Wiser With Age

Tag: careers

  • Non-profit visionary starts consulting company in her 60s

    Non-profit visionary starts consulting company in her 60s

    Luz Rodriguez (Photo/ Azizi Curtis, CTA Productions)

    Luz Rodriguez was born to Puerto Rican parents who migrated to NYC in the 1950’s. When she was a young girl growing up in the Lower East Side of New York City, she remembers being taken aback while watching the movie, “Oliver,” and learning that there were children in the world without a home. It became ever present on her mind that once she grew up, she’d take care of all the orphans who were discarded or abandoned by their parents.

    Rodriguez, now 63, didn’t become an owner of an orphanage as she once imagined. Instead, she uses her compassionate heart in another way. After decades of managing different aspects of a variety of non-profits, she earned an M.S. in non-profit leadership from Fordham University and began her own consulting company based in Sussex, NJ. Visionary Allies LLC helps founders of non-profits in all aspects of fundraising and grant writing. She is now a leadership coach and mentor to many social change agents around the world.

    In addition to leading her own company, and grant writing for artists, Rodriguez is a regular faculty member and course developer at the Artist as Entrepreneur Institute in Broward County, and an adjunct professor at Alfred University, where she teaches a graduate course on program development and grantsmanship. She says she also is currently immersed in editing an anthology on “Birth Justice: Funding Equity in Maternal and Infant Health,” explaining the disparities of maternal and infant health among women in marginalized communities.

    Today, Rodriguez will be honored for her many years of community service at the 2019 Latina 50 Plus Luncheon, (founded by Maria Aponte) which honors Latina elders who are pioneers in their respective fields. Here is a Q & A we recently had with her:

    Who were your most influential role models growing up?

    My role models were youth counselors who looked after kids on the streets and gave them (and me) a haven from our rough neighborhoods, by providing avenues to make art, learn about our culture, do community service and other fun stuff. By the time I was a teen, youth counselors were yet another example of how I could look after abandoned youth.

    Out of all the non-profits you’ve played a role in developing, is there one that is closest to your heart? 

    As a parent of two biological sons, a stepson, two foster daughters, and eight grandchildren, it’s impossible to choose a favorite, among your children. The same goes for the several non-profits that I helped “birth,” sort of like a midwife. Likewise, there are non-profits that played a pivotal role in my own personal and professional development. So it’s impossible to choose one. I would be remiss however if I failed to acknowledge the non-profits that were key to my development in my youth, and beyond, namely CHARAS/El Bohio, Henry Street Settlement and Outward Bound.

    What is a typical day for you like these days?

    Well, for the past few days, I’ve been leading all-day workshops, facilitating “courageous conversations” on race equity for a prominently white environmental organization, where the 10 percent of people of color on staff have expressed experiences of being de-valued, invalidated, mistreated and more…I typically am coaching leaders of non-profits through challenging organizational management, strategic planning, or emerging founders of new non-profit start-ups helping them create sound strategies to achieve their visionary missions. I started my private consulting practice in 2017, Visionary Allies LLC, to serve social justice organizations and individuals with strategic supports, mentoring and coaching.

    In my personal life, I am a wife of a husband who is living with Alzheimer’s and a co-parenting guardian of my young grandson with autism, after several years of caring for both of them full-time.

    What gave you the idea to start Visionary Allies LLC, and what is the goal you want to achieve with it?

    During the past 15 years or so, fundraising and capacity building as a non-profit specialist at the Foundation Center where I mentored hundreds of non-profit professionals and emerging social change agents with their visions of social change, I considered myself an “ally” to visionaries and they often referred to me as a “visionary” for the manner in which I helped them learn skills and gain knowledge of how to build their organizations. When caretaking for my family members took its toll, and I could no longer manage working 9 to 5 with Alzheimer’s and autism under one roof, I decided to take a leap of faith and work from home as a non-profit consultant. Thus Visionary Allies was born. 

    My goal for Visionary Allies is to build a network of collaborating, visionary consultants who would join forces and help leaders on the front lines of devastating inequities in marginalized communities of color, as well as help indigenous people who are still struggling to secure their universal human rights.

    If you had one most important piece of life advice that you could tell your 20-year-old self with the wisdom you have now, what would it be?

    I suppose it would be to value yourself more, and have faith in yourself to go it alone if those around you don’t see your brilliance and light. Too many precious years wasted looking for love and validation in all the wrong places and people, while all along I possessed within myself all I needed and longed for to live a fulfilled life.

  • For a former attorney, now young adult author, representation is key

    For a former attorney, now young adult author, representation is key

     

    Author Francisco Stork (Courtesy Francisco Stork)

    Francisco Stork’s youth was so compelling that it makes for a great novel.

    He was born in Monterrey, Mexico in 1953 to a single mother from a middle class family in Tampico (a city on the Gulf of Mexico). She was sent to live in a convent in Monterrey, because her father did not want anyone to know that she was going to have a child out of wedlock.

    Six years later, his mother married a retired man more twenty years her senior, named Charles Stork, and he adopted Francisco and gave him his last name. After some time, Charles decided to bring the family to the United States for more opportunities. The three of them moved to El Paso, Texas when Francisco was nine. When Francisco was 13, Charles died in an automobile accident, and Francisco and his mom moved to the public housing projects of El Paso. Because of Francisco’s phenomenal grades, he was able to obtain scholarships to attend prestigious schools such as, Harvard and later Columbia Law School, which would change the direction of his life.

    It was not until his late 40’s, while working full-time as an attorney, that Stork wrote his first fiction novel for adults. By the time he was working on his second book, his two children were teenagers, so he started reaching back into the riveting memories of his youth and wrote them down. Today, he’s a young adult fiction author of seven novels. His last book, “Disappeared,” hit shelves this fall.

    “I like writing about young people,” says the author, now 64, who lives in a town outside Wellesley, Mass. There are a lot of important decisions that are made at that age.”

    For his first young adult book, “Behind the Eyes” (2006), he wanted to share his experiences growing up in El Paso and living in the projects.

    “My kids had a very comfortable life,” says Stork. “I told the story of a young man in El Paso who gets in trouble with gangs. He was smart just like I was but was afraid to show he was smart.”

    This plot parallels his own life.

    “When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a writer, because I loved to read,” says Stork. “In high school, I started keeping a journal. I started enjoying being alone and writing things.”

    He says writing about personal situations became a habit for him that continued with him through graduate school and has lasted his entire life.

    “I was always guided by things to help me become a writer,” says Stork, adding that writing also provided a sense of self-acceptance for him. “You feel like your self-worth is validated.”

    Although, Stork’s first love and passion has always been writing, when he was studying Latin American literature at Harvard, he later decided to pursue a career in real estate law.

    “I didn’t see any relevance to some of the topics I was asked to write about it,” says Stork about his time at Harvard. “I thought maybe if I did something more practical to make a living, I could write on the side.”

    However, little did he know how time consuming the law profession would be. It was 25 years later that he was finally able to write.

    “Eventually, I found my way to the public sector, and the last 15 years I worked in affordable housing,” says Stork. “It was a job that was 9 to 5, and I had some time to write. It was challenging, but it was doing that job that I was able to write most of my books – almost all, except the last, were written when I was a lawyer.”

    He say a lot of the stories were in him for a long time like little seeds, and then somehow they eventually blossomed.

    “Usually the character comes first, and then I imagine a person growing inside of me,” explains Stork.

    In his book, “The Memory of Light” (2016), he wrote about a teenage girl recovering from depression after a suicide attempt. This is also a topic close to the author’s heart.

    “Depression started when I was a teenager, and it continued through my life,” says Stork. “Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder…In this book, I wanted to focus on the recovery aspect – that hasn’t been covered too much – the day to day to getting better. I poured into that book all of my experiences – it took me four years. It had to be hopeful so that if it fell into the hands of a young person with depression, it would turn them in the right direction.”

    What helped him recover?

    “I had my family, my wife and my kids – I really didn’t have an option to be out of commission – they depended on me,” says Stork. “A lot of what helped me was trying to understand that it was an illness. When you have thoughts of not being worthy – [I now understand] that’s from the illness.”

    For Stork, representation is also very important.

    “All my characters are Mexican-American – first or second generation,” he says. “Some are poor, some are smart, some have struggles – it’s really all over the spectrum. Hopefully I’m showing that these are human beings that happen to be Mexican – the race is not the focus, but an integral part…My hope is that the book becomes a space where young people see themselves reflected.”

    His latest novel, “Disappeared,” came right after the one about the girl with depression. The idea for it came during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign.

    “There were stories of Mexicans raping and killing young women, and I was sort of amazed at the number of people who kind of rallied behind this opposition to the undocumented immigrant, and the picture that was being painted of Mexicans,” says Stork. “I felt angry and wanted to do something with that anger… I wanted to show how complex the Mexican society was.”

    So Stork decided to write about a fictional brother and sister in Juarez, and the factual topic of femicide happening all over Mexico and Latin America –thousands of women and girls have gone missing, or been killed, for more than two decades.

    “As a writer, the most important thing is that you enable the reader to go into the world of the novel and become a part of it,” says Stork. “What would be great is that if the novel brings a greater understanding of the people that are sometimes hated. We don’t understand the world they come from. We don’t realize how technologically advanced Mexico is, for example…The disrespect of women that led to all these killings of women – these feelings are also in the U.S. – which we are seeing now.”

    He’s already thinking that his next book is going to talk about the same brother and sister, and their life now in the U.S.

    What would be the most important piece of life advice he’d like to give his younger self?

    “I would tell my younger self to concentrate on the enjoyment of the work itself. Don’t worry about the rewards – which may come or not come – just do your best. Do something that you enjoy, and something that is useful for others. Whatever happens after that is up to God and is in His hands…”

  • Bronx poet uses storytelling to educate others about their history

    Bronx poet uses storytelling to educate others about their history

    Bobby Gonzalez (Photo/George Malave)

    Bobby Gonzalez has had practically every job you could think of — from a medical records clerk in a hospital to customer service at a utility company. However, he says it was at age 40 that he discovered his life’s calling and passion – storytelling. His favorite topic is his Puerto Rican and Taino heritage, which in turn, challenges his listeners to get curious about their own roots.

    Ever since that moment of enlightenment, storytelling is what Gonzalez devotes his life to. At 65, he still resides in his native Bronx, NY, with his wife Maria, but sometimes he doesn’t even know where he’ll end up the next day giving a workshop or lecture. So far, he’s spoken in 42 states — in the past two weeks alone, he’s been at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Davidson College in North Carolina speaking about the racial and cultural diversity of Latinos. Next week, he’ll host his monthly spoken word event in Queens, NY.

    “When people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I say, I’m an educator through lectures and poetry,” says Gonzalez, who has also authored two books, “The Last Puerto Rican,” and “Taino Zen.”  “I don’t know what’s going to happen the next minute. Occasionally, I get a phone call asking me, ‘Can you do this?’ and I do it. I’m not afraid to fail.”

    His second favorite job in life, he says, was working at his family’s bodega, which they owned for more than 30 years.

    “That’s where I really polished my speaking skills, and I heard a lot of great stories,” says Gonzalez, about the place which birthed his purpose. “It was quite an experience.”

    He says his parents also played an important role.

    “We were very fortunate, my brothers and I, to have had two Puerto Rican parents who always made the point to tell us where we came from and instilled in us a great pride of who we were,” says Gonzalez. “That inspired me to embark on a lifetime of personal research. I got my information from books and oral traditions – here and in Puerto Rico. When I was a little boy, my parents would take me to Puerto Rico, and I would sit at the feet of my great grandfather. He would tell me the stories of the old days, and I would roll my eyes, but I wish I listened more carefully.”

    Gonzalez can see clearly now that his ancestors grew up in a different world, and that gives him the incentive to tell their stories. One story in particular which has marked him is one of his mother’s arrival to New York from Puerto Rico via a train from Miami in the 1940’s.

    “She was very light-skinned, and when she got to Miami, the conductor told my dark-skinned grandmother to sit in another car,” recalls Gonzalez. “I have to remind young people they take a lot for granted – even the right to vote.”

    Gonzalez remembers the exact date he began documenting his family roots by writing poetry.

    “It was February 9, 1964,” he says without hesitation. “The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the day after, millions of kids around the world bought their own guitars and started to write their own music.”

    Storytelling came very naturally to him, he further explains.

    “Every day, I would go to the library, get some books, and then go down my block and tell stories,” says Gonzalez, who still has the same almost involuntary instinct years later. “I spend a lot of time in the Manhattan and the Bronx libraries,” where he sometimes also hosts spoken word nights for teens.

    He says one of his biggest career challenges also took place in a library while he was telling stories of his ancestors, the Taino people, who are an indigenous people of the Caribbean.

    “Once I was speaking in a library in Queens, and a man told me, ‘There are no Tainos left. I don’t know why you’re doing this.’ At the end, he came up to me and said, ‘I’m proud to be a Taino.’ I was taught by my parents never to say ‘You are wrong.’ We were all raised differently, so it’s important to dialogue in a civilized manner. We are all one.”

    Gonzalez says he used this parental wisdom when speaking at the University of Mississippi last year, as well.

    “We can’t have the same perspectives, and that’s okay, as long we listen to each other with respect,” he adds. “I meet students from Latin countries, and they don’t know about their indigenous heritage, and people who lived here their whole life don’t know American history. My favorite moment is always when people say, ‘I didn’t know that.’”

    Education is primordial for Gonzalez, even though his father only finished 2nd grade and his mom, 6th grade. He admits he never finished his bachelor’s degree in marketing, but he believes through his natural curiosity, he has learned so much more by devouring books on his own. And now he loves to share that knowledge with kids as young as pre-k, all the way to seniors.

    “I don’t have the sense of fear,” says Gonzalez about what has helped him the most in life. “The times now are nothing compared to what my parents went through. Police brutality was a lot more common back then, there were no bilingual services, and immigrant groups lived in one neighborhood. My brothers, and I went to college. We didn’t finish, but we did it, because my parents sacrificed for us.”

    What is the one piece of life advice he wishes he could tell his younger self today?

    “It gets better every day if you make the conscious effort to improve yourself passionately and persistently.” 

  • Inventor auditions for “Shark Tank” soon after heart transplant

    Inventor auditions for “Shark Tank” soon after heart transplant

    Steve Albin auditioning for "Shark Tank" on May 20, 2016.
    Steve Albin auditioning for “Shark Tank” on May 20, 2016.

    Steve Albin grew up in the Santa Clara Valley prune orchards in northern California and has lived in nearby Los Altos his entire life. He has always appreciated the little things of his everyday life, and even more so now.

    Towards the end of his successful 42-year career as the owner of a custom picture frame shop, his health started to deteriorate, and he mysteriously started losing his muscle strength.

    “I’d been going downhill for three years,” says Albin, 73. “I was getting weaker and weaker…I couldn’t walk from the garage to the mailbox. We were going to doctors, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. My cardiologist told me I might have a disease called amyloidosis. The only testing that’s done is a biopsy of the heart, and most insurances don’t pay for it, but I was diagnosed and was told I needed to get a heart transplant.”

    So, a year and a half ago, Albin went on a waiting list for a new heart. Fortunately, he had to wait only about six months for a heart transplant, and he’s now seven months out of recovery.

    “I feel fantastic now,” says Albin. “I’m right back on my program – inventing.”

    The grandfather of seven spends much of his time now as an inventor – an occupation which stemmed from his past experiences.

    Albin is proud of the myriad jobs he has had since graduating high school – from working in a lumber yard to asphalt work, to bakeries and a paint store.

    “It’s good to have all sorts of jobs, because then you know what you don’t want to do in life,” explains Albin. “The paint store had custom picture framing, and I fell in love. It was an occupational instant love. I looked at it like I had at least 25 jobs, and this is one I really enjoy…When you find what you love, you’re very fortunate. Sometimes they don’t pay as well, but you love it.”

    The owner of the paint store sent  the young Albin to an old framing master who taught him all the various techniques for picture framing. For one year, he’d split his time between working at the paint shop and as a student. Six years later, in 1970, Albin was able to open his own shop, Steve Albin Picture Framing, in a local shopping center.

    What he enjoyed most about his profession, he says, was the fine art of mounting on different types of papers so the artwork lasts a lifetime, as well as showing affection towards his customers.

    “It’s just a wonderful thing to give wonderful service and make someone happy and comfortable. It’s a good feeling,” says Albin. “It’s so wonderful having an occupation where you can give of your heart and of yourself…When you have a one man shop, customers tend to tell you all sorts of things. You just listen to their opinion. That’s the sign of a true professional – make your customer feel comfortable. Give your best service, that’s your job.”

    According to Albin, anybody can put a frame together, and anyone can cut a mat, but the most important aspect of his craft is the design – putting it all together and the mounting.

    “You have to know what you’re doing,” he says. “No matter what, it’s priceless to the customer.”

    Albin took his craft so seriously that he was one of the founding members of the Professional Picture Framers Association.

    “I was appointed the first convention chairman,” says Albin. “It exists today, and I traveled around the U.S. teaching framing, matting, and various different classes.”

    During his time traveling to different trade shows with the Association, Albin says he would see different  products in the framing business, and he would tell people how to improve their product, and they did.

    “As my kids started to go to college, and I needed extra money, I started thinking of my own products such as, Easle Mate and Frame Connector,” says Albin. “In total, I had about eight products that I had patented and manufactured.”

    Albin says he started Albin Products 15 to 20 years ago while he had the frame shop. One company ended up buy all eight of his inventions – which are now sold in Michael’s stores across the U.S., and stores worldwide.

    Earlier this month, Albin was one of about 450 to pitch his latest invention – the Handy Clamp – to the ABC television series, “Shark Tank.”

    “You can use the Handy Clamp when you want to glue something with your finger and thumb…you tighten the clamp so you don’t have to hold the object. You can clamp it to the table,” explains Albin. “The audition was absolutely wonderful…It was very exciting!”

    He explains further that everyone gets one to three minutes at a time to pitch their idea to the judges.

    “One of them said they’d seen everything, and when I showed him the clamp, he said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this!,” recalls Albin excitedly. “We have to wait two weeks to see if I made it for the next round.”

    He says what makes an invention successful is that you have to make something that is not out there.

    “You don’t want to compete with a better looking screwdriver,” says Albin.” You have to have a new kind of clamp where if someone sees it, they say, ‘I need that clamp.’ When something is new and hot, you get people from all over the world wanting orders.”

    What’s the most important life advice that he would like to leave us with?

    “Make sure you marry someone who is better than you are,” says Albin who just celebrated his 52nd wedding anniversary this month. “The key to everything is finding the right wife for you – success for business, family…

    Your wife is the most important thing you can have. She’s your partner in everything – in advice, in business, in sickness and health – everything…We got married when she was 18, and I was 20…Happy marriage is staying true to your wife. You cannot drift off. You have to stay true to your vows no matter what it takes…I feel very blessed.”

  • Career coach and TEDx Talk speaker says to reinvent and believe in yourself

    Career coach and TEDx Talk speaker says to reinvent and believe in yourself

    Boomer reinvention coach, John Tarnoff (Photo/Travis Price)
    Boomer reinvention coach, John Tarnoff (Photo/Travis Price)

    For the majority of his life, John Tarnoff says he “was all over the place.” Growing up in New York, he thought he wanted to be an architect, a journalist, a lawyer, until one summer he ended up working as a production assistant after his freshman year at Amherst College, and it captured his imagination.

    In the 1990’s, he worked as a film studio executive and producer for MGM, Columbia, New Line and Warner Bros. He then transitioned to technology. Tarnoff co-founded a startup which used computer animation to make online avatars for customer service applications for clients such as Sprint.

    “Coming out of that, I hit a wall – that’s where the reinvention comes in,” says Tarnoff.

    Reinvention has been part of his brand ever since then. During the unstable economic times of the early 2000’s, Tarnoff decided to go back to school for a masters in spiritual psychology. He was 50.

    Today, at 63, he is a professional development coach, a graduate professor at Carnegie Mellon, and in the process of writing a book called ‘Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career After 50,” coming out in 2016. He is also a speaker about issues facing generations and has more than 24K Twitter followers.

    Tarnoff, who ended up dropping out of grad school, because he was eager to work, highly recommends going to school later in life.

    “Older generations sometimes feel like they are too old, but it was better than going to school at 20,” says the coach and educator. “You are doing it for the right reasons. You are going because you know exactly what it is you want to do.”

    Why did he decide to study spiritual psychology?

    “Because you learn to find the answers inside you,” he says. “It’s an approach of psychology that stresses personal responsibility and getting out of the blame game. I think we all need to get help and support, but the primary motivator in any direction in our personal life and careers needs to start deeply inside ourselves. What is it that we can do to make a difference?”

    Tarnoff jokingly said in his 2012 TEDx Talk, that he’s had 18 jobs over 38 years – moving around every 2.1 years (from film production to education), and he’s been fired 39 percent of the time. But none of that time has been a waste. He says each of his jobs has only gotten better.

    “My favorite job is the one I’m doing right now…I live a pretty virtual life,” says Tarnoff, about his typical day at his home base in Los Angeles. “I just got back from Atlanta speaking about how the world has changed since just 20 years ago. I’m back and forth from my home office and Carnegie Mellon office, always looking for places to write.”

    He says writing his book and engaging with his students is really inspiring him right now.

    “I love engaging with them each year with the launching of their careers in the entertainment business,” says Tarnoff. “They have so much energy and so much to offer. Then, I also work with people who are 30 to 40 years older. They’re at a stage which used to be the end of their career. Today, things are different. Not only are there economic differences, but spiritual issues – they are wanting to continue to live fulfilling lives and being engaged in the economy and society. I think for my generation, the idea of retiring and separating yourself is largely over. Even for people who have saved enough money, they don’t want to slow down or stop. You’re seeing more of these people engaged in encore careers and social entrepreneurship. I think that’s fantastic!”

    He says one of the most common challenges his clients face is figuring out what they want, or should be, doing next.

    “Many times, we figure out there are many things we are going to do and life is an evolution,” says Tarnoff. “I think this is particularly true for millennials. Businesses are changing too fast…Now the problem is how figuring out how can we contribute – how can we help someone out, help solve a problem? We can figure out what we’re good at by trying to help others out. I tell my grad students, all you have to offer is your willingness to learn and willingness to serve. Having a service mentality will lead you to discover what it is you’re good at.”

    What is one piece of important life advice that you would give your younger self with the wisdom you have now?

    “Believe in yourself more. Particularly in those moments that you really want to just give up. In your deepest darkest moment, that’s when you have to double down and believe in yourself and take the leap of faith. ‘Leap and the net will appear,’” says Tarnoff. “I think young people are thinking, ‘I can’t do that. What if I make a mistake?’ You should be making mistakes regularly. Fail often, and fail big. When you’re older, you can still make mistakes and recover well. Life is all about lessons.”