Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. And now it is time for this morning's Flashback, and as I mentioned in this morning's lineup our topic is exposing entrepreneurship and a strong work ethic experience to those that are less fortunate and often unemployable. And for our Flashback we are going to roll back to our discussions with the founder and former executive director of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, that's Catherine Rohr. In fact this is going to be kicked off with my visit to the Hamilton Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice when I was at the organizations selling night. It's a real cool experience where you get to see the progress that these prisoners are starting to make. And these are prisoners who qualified for the program and are nearing their release from prison. The P.E.P., as it's called, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, is an excellent program focused on preparing them for the real world. We enter the discussion when I had asked Catherine Rohr, founder and former executive director, to tell us about the program.
Catherine: The Prison Entrepreneurship Program is a non-profit organization that provides value spaced entrepreneurship training programs for inmates at the Hamilton Unit. The thesis behind this program is that many of these guys are already proven entrepreneurs when they come to The Prison Entrepreneurship Program. They have been very successful drug dealers and gang leaders and they’ve run large enterprises. So we are taking existing entrepreneurs and helping them to transition their skillsets to legitimate ventures.
Russ: Wow. Taking existing entrepreneurs and helping them transition their skills to legitimate ventures. That’s a cool concept. Okay, next I asked Catherine to tell us about Selling Night. Now keep in mind I’m there with her at the prison.
Catherine: Selling Night is an opportunity for our inmate participants to present their business ideas to the business community. They’re gonna be giving two minute sales pitches. The executives who are coming – we are expecting about 30 guests tonight – they’re executives from all over Texas and also MBA students who participate in the program representing six different MBA programs and the inmates will be giving these two minute pitches to the executives who sit on panels and represent potential customers for their businesses.
Russ: Selling Night is the first time that this class of prisoners presents to outsiders and that’s the business executives and MBA students that Catherine manages to recruit in to the initiative. The course lasts several months and believe me, it’s tough to make it through. I asked Catherine to tell us about the toughest part.
Catherine: The process culminates in a two-day business plan competition when we have CEOs of companies and venture capitalists who fly out from all over the country to participate as judges for their final business plan presentations. Those are formal investment presentations as opposed to sales pitches.
Russ: Catherine then gathered a group of seven PEP students to answer a few questions about the program and about themselves. These are prisoners who are going to be released in the not-to-distant future. So first, we just wanted to get a picture of what type of prisoners had been accepted in the program. So with these seven, we passed around the microphone and asked each of them how long they had been in prison.
Male: Eleven years. Eight years my first incarceration and about two years this incarceration.
Male: I’ve done seven years.
Male: Seventeen years over.
Male: Three and a half years.
Male: Fifteen years.
Male: Fourteen years, nine months.
Male: Twenty years, a three and a half years and a two and a half.
Russ: Next, with the same seven prisoners, we asked what crime they had committed to end up here in prison.
Male: Murder.
Male: Possession of a controlled substance with intent to delivery.
Male: Murder.
Male: Aggravated robbery and aggravated assault.
Male: Delivery LSD.
Male: Murder.
Male: Attempted burglary of a habitation.
Russ: I could sense that the program meant so much to these guys. I mean it was clear that they were passionate about it and it is a driving force in their lives and they really feel privileged that they’d been able to participate in it. So in this same group setting, Catherine asked them to tell me what the program means to them.
Male: PEP, to me, has been a life-changing experience that has allowed me to embrace the change that is taking place inside of me and allowed me to move forward in my change and it’s bringing out the businessman in me. It’s showing the entrepreneur skills that I have had and it’s allowing me to apply them to something positive.
Male: PEP just isn’t a business class. It’s about being a good person again. Teaching you that we’re not just the bottom of the barrel; that we are human beings. We do deserve a second chance and just how to be a good person again. How to like yourself again. That’s what I’m here for.
Male: PEP to me is a values-based class. I mean it teaches self-discipline and helps build our self-esteem to where when we get back into society we’ll be able to go about our daily life, kinda keep our head up and have good values and discipline about ourselves so when we re-enter into society, we’ll be positive and focused on goals that we can achieve and we know we can achieve by the values installed to us by Ms. Rohr.
Male: PEP is a answer from God. It’s a second chance where someone ain’t never had a second chance, where someone believes in you.
Russ: Okay and that wraps up our discussion with this real cool program, the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. And that concludes this mornings BusinessMakers Flashback. Stay tuned in for our featured guest segment when I interview Larry Keast, founder and CEO of Venture Tech and Founder and CEO of America in Recovery. You're listening to the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.
