Young people get a leg up with Year Up

Program features a new approach to corporate training

Peter Satchell says of Year Up: ''We're all in the same situation where we're trying to better ourselves.'' (WIQAN ANG FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

Two and a half years ago, Greg Walton was working at Stop & Shop, the latest in a series of low-paying dead-end jobs. After struggling academically, he had left Salem State College with loans to repay but no degree, little confidence, and few options.

That's when Walton's high school guidance counselor told him about Year Up, a free job-training program that sounded too good to be true: six months of classes and a six-month apprenticeship working for a corporation in information technology or finance, all while earning college credit and a stipend.

"I honestly, seriously didn't think it was for real," says Walton, who was raised by his aunt and uncle in Dorchester. But he had nothing to lose, and signed up for the program on the off chance that it could deliver on its promise to open doors.

He graduated from Year Up in January 2007, and now, at 23, earns more than $40,000 working for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, making sure the university's computers and networks run smoothly. "I was really in a funk, and Year Up transformed me," says Walton, who served his apprenticeship at a venture capital start-up. "Before, I didn't feel like I had options. . . . Breaking into the corporate world as an African-American, and especially an urban African-Amer ican at a young age, is pretty difficult."

There are more than 4.3 million "disconnected" youths like Walton in America, according to an estimate by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and job-training programs for them are nothing new. But Boston-based Year Up has set itself apart with an impressive record of success - more than 85 percent of its alumni land a job that pays better than $35,000 a year within four months of graduation, according to the organization. Nearly half also continue their postsecondary education.

Now the program that opened its doors here to 22 students in 2001 is growing fast, establishing itself in cities across the country with the aim of serving more than 800 students next year, and double that by 2011. Already, young adults ages 18 to 24 can sign up for the program in Providence, New York, and Washington, D.C. San Francisco welcomed its first class of Year Up students this semester, and an Atlanta office will open next year.

The goal, says founder Gerald Chertavian, is nothing less than to take the next step in the civil rights movement: close America's "opportunity divide" by giving talented, at-risk young people tools to get out of the minimum-wage rut, support themselves, and pay for further education.

"This is an issue of social justice. It's an issue of economic justice," says the 43-year-old Lowell native and Harvard Business School graduate, who started Year Up after selling his London-based Internet consulting firm. "It's unacceptable that we live in a society where we see the divides growing larger rather than smaller and don't try to do something about it."

In Boston, more than half of Year Up's students are African-American, a quarter are Latino, and the rest are Asian and Caucasian. During their first six months, they learn basic computer skills and then focus on either investment operations or information technology - two of the skill sets in highest demand by corporate America, according to Year Up's research. The next six months are devoted to a full-time apprenticeship at a local business.

"Prior to Year Up, maybe you had high school on your resume, maybe a retail job or McDonald's," says Chertavian, now the organization's national chief executive officer. "After Year Up, you have an organization like Bank of America or State Street on your resume. . . . You're really in a different labor market."

In addition to technical skills, students learn how to behave in a professional workplace through a system of rewards and penalties. They start out with 200 points each week, which are directly tied to weekly stipends. Failure to dress in business attire, or to show up on time - even a minute late is counted tardy - results in lost points, which translates into lost paycheck dollars. Those who lose all 200 points "fire themselves" from the program.

"We strive to be the first program our students may have encountered that won't lower the bar for them because they're from a tough background," says Casey Recupero, the executive director of Year Up's Boston site.

That system seemed harsh at first, says Cliff Glezil, 23, a 2006 graduate who now staffs a help desk at a Brighton consulting firm. But it prepared him for real life. "When you go to work, you may get warned. You mess up continuously, you're not going to have a job anymore."

High expectations are matched by strong support from teachers, mentors, and a tight-knit peer group. Joining Year Up is a little like becoming part of a new family, students say, where - unlike college - you can't fall through the cracks without someone noticing.

"We're all in the same situation where we're trying to better ourselves," says Peter Satchell, 25, who works as a help desk apprentice at Leerink Swann & Company, a healthcare investment bank.

Year Up graduates - about three-quarters of those who begin the program - can expect to earn about $11,000 more each year than their counterparts with only a high school diploma, according to a 2003 study by researchers at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

Corporate partners, who help pay for the program along with private donations and government grants, appreciate the "soft" skills Year Up teaches, including e-mail etiquette, communicating with supervisors, and carrying oneself with confidence. They also say hiring pre-screened, well-trained interns from Year Up is not an act of charity.

"Everyone has budget constraints, and everybody is looking for talent," says Robert Kiely, who manages human resources for Leerink Swann. "It's a great deal for us - Year Up apprentices come in very well-trained in a lot of the newer technologies."

On a recent Monday morning, 21-year-old Chelsea resident Freddy Acebedo sat on a couch on the second floor of Year Up's Summer Street office, filling out an application for the program's next session. Right now he works for a catering company at the Boston Convention Center, Acebedo said, but he is eager for something better. "They said they give you a good opportunity here," he said, wearing baggy blue jeans and an oversize shirt that masked his ambitions.

Three floors above, about a dozen nattily dressed Year Up students gathered for lunch. Wearing suits and ties, skirts and heels, they say they notice how people look at them differently now.

"Even family treats you a little different," says Satchell. "A little more respect."

Boston is home to more than 600 Year Up alumni, a number that's growing, but still looks relatively small to Chertavian.

Even if Year Up is "wildly successful" and reaches 10,000 students a year, he says, that's still just a tiny fraction of those in need of help. He speaks in revolutionary terms about fixing the root causes of the opportunity divide: systematic failures that have left millions of young people stuck without the education they need to get decent jobs, and without the jobs they need to pay for education.

Such talk may sound idealistic, but Walton, the MIT employee, is proof that Year Up's investment in individuals can result in rippling, communitywide changes. Impressed by Chertavian's decision to leave business for service, Walton evaluated his own commitment to helping others, and found it lacking.

"You start to look at your life differently," he says, "and what you're doing for everybody else."

In April 2007, drawing from Chertavian's philosophy, Walton cofounded a community empowerment group with another Year Up graduate. The nonprofit, called MOVEMENT (Mission of Valor-Empowered Minds Establishing Neighborhood Triumph), aims to make positive changes in Boston's low-income neighborhoods by introducing teens to new tools and opportunities. The group gives workshops on networking and money management at local high schools, organized a job fair for young people at the Hyde Park YMCA in May, and now is planning its second Silence to Violence candlelight vigil to memorialize the city's homicide victims.

"It's got me to the bigger mindset of what I want to do with myself," Walton says. "Something like that - teaching young people, making a difference in someone else's life."

Emma Brown can be reached at e.strickland.brown@gmail.com.