Paul Cashen, Managing Director, Per Scholas

WHAT WE DO:

“At Per Scholas, we position the underprivileged, the disadvantaged and unemployed for a new career in information technology. At any given time, there are 1800-2000 open positions in Greater Cincinnati without the supply to fill them. Our core curriculum is “A+ Certification,” 8 weeks of training and an independent exam to get an industry-wide certification from CompTIA. About 85% of our students graduate the course, 85% get the certification and about 85% get new careers.

This year, we’ve ventured into a new track called QA Software Testing - something that for the last 15 to 20 years, had only been done overseas because it wasn’t economically feasible to do it here. Because of all the time zone changes and language barriers to deal with, most companies would prefer to do it on-shore and Per Scholas is now addressing that interest.”

[History: “Per Scholas is a 20-plus year old organization that started in the Bronx in New York. Ironically, it was co-founded by a Cincinnatian, a serial-technical-entrepreneur, who couldn’t find the philanthropy in Cincinnati at the time for what he wanted to do. It’s a non-profit endeavor that operated in the Bronx successfully for 15 years providing workforce development programs. Around 2010, an independent research study acknowledged that the program was working and should be replicated. This caught the attention of the US Department of Labor, the White House and other for-profit enterprises and money came forth to replicate the program around the country. The metrics continue to replicate themselves, the success story continues and another double-blind research study, completed in the last few months bears out that Per Scholas is extremely successful.”]

How do you align IT with business strategy? 

“Per Scholas is market-driven. We are constantly talking with our partners about their specific IT needs and what we may need to change in our training so that our graduates can gain a positon with them.”