Don’t let all the suits and ties fool you. Almost everyone at Year Up has faced almost unimaginable hardship in getting here. Poverty, drugs, foster care, men’s and women’s shelters””you name it.
Gerald Chertavian: We are going into a professional skills course.
This all out corporate training blitz is the brainchild of Gerald Chertavian — a Wall Street veteran who believes that he’s discovered an untapped source of talent among the poorest in the country.
Gerald Chertavian: A majority of the young adults growing up in isolated poverty, in our inner cities, want opportunity, want to be challenged, want to be held to higher expectations, and are motivated to actually get a good job. They haven’t had any exposure as to how do you do that.