Today’s guest was Elsch Maisoh Jr, Project Engineer, Gilbane Building Company,

Providence, RI.  Gilbane is a family-owned, national construction and real estate development company. Forbes Magazine ranked Gilbane as the 108th largest privately held company in the United States in 2006 with estimated revenues of $2.83 billion.

Today’s Life Skills class host was Felicia Dickerson.

Felicia (center) welcomes Elsch (right) to Hope High Life Skills. Jean Louis Jimps (left), Hope High super guidance counselor, joined Felicia’s introduction today out side the Life Skills classroom.

Felicia introduces Elsch to her classmates to start today’s program. Great job, Felicia!

Deyreni Ferreras leads the class to welcome Elsch following Felicia’s introduction. Yael Torres is quick to follow Deyreni

Elsch’s story began with two questions –  what is engineering?   what is the profile of a typical engineer?  The class responded impressively.  “There are a wide variety of engineers today from computer technology to construction and many in between” said Yael Torres.   The class consensus was

engineers need to be creative, good in math, conscientious and ethical.

And, they are gender neutral;  i.e. both male and female engineers.

Elsch begins his story.

Elsch shared his personal story.  “My parents were hard working Haitian immigrants.  They instilled the importance of education in me and my siblings” he said. “While my elementary schooling was successful, middle school was a disaster.  I went to the Met and things got better.  I was fortunate to have a few internships and

Today’s guest was Yahaira “Jay” Placencia, a Senior Vice President at Bank of America

in the Bank of America Wealth Management division.  In 2016, Forbes Magazine listed Bank of America (BOA) as the eleventh largest company in the world with its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.  BOA serves clients all over the world.   The National Football League team, Carolina Panthers, plays its home games in the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Today’s host was Ingris Izaguirre Maradiaga.

Ingris welcomes “Jay” outside of the Life Skills class prior to the start of class.

Jay said “Ingris made me feel welcome; she made me relax before going into the classroom to meet her classmates“. A perfect host!

Ingris escorts Jay into the Life Skills classroom

Ingris introduces Jay to her Life Skills classmates

Imani Turner welcomes Jay to class following Ingris’ introduction as other students waited to do the same. “I was very impressed with how professional the students’ greetings were. Firm handshakes and good eye contact. Impressive!“Jay commented.

Jay began her story by explaining what a person does working in the “banking” industry.   Like many large companies, there are a wide variety of jobs at a large company like BOA.  From tellers and managers of neighborhood BOA banks to computer programmers in the Informational Technology (IT) departments, Bank of America has approximately 208,000 employees.

“I work in the wealth management division” 

Jay begins to share her banking story with the Life Skills class.

Jay said.  “This simply means when a person gives the bank a certain amount of money to invest,  my responsibility is increase the value of this money each year over time.  For example,

if someone gave BOA $100,000 to initially invest, my responsibility is to increase the $100,000 to $105,000 the next year and to $110,000 or more the following year

Today’s guest was Neil Amper, Vice-President at Capstone Properties,

a commercial real estate company.   Commercial real estate companies buy, sell and lease (rent) factory buildings, apartment complexes, and other company buildings.

There was no class host today.  Rather, there was a test

to start the class.  Neil arrived early to Hope High School and went directly to our Life Skills classroom.  After Neil chose a desk to sit, I simply observed how Life Skills students would react to a guest already seated in the classroom.  The result of today’s test was impressive.  Almost every student, upon entering the classroom, approached Neil, extended a handshake and a “welcome to Hope High School”.

When Ingris Izaguirre Maradiaga (back to the camera) entered the classroom and saw today’s guest, Neil Amper, sitting in one of the classroom chairs, she immediately approached Neil to welcome him to Hope Life Skills. By looking at Neil’s face, one can easily determine Ingris’ welcome was effective. Good job, Ingris! You represented us well today.

Neil’s story was both astonishing and inspirational.

“I grew up in a very privileged family.

My father started what eventually became a $500,000,000 (million) scrap metal company in Pennsylvania.  We lived in a huge house with live-in servants.  My father owned his own plane.  We never wanted for anything.  After I graduated from college, I managed one of my father’s facilities in Rhode Island.  I was making a lot of money. 

At the age of 28, I was worth $10,000,000 (million).  

1.  Write your job resume.  Don’t worry about how good it is.  When I lost my job last year, I had to write a resume.  I sent it to Nan for her review.  It took three or four attempts before I created a resume that Nan believed properly presented my skills, talents and experience that would illustrate the value I could bring to a new company.   Writing a good resume is a process;  it takes time.  And, it’s worth the effort.  You will all eventually need a resume to present when you apply for an internship, job, after school organization and even for a work study job at a college.    Please print your resume and hand it to me at our next class.    I look forward to reading your resume and giving you the constructive criticism to create the resume that will get you the job or internship you want.

To remind you of the format Nan described today, here is my resume as a reference.

Stephen Cronin                                                                                                                                   401-374-7603

15 Andrew Court                                                                                                               stevecronin1949@gmail.com

Swansea, Massachusetts 02777

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Executive Summary

Today’s guest was Nan Quinlan,

consultant and the former Training and Development Manager at TACO Inc, a multi-million dollar, international company in Cranston, Rhode Island.  Nan is an expert on resume writing and job interviewing skills.   Nan visits the Hope Life Skills class multiple times each year.   Nan previously visited our class on December 9, 2o16 for a presentation on job interviewing skills and techniques.

There was no class host today

since Nan is a previous Hope Life Skills guest.  What was

refreshing to observe was the number of students who greeted Nan, unprompted, as they entered the classroom.

Yael Torres welcomes Nan back to the Hope Life Skills class prior to the beginning of today’s class.

Today’s Hope Life Skills class guest was Derek Viveiros, the Athletic Director at  Bristol Community College.

The Life Skills class host was Yael Torres.

Yael Torres (left) welcomes Derek Viveiros to Hope High School before the start of the Hope Life Skills class

Yael introduces Derek Viveiros to his Hope Life Skills classmates to start the day’s class.

Hope Life Skills students welcome Derek to their class following Yael’s introduction.

Derek begins his story of success

“Becoming successful,

finding a job that we look forward to every day, doesn’t happen quickly or easily”