean to feel like to make that pivot? The first pivot I made was because Fountainhouse was a 1099 contract position. So I felt like, hey, I can feel more confident in standing behind what it is that I want to effectuate, right, standing behind my vision, and not worry about being retaliated against or let go for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:And so while I was at Fountain House, I was able to do a lot In my three and a half years there. I created an employer advisory board. It was through. I won't take credit for this. It was a colleague of mine, dorothy Orr has been with Fountain House for like 20 years and when Mayor de Blasio became mayor, every day she said I'm calling their office because the first lady goes to my church and I think we could get jobs there. She ended up getting a meeting one day. This is someone that she doesn't like selling. She'll tell you this, admittedly to the whole world. She's not the developer type. So I said let me go with you so you can have me to close.
Speaker 1:And so we went to the mayor's office and I meet Martha Jackson, who ended up becoming my boss at the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. She was the assistant commissioner there at the time. She sat on our employer advisory board and it was through that partnership where she was able to see me in action and see how I was developing relationships, how I was cultivating those relationships very strategically and how I was engaging them in the mission to create broader access to jobs for individuals with mental illness, cultivating those relationships very strategically and I was engaging them in the mission to create broader access to jobs for individuals with mental illness. And so Martha wanted to bring all those things, those strengths, over to what she was building at the time, a program that was quietly known as NYC at Work. At the time she had raised funds from private philanthropic institutions to pay for salary lines, so the city put no money into this at the time.
Speaker 1:But I ended up joining and coming on to that team about a year after probably a year and a half actually, after I first met Martha and then at the mayor's office, I expanded that work I was doing with developing jobs not just for individuals with mental illness, but now I was doing that for the entire disability community throughout New York City.
Speaker 1:And so through that I was interfacing with over a hundred different employment partners, businesses and companies of all sizes, from, you know, local, local art galleries and banks to large multinational clothing retailers like Uniqlo.
Speaker 1:And it was through that office, where, in that work, because I had the jobs all the nonprofits that we worked with through our talent coalition they're reaching out to me 70 of them right About how they could refer their candidates, get into jobs and things of that nature. And so that's where the ecosystem building started to happen and really zoom out and understand how you can align needs across these competing entities right, these nonprofits, who all want their people to only have these jobs. Align them so that we can let all boats rise and create equity here through that opportunity and in that exercise as well, strategically positioning the employer to have access to training and technical assistance to understand best practices for engaging with specific disability populations, engaging with employers to help them to understand and develop reasonable accommodation processes that might otherwise just were not in existence before working with the mayor's office, and so that that's what ultimately set me up for the partnerships position that I had where I met you at EDC.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that's one of the things that I that I appreciate. You know, I think you and I you and I overlap when we were at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which is a quasi-government agency that works on, that manages a lot of property in Rehab of the City and is tasked with ultimately generating job growth and economic vitality in the city in many different ways that they do that. So you know, I think when you started there I was there in 2017, end of 2017, through two years ago, right, I think. When you came on board, folks were really excited because you were bringing a lot of that workforce background and you were tasked with really leading some of the initiatives there in workforce development partnerships in a way that the agency didn't have yet at the time. So you were kind of basically spearheading a brand new initiative within the organization. So can you talk a little bit about what you were tasked with doing there and how that ended up going?
Speaker 1:Man, look, before I even get to that, I'll tell you I was scared to death coming into the job. I remember saying to my friends my interview for the mayor's office job was the most important one in my life. And then I remember when the EDC opportunity became available. It was the same thing, same moment, and it was just because, like all my interactions with EDC at the time, I told this to my boss. I say this to anyone who I worked with at EDC or was still there now.
Speaker 1:But when EDC was in the room it was like the men in black showed up right, like something big was happening. And you know you always have the right things to say. Edc folks came in. It was always the right things to say. We're always on point and there's really smart, whip, smart, intelligent folks there who are coming from a pedigree that on paper I felt I didn't match with Right.
Speaker 1:So you know, I was really dealing with that imposter syndrome for a little bit and it was very, very intimidating for me coming in, because I didn't want to fail was developing a robust set of relationships with workforce development organizations throughout New York City's workforce ecosystem, so that not only includes nonprofit institutions and community-based organizations that are delivering these programs, but it also includes agencies within the city of New York that are delivering on these as well. Really, with the goal of just hey, let's make sure people are aware of it, let's start by just making sure people know what we do and then, from there, let's start to think deeper about specific stakeholders and those audiences to understand where we can really deepen that relationship even further, right, and really start to get tactical, to talk about, you know, specific ongoing work that they could potentially be partnering with us on, and, vice versa, really listening closely to understand how EDC can be a good partner to these institutions, right. Whether it be by way of simply signing a letter of support to helping to set up strategy sessions, which we did for Department of Veteran Services, as an example, with our strategy team to have a facilitated brainstorm, or whether it be actually, you know, building and operating a program together or an initiative together, like this, like Civic Hall at the Union Square Tech Training Center. That was really what my remit was, I believe.
Speaker 1:So I heard in terms of what prompted the creation of my role, it came out of the failings of Amazon HQ2 and some of the negative sentiment that came there from the workforce community. So for me, anytime I felt uncertain about what I needed to do, it was making sure that no one ever again could feel like we're making a repeat of whatever those missteps were. What the EDC perceived that they, that they had names on issue two, or the community felt that they had on HQ two. I just wanted to make sure people felt like they could say man, I had a seat at the table where people felt like they could say man, I had a seat at the table and ADC, almost to a point of eager desperation, wants to be our friend and wants to be a good partner to us and truly believes in our mission, believes in our values and believes in our goals and they think that it could really strongly augment and add value to the work that they're doing to build strong, resilient, economically thriving communities throughout this great city.
Speaker 3:You did some great work while you were there for about two years or so, and you left as an assistant vice president of workforce development right Workforce development partnerships. Tell me about what leads to that decision to ultimately leave an organization like EDC and what you end up doing next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I ended up moving into consulting. I'll tell you again, talk about themes and through lines. Right, just like high school, just like college. I'm at this point now where this wasn't planned In fact, I really wasn't looking to leave EDC. I found myself to be very, very happy working there Every meeting. You know, though, we were talking about serious things and really hard work, intense work. I'm smiling. People are always thinking outside of the box. No idea is a bad idea. It's always on the table. It was an amazing place to be, and you know the people and people respected you. You know you work at EDC. There's a, there's a cachet that comes with it, and I started to feel that not say I didn't feel that before, but it just felt different, right In terms of how you are seen, and so, for me, I happened to at the time this is right around the time where the city was really deeply entrenched in developing a strategy for offshore wind, and so at that time, this is right around the time where the city was really deeply entrenched in developing a strategy for offshore wind, and so, at that time, I find myself, in all these webinars different presentations about, still in the pandemic. So we're all on Zoom about offshore wind and I end up developing a relationship with the founder of Carp Strategies, rebecca Carp, herself a former EDC-er and founder. We started talking about some open roles she had and she was looking for folks to fill them and start off with. Can you share with your network? See if you know anybody? I appreciate the help if you know anyone that's interested in the role organization.
Speaker 1:And for me at the time I wasn't sure I had my own freelance work that I had been doing. I opened up a shop, had LLC for all the transactional reasons, but I didn't aspire to create the next Bain or McKinsey or anything like that. I was doing my own little freelance thing on the side to just further develop myself and my skills toward where I wanted to be. At this point in my life I knew I want to be an executive in the nonprofit space right now about the time I'm at the mayor's office and going into EDC. So she saw this and said why don't you join us and be a director? You got some experience in consulting, why don't you come on? And it was a great opportunity where I have an opportunity to be managing a large, a large team. I think we're at the time when I joined. We're approaching 20 folks. So I get to manage multiple project teams. I have direct reports and a considerable increase on the salary that I was making at the time and a good title.
Speaker 1:So I wasn't losing in terms of that mobility and title and what makes you marketable. I wasn't losing that in my through line. I wasn't losing that. And I guess, if I'm thinking of a sports card analogy, if you look at the back of my card, my stat line will show that progression. So there was that strategically working for me toward my goal.
Speaker 1:Now I'm certain right, even though I didn't plan to leave, I wasn't really thinking about practically where I'm going to go to college, all those things and what I wanted to do after college while I was there. In this case, I did know if I made a move strategically, it needed to push me further toward my goal of being a nonprofit leader. And so there, ultimately, it was hard but I made a decision to leave EDC because I saw that there was a huge opportunity, as it pertained to my professional goals, to take advantage of here and moving over to CARP as a director, I was a member of the leadership team really responsible for overseeing teams working on project delivery but also contributing toward the growth, advancement, scaling of the institution. And so in that time, my two years there, I started off as director. A year in I was then promoted to principal and worked on a variety of different projects. One of my first projects was working with Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Transit Authority, on their Emerald Trail project, which is public and announced now. But that was a great project where we were helping to negotiate an MOU with their community partners so they can get that work moving.
Speaker 1:I take a lot of pride in what's going to come with that 34-mile trail. It's going to connect disparate communities, many of which are low-income communities that are subject to high flood risk, get minimal capital resources, and it's because the way the city is designed makes it really difficult for individuals in these communities to access jobs and opportunities. But also access to downtown corridor where you know money could be spent because you got to keep the economy in mind Right. Money could be spent because you got to keep the economy in mind Right. So with this 34 mile trail it's going to connect all of that and enable the expanse of micromobility throughout the city, the expanse, again, of access to good, high paying jobs, access to a better quality of life experience. I'm talking about, you know, leisurely things that you might do to be able to go out and go to the game, go to the mall do these things? Go to a bar, let's go to the stadium and watch the game.
Speaker 1:This trail is going to enable that, and it's going to bring people and communities together and, by way of this connected trail, enabling more investment as well into these disparate communities, because now there's a connection to the things that might seem more attractive in terms of this is where I want to see the ROI come from, if I'm putting my money here in this infrastructure.
Speaker 1:So that was my first project, all the way to Offshore Wind, where we're helping developers think about how they're entering the market and, more importantly, how they're making true economic investments that are not just cookie cutter investments into the community that enables the creation of jobs, investment in programs that provide and offer more jobs, training, scholarships, safe spaces for folks in the LGBTQIA plus community to be able to convene all of those things. So it was a wide, vast range of work that I was able to really get exposed to, a really fast paced environment, and so it was a place where I don't want to say it wasn't trial by fire, but I definitely was being forged there for something more. So, yeah, it was a great, great opportunity. I miss those folks a lot, but I'm really glad to say that there's going to be a day where we have the gateway tunnel built and on that day you're going to be able to say I know the guy who helped to make that happen.
Speaker 1:That was one of the final things we helped make happen before I left. I found out shortly after that the team we're on was actually awarded to do the work.
Speaker 1:So we're doing community outreach to make sure the whole community knows about what's coming and to make sure that they understand what's available to them in terms of access to local jobs, because you know those local hiring agreements and PLAs, they're very real and Gateway Development Commission, port Authority, new Jersey Transit, city of New York, all the folks involved, they see that very seriously and so I take a lot of pride in knowing that. You know I get to work with a group that helps to, you know, really help folks meet those goals.
Speaker 3:No, that makes sense. And you know, I definitely know and appreciate Rebecca as well. Definitely there's something about that EDC water like, once you go through those doors, that you can kind of just continue to grow and do great things beyond that. And, as you said, she went through those doors and then found other people like yourself that went through those doors. So you know, definitely have interacted with both as a client when I was at EDC and just working to see the great work that comes out of that shop, how you all are thoughtful, strategic, engaging and then just kind of maintaining a personal relationship. So appreciate that and I appreciate you sharing that.
Speaker 3:And I know that must have been, you know, a big shift right to go from an organization that's about 350 some odd employees to a smaller shop Right, which I know they grew a lot while you were there and they I think are hovering around like at least 30 some odd employees or so at this point. But you know which is amazing for an organization that handles that volume of work. So I would like to fast forward. Tell me when you walk in on Mondays, what does your job look like today? What are you doing, what are you tasked with doing and remind folks where you're working, where you're doing yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yep, as a reminder, chief Program Officer at Bedford-Sypherson Restoration Corporation and six weeks into the job, so this could change tomorrow. Who knows? My day-to-day when I wake up and get into work first, it starts off with a workout. Could be better at that these days, but it usually starts off with a workout in the morning. Really get the juices flowing. Do a few brain games, I have a lot of coffee, I'm in around nine o'clock and I'm off to the races from there. So I'm checking in with my teams to see how folks are doing, kind of inventorying any fires that need to be put out, starting to work to triage those In the morning. A lot of my work is really just spent with just mapping out my day. On Monday, that exercise is focused on mapping out the week, so I'm typically meeting with my program leadership team to understand what we have on deck for the week. What are the urgent critical items that need to be raised to my attention, that require me to kind of unstick troubleshoot?
Speaker 1:And then these programs that we're offering there at Bed-Stuy Restoration runs the gamut. So we have weatherization, where we're doing energy efficient upgrades to folks' homes. We have financial empowerment program. We're offering financial counseling to Bed-Stuy residents. We have training and placement services that we offer. So we do that through our Jobs Plus program. We also do that through a non-Jobs Plus training and placement program group as well. We have a tax prep team, so we offer tax prep services as well. Last year, we helped 5,000 people get $6 million in tax refunds, something that we are working very diligently to repeat this year, and I feel like I'm leaving some folks out. We have a homeownership program as well there, where we actually just received HUD certification. So we're really happy about that Really working to help people get access to affordable housing and helping them with providing counseling that enables them to be able to have a pathway to home ownership.
Speaker 3:Okay, that makes sense to me. I appreciate that and okay, so a lot of really great programming that comes out of that and I know I've overlapped with your organization in different ways. You'll have a national reputation and have historically done some really good work for decades now. One of the things that's important to me is making sure that people don't think just because you're a nonprofit you cannot make a good living. Can you talk to folks about generally what someone can make in this type of role as a chief program officer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it depends on size of the organization and you know financial health. But I've seen, yeah, and location. Yeah, I've seen salaries as low as the mid. You know financial health, but I've seen, yeah, and location. Yeah, I've seen salaries as low as the mid. You know one hundreds, you know mid to low one hundreds, so let's call that. You know as low as 125. If you're a smaller organization, I've actually seen lower and again, depending on location. So there's there's executives I've worked with in places like Florida, for example. There's executives I've worked with in places like Florida, for example, where this you know CEOs, you know barely touching 95. So it can really vary, but you can go as high as you know 200, 200 plus, depending on the organization that you're working with. I fall in that range, in that range.
Speaker 1:So I won't share my number here for the audience, but I will say, you know, going to that note or that comment of, like you know, working in nonprofit doesn't mean you can't make profit, right? There's also something to be thought of, thought about in terms of what makes you happy in your job. You don't necessarily have to love what you do, but you have to like being there, and what I will say is that my mom used to say this a lot it's not her quote, obviously but more money, more problems, right? Like with that money, there comes a certain level of stress that comes along with it, right, problems that not a lot of people realize you're going to have to deal with. And when they do, you know, might look back and say, if I knew my younger self knew this, I maybe wouldn't want to deal with this, right? So I think that the thing that I've always wanted to impart to people is yeah, you can make good money working in the nonprofit space, can make even better money working in the for-profit space or outside of city government.
Speaker 1:But what I will tell you is that if you make a decision solely based on money, I found that you're very likely to find yourself in a place where you're not happy in that situation or you feel like you're not set up to succeed because the thought about more money so greatly overshadowed considerations for your capability, your aptitude and being proactive to see and identify where you potentially might have obstacles, so you can actually know those are coming, navigate them and be successful in the world. So for me, I tell folks all the time, that is the biggest piece. If you're happy there, everything else will start to follow behind it. Right, you'll get more responsibility. You'll have people that want to follow you and work for you as well as with you. Right, because you're happy with what you're doing and you take pride and enjoy it. Those are the biggest things.
Speaker 1:And one quick plug on the city, though. Government employment is government employment In a place like the city of New York. They've got a great pension and they've got great benefits. Edc they offer the same things as a quasi-governmental agency less the pension, but a strong I think it was a 403B that we got as well as great benefits. Very affordable in terms of what I was coming out of pocket for month over month and very affordable in terms of what I was left to pay when I presented my insurance card at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:So I will say that, when I think about those pros and cons what you're giving and taking yeah, get more money, but you might not get the best insurance that you want. You're likely not going to get a pension. There's not many places offering a pension nowadays, right, but if you're thinking about government work, I know a lot of people that work in government. They started at 21,. 20 years old, they're 30 and they've retired and in that timeframe they might've elevated to a position where they are at a mid to senior level position in leadership and when they retire they're going to be able to get that payout for the rest of their life and all those benefits. So you can't say that about a lot of other places. To be honest, that's fair.
Speaker 3:That makes sense. Are there any forms of media books, movies, music, podcasts that have shaped you personally or professionally?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say, well, I'm thinking of a few. Right now I'm reading the First 90 Days. That book has been very helpful for me coming into this new role, I think, as a strategic thinker, it's really easy for things to go big and you get lost in all of that kind of abstractness as you're trying to make sense of all these different things that you're learning about. You know so, for example, with restoration we have so many programs and we have millions of dollars of funding that comes through to to service those programs and we have dozens of funders that we work with and we get multiple funders on each program. So there's a lot to make sense of there. Meanwhile, there are roughly about 50 folks that are working under the programs department. So there's those folks that you have to get to know. You have to understand the work culture, all these things. So for me it's really shaped me. I kind of geek out over books like that.
Speaker 1:There's another book called Project Management for Millennials. I actually read that at EDC during the pandemic. I found it to be ridiculously impactful for me, especially when it came to managing my flagship projects and moments where you know, where I saw I needed to step up and I needed to take a more, greater leadership role amongst an interdepartmental group working on a project, and so that was helpful. And then the founder of Tom's. I haven't read this book in so many years and I'm forgetting what it's called, but he wrote a book and I will say just Google him, find that. That one stood with me for a long time and it was just all about his journey in terms of how he started up the company and his mission-based kind of work that he does through that B Corp. That really resonated with me in terms of where I saw myself headed as a leader, as an entrepreneur, you know, and just like how to have that mindset and really like kind of meet people where they are and inspire others. Got it Start something that matters.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is it Start something that matters. Yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, awesome. I know it's pretty easy to look at you and say, you know, this guy looks like he has all his stuff together. Can you mention anything or any time in your life that was particularly not as linear either, something that you had to overcome or endure? That just kind of made things not as pleasant, as people would look at it from the outside and say, oh, that guy has always had his stuff together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was being let go. It was being fired from Harlem United. Go, he was being fired from Harlem United. Hey, kelsey, he knows who he is. I keep receipts, but if he saw what we talked about earlier he'll understand that. I understand.
Speaker 1:That's fair, I love it. That was a big obstacle for me to get over and it was, like you know, after I look, it was a crazy obstacle for me to get over and it was, like you know, after I look, it was crazy four months span. So I leave Greater Bergen Community Action. That happened. It was a kind of a pride driven moment as well projects and I know I'm kind of sidelining or digressing now, but you know I get this and I'm going to be transparent here because I feel like we don't hear enough of folks who are, you know, face value. We think they have it all together. We don't hear enough of them talking about, like, where they had their moments Right.
Speaker 1:So for me in this case, that moment was was receiving a memo that you know, from someone who was two doors down from me that was saying you know, I'd like you to cease and desist to see all at the time, like on working on the working on grants and stuff, because I asked a lot of questions, I reported to the CEO and I think the person I was working with at the time, understandably so, were human beings. I might be thinking, hey, you a plant, are you out here snitching? I don't know if you're doing anything wrong. I'm just trying to learn. So I have all these questions, but unfortunately this moment happens and for me I'd say some immaturity that was involved. But I said you know what, I'm going to find something better. So I get to Harlem United, I'm all gassed up. I got this nice title Director of.
Speaker 1:Business Development, only to be let go a month and a half in. What am I going to say to the folks that I used to work for at Greater Bergen when they check in on me and see how I'm doing, or like I'm trying to figure out how to get some work? I didn't know what to say. I was definitely in a moment of crisis, trying to figure out where do I go from here, because the track that I was on I don't think is possible anymore. I can't lead a nonprofit after this moment. What am I going to do? And all I could think of was I got to find something. I guess maybe start with the title again, something that looks cool. And so I became an inside sales executive for three months. I knew I didn't want to go outside again. I like to be in, but I was there for about what? Three months at ZocDoc. Great service Just wasn't for me. It was heavy phone sales, and I was sitting there wondering what the heck? What am I doing? Like what am I doing?
Speaker 1:here. This is not where I see myself being, and so I quit that job because I was so stressed out. I just wasn't great with over-the-phone sales. I was calling the places, like you know, the far northwest corners of Maryland and talking to doctors who maybe just got a fax machine you know about an app where they could book appointments, Right. So I just was like I can't, I'm not connecting with this. I need something more mission aligned. I need something more values based.
Speaker 1:For me, it wasn't it what they set out to do as a mission to make health care access more accessible by way of technology. I think that's phenomenal. I just I would have let myself go as poor, performing poorly, and so I said I'm leaving and they asked me what I want to do. I'm going to be an actor. Uh, because I had I have friend a couple friends at the time. One at the time was opera singer still sings opera. You see him at the Met fall winter season or in Vienna where his home opera house is. And I had another friend who was doing film and TV. No, like you should give this a shot, man, you got personality for it. Blah, blah, blah. So I'm going to do this. And so I started acting and just going to open calls because I could sing. I said I'm going to show up to these open calls and just sing stuff and maybe I'll get a job like singing background for some show on Broadway and nobody knows who I am, but I'll make $1,200 a week to sing and that'll be cool.
Speaker 1:So that was a moment for me where I was just like completely off my beaten path. I was just in the wind until Fountainhouse kind of put me back on that path. That's where I needed to be. And so for me again it was just that determination right, Going back to that eighth grade prediction, but really leaning in that and just saying, look, whatever's going to happen is going to work out. Just focus on what's in front of you and do what you got to do to meet your obligations, your bills and all that. And I was lucky to have my. My mom god rest her soul. You know my mom at the time was very supportive of me and helping me out with all those things. Um, but yeah, I did zoc, doc. I was acting, I did postmates for like two days. I got hit by a car, like trying to be like robin thick. Remember the first robin thick music video. He had the long hair with no shirt and he's like riding through new york city. He's let's do this thing.
Speaker 1:That was me. I was in a flow it was end of day two, toward the end of day two, and I'm like I got this and I'm coming down with my little backpack, turn the curb and I got skipped like a rock. You would have thought Thanos was real and picked me up and just skipped me down second Avenue like about 30 feet. And that's when I said I'm done with that. So I was all over. I was doing all these things and I think for me, in terms of just how you get over over that adversity and how you got out of it on the other side, I think sometimes it's just sheer will.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that and I think that's that's very uh. I appreciate the vulnerability to show that it's not all linear, right, and we don't have this one LinkedIn path that just looks like everything's always been peachy, because that's just not real. So I appreciate that. Okay, I know we've learned a lot about you today, from getting hit by a car to being a singer, to working in different industries, in different spaces. We didn't talk about things like you have a master's, you're a professor. All of these continued things that you know are just completely make Ian the whole person. Is there anything we have not discussed today that the world should?
Speaker 3:know, about Ian.
Speaker 1:You know, I feel like we hit on a lot. I think for me, like, at the end of the day, you know, for, as put together, whatever as I may be, I'm a I'm a big old man, child at heart I really, I really try to enjoy, you know, every moment, especially, you know, when I'm having my downtime. You know I'm really intense and focused at work, right, and we, you know some, some people they work in construction. It's more physical.
Speaker 1:That's not the case for me, it's mental, it's up here, and so for me, the one thing I'll say that I want people to know is you know, I'm just, bigly, without shame, protecting those things that are very important to you, you know, such as you know that work-life balance and that time you have to be able to recover and refresh, to show up strong for what you need, but also being mission driven. You know how can you be, how can you do something that is, you know, in service to others and the community around you. You know, in service to others and the community around you. You know, I feel like maybe that was heard today, but you know that was the biggest thing, otherwise I would have said singing, Cause most people I work with. Do not know that about me.
Speaker 3:I love that. No, that's awesome, I think. Thank you for sharing that and thank you for oh, wait, wait. I got.
Speaker 1:I got one. I got one thing, even though I don't know if he's watching, but I'll tell. I'll tell him to watch Jay Book from B2K. I out drank him he's a great guy.
Speaker 1:He's a great guy. He was actually in a play man of the House that I'm in. It's the only play that I do. They are all like family to me and we've brought in a number of different guest stars, including Willie Teller from Day 26,. Chris Williams uh, if you're a big r&b head, you know um, so don't wake me. I'm dreaming chris king, who's now in the cast. He people might know him from while and out or his viral youtube impressions.
Speaker 2:I know him as the guy that went to high school with me. Yeah, I know we got a mutual friend there yeah, he's and he's great.
Speaker 1:He's great and all these folks, you know we're, that's what we're about. You know whether you get, whether you're famous or whether you know you're me or one of the other cast members in the show, and that's why I stay around it, because we, we're, we're. We all walk with the energy of how can we make the world better around us. And I think on this evening in particular, in West Orange, new Jersey, I made Jay Boog better, a better person. He went back to California and I'm sure that he's practiced how to, you know, drink a little, one or two more drinks, more, more than I, more than I can, and I take pride in knowing that I had a great time getting to, to commiserate with a boy band and, uh, early 2000s r&b pop superstar.
Speaker 3:So yeah, that's great man. You're amongst the legends. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not don't get me wrong that's awesome.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you joining us today yeah, for sure, man, thanks for having me I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 2:If you did and believe on the mission we're on, please like, rate and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Career Cheat Code and tell us people or careers you would like to see highlighted. See you next week with some more cheat codes. Peace.
