These past few weeks we have the pleasure of meeting some great influential up and coming members of the startup community. Anytime we encounter or provide services to different entrepreneurs, we always like to ask the age ol' question of "what inspires and motivates you to want to do the work your doing?" It is a bit of a two pronged question, but we love to ask it and really find the stories behind how things came to be. In speaking with a recent client, we spoke about giving back to communities and how important it is also employ those individuals within the community you serve. Communities are our heart and soul and sometimes even our biggest supporters. Throughout this discussion, we began to speak about how we both support and are motivated by putting individuals with barriers back to work. This allowed me the opportunity to tell our client about Darrell Jobe and how I had recently read an article about him. I found his story of how he became and entrepreneur so motivating and touching. We thought it would be great to post the article by Amy Feldman and it's video links here so our readers can read more of this great story. Enjoy this very motivating article and if you are struggling with your own motivation, hopefully you will find a glimmer of inspiration from within this great read.
Darrell Jobe had a rough start in life. Raised in Richmond, California, Jobe dropped out of school in eighth grade, joined a gang, and was in and out of juvenile detention as a teenager. At age 14 he was incarcerated for stealing cars, he says, and later did time for possession of a stolen gun. By 23, he promised himself that he would turn his life around and be a better father to his kids than his absentee dad had been for him.
“I remember my gang days, and being in shootouts, and in and out of juvenile hall,” he says. “This is who you are, but you don’t want to be this person.”
Companies are generally loath to hire former prisoners and gang members, and Jobe struggled to find a job. Eventually, he made his way to the packaging industry, helped by the father of a friend, a willingness to take a lengthy personality test, and his own persistence. Then, in 2015, Jobe, now 39, founded his own business, Vericool, to make sustainable, environmentally friendly packaging that can replace Styrofoam and other expanded polystyrene foam packaging for shipments that need to stay cool.
Combating Pollution With Compostable Packaging | 1:29
Playing off increased awareness of how hazardous expanded polystyrene foam is for the environment at a time when more and more locales are banning it, Vericool is growing fast. The Livermore, California, company (which has raised $10 million from investors that include the venture capital arm of Europe’s packaging giant BillerudKorsnas) expects $10 million in revenue this year, up from $2 million last year. It now has a backlog of committed orders of just over $40 million to customers that include JustFoodForDogs, a homemade dog meal startup, and Raw Living Spirulina, a distributor of the blue-green algae, plus some larger pharmaceutical companies that he declines to discuss. But the company has been scrambling to crank up its manufacturing capacity to meet demand. “It’s been overwhelming,” Jobe says. “No one needs to be sold that petroleum products need to be replaced.”
Inside Vericool's Sustainable Operation| 2:29
It’s not easy to make an environmentally friendly insulated cooler at a viable price point, and Jobe tried a variety of materials, including starch, coconut husks, bamboo and hay, before settling on postconsumer plant fiber that is recyclable or compostable. A self-taught engineer, he filed 30 patent applications on his creations, five of which have been awarded. “I build everything in my head. If I wrote it down, that would mess me up,” he says. A 12-inch square cube of his material costs less than $5, making it roughly comparable to the cost of an expanded polystyrene foam version of the same size, he says.
In building the company, Jobe is determined to give second chances to former prisoners. He figures that roughly one quarter of the company’s 45 employees have served time. They not only get a chance to work, but also can get ownership in the company through Vericool’s employee stock-option plan. “It was years I didn’t work because of my record, but Darrell gave us a second chance,” says Kyil Parker, a Vericool production operator who had previously been incarcerated.
The Value Of Second Chances| 3:43
Employers’ wariness has made it tough for former drug dealers or gang members to find jobs, which in turn increases the likelihood they’ll be rearrested and return to prison. A study by the Prison Policy Initiative last year estimated that more than 27% of the country’s more than 5 million formerly incarcerated people are unemployed. In an effort to combat recidivism, an increasing number of states—including California—have barred employers from asking about criminal records in job applications, a policy known as “ban the box.”
For Jobe, who mentors kids in juvenile detention, this is personal. “I was once one of those guys. I was given an opportunity, and I ran with it,” he says. “Your future shouldn’t be based on your past.”
You can view the article videos and more at this link courtesy of Forbes.com
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