Gerald Chertavian Quotes

When it comes to expanding opportunity, businesses and young adults are not the sources of the problem – they are a substantial part of the solution.

Year Up for me is a year in which the young adults that we serve have an opportunity to move up in their lives and gain the access and opportunity they need to realize their potential.

One can fall into the soft bigotry of low expectations.

You can learn what you want to learn through hard work. And a good employer will teach you what you want to learn as long as you show the right attitude and behaviors.

Many of our students say, ‘We wish we had a mentor in high school. We wish we had someone we could spend more time with, who paid more attention to us, who I could sit down with and talk to when I had a problem.’ So relationships are critical.

The ABCs are attitude, behavior and communication skills.

Mentors provide professional networks, outlets for frustration, college and career counseling, general life advice, and most importantly, an extra voice telling a student they are smart enough and capable enough to cross the stage at graduation and land their first paycheck from a career pathway job.

The best thing we can do for a young person is to expect a great deal from them.

I was taught very early on how you treat people is actually what matters.

Businesses are no longer receiving the cost savings from outsourcing that they once did.

I’ve never been afraid to make a polite ask to someone.

One can fall into the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations.’

When we think about the workplace, people think about hard skills being dominant, but they’re not. The employer realizes knowledge will shift quickly, and there’s a half-life to knowledge in this world.

It’s not always the case that doing what’s right is also doing what’s smart, but when it is, the question of ‘what to do’ should be pretty simple.

College today is an expensive option without a lot of economies of scale, right, when you go and live at a college. So you have a system that’s increasing its cost base by probably five percent a year.

At Year Up, we have helped thousands of students rise from poverty into a professional career in a single year.

Years ago, as I was beginning my professional career on Wall Street, I volunteered as a Big Brother in New York City.

Our young immigrants have a lot to offer. They are motivated and hard-working, and in many cases have already contributed significantly to our society – by excelling in school, by volunteering in their communities, or by serving in the military.

Many training programs and often schools focus on just a skill or a kind of work competency. That’s only half the equation.

The millennial generation and a growing number of employees are looking for more than just a paycheck. If a nonprofit could make that easy for me, they are doing me a favor. It’s not just a one-way value exchange; it is an internal morale building opportunity.