I grew up the youngest of five brothers. That could have been a recipe for chaos and sibling rivalry; but not in my family. In fact, ever since I can remember, the five of us have always helped one another and cheered each other on. As the youngest, I was the biggest beneficiary of this, because whatever challenges I ran up against, in school or in life, there was invariably a sibling who had been through it before and could help me figure it out.
I’ve always been grateful for my family; but as I grew older, I realized that not everyone benefits from that kind of built-in support network. Not everybody has a cheerleader in their life, let alone four of them!
As soon as I realized this, I became determined to be that person for as many other people as I could. In college and business school, I helped classmates understand core concepts. In my personal life, I helped friends and family prepare for job interviews. In the financial industry, where I spent the first eight years of my career, I helped coworkers pass their licensing exams—sometimes after they had failed multiple times. And in higher ed recruitment, where I worked for the next six years, I helped colleagues communicate better with students to understand where they wanted to go in life. With each job I have worked, my favorite part has been the same: the opportunity to help people achieve their very best.
Around 2017, a good friend and colleague told me enthusiastically about their new role at this unique company called Revature. My friend explained how the company would help talented people get great jobs in the competitive world of tech. That was music to my ears! I saw how, instead of my favorite part of the job, helping people excel could be the whole job! For me, it sounded like the ultimate opportunity to be of service.
When I joined Revature, I discovered it was even better than I thought. Revature is not like a bootcamp, which might charge students up to $30,000 for the training while offering no guarantee of success. Under our business model, we only do well when our associates do well. In other words, we have made it our mission to invest in people. Every single year, we kickstart hundreds of careers. We help our associates get over roadblocks and realize their dream of working in tech.
At Revature, I’m doing what my brothers did for me all those years ago, and what I have always strived to do for others: helping people believe in themselves and take on challenges. I live for the turning points: those magic moments where our associates go from self-doubt to self-confidence. I hear it in their voices. I see it in the way they carry themselves, like they are five inches taller than they were when they began.
Then a cohort will go out into the world of work, and within a few months, I am getting emails telling me that someone I helped get into the program—someone who couldn’t land a job before—is now working as a developer at a brand-name company!
Almost five years since I started at Revature, I still wake up every day wondering how many more lives we can transform with this model. And that number continues to grow as the company scales. For me, it doesn’t get much better than that!