Darrell Jobe had a rough start in life. Raised in Richmond, California, Jobe dropped out of school in eighth grade, joined a gang, and was in and out of juvenile detention as a teenager. At age 14 he was incarcerated for stealing cars, he says, and later did time for possession of a stolen gun. By 23, he promised himself that he would turn his life around and be a better father to his kids than his absentee dad had been for him.
“I remember my gang days, and being in shootouts, and in and out of juvenile hall,” he says. “This is who you are, but you don’t want to be this person.”
Companies are generally loath to hire former prisoners and gang members, and Jobe struggled to find a job. Eventually, he made his way to the packaging industry, helped by the father of a friend, a willingness to take a lengthy personality test, and his own persistence. Then, in 2015, Jobe, now 39, founded his own business, Vericool, to make sustainable, environmentally friendly packaging that can replace Styrofoam and other expanded polystyrene foam packaging for shipments that need to stay cool.
[For more on this story by Amy Feldman, go to https://www.forbes.com/sites/a...that-hires-ex-cons/?]
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