>> So I started, I entered into Washington and Jefferson college in 2004.
and I was an English and history major.
By 2008 as everybody knows the economy completely tanked and whatever opportunities
that were out there for an English and history major, before were quickly eliminated.
And therefore I was not really qualified to do anything.
And I know allot of people feel the same way.
So my first job was selling used cars in Philadelphia.
I was bill collecting, I was washing cars, I was actually doing just about everything
for a car dealership in south west Philly.
And there were guys that were better than me at my job, they were smarter,
they were doing things more effectively, oh and they didn't have
that fancy undergraduate degree that I had either.
Some of them were college dropouts, were not even college dropouts though.
Some of them were high school dropouts.
Some of them you know barely made it through one semester of school
and decided that it just wasn't for them.
That was a humbling experience and it didn't even stop there.
It wasn't like oh I took my year and got beat around and kind of molded.
I left and I wasn't a very good car salesman.
And I went and ran a kitchen at a Buffalo Wild Wings and my boss was 17.
I'm 23 years old, my boss is 17, I'm cooking chicken wings for a living,
and I'm not, I'm still degree up if you will.
And it didn't even stop there I was applying to graduate schools
because what I was experiencing was what I felt was interesting baseline American experience
that presented allot of opportunities, but allot of learning experiences.
And I knew still that my education was a way of getting above it,
if you will that's probably not even the best way of describing it.
But it was a way of not being a chicken wing cooker for the rest of my life.
And I started to realize that there are allot of people in our country that,
that's the reality every single day.
That there is no next step beyond that.
So how are we going to serve those people who are critical to the fabric of our society
and have a very particular set of needs.
You know when I was selling cars I understood the key inputs into a very,
very complex economic system that we call American capitalism.
I learned the hustle, I learned the way people get by with limited resources
from different classes and different backgrounds and different perspectives.
In many ways what I was doing for two and a half years before I entered graduate school
at Pitt was a formative experience that taught me way more than any sort of classroom.
And so when I entered into [inaudible] I was approaching public policy and community
and economic development and large scale macro issues
with a little bit of a different perspective.
Extremely valuable in that sense.
It made me a little like equal part cynical, idealistic, and pragmatic.
And I wouldn't have received any of that without having to humble myself before hand.
And by going at graduate school and the new ways of educating myself, to be able to draw
on those experiences and then to mold the curriculum
and the professional development opportunities that were allowed to me
at a very prestigious research University and Institution.
You know that was a really valuable combination.