okay so we're going to get started good evening everyone my name is Caitlyn Raymond and I am the chairperson of the T youth Advisory Board I want to thank you all for joining us here tonight I'm tonight my vice chair Kayla Bean secretary pin media specialist Olivia Basquez and Sergeant arms R CRA our Amazing adult advisor Shay Lewis K G Dwayne Harley Karen Jacobs Max Angel and emanel K Andy KH all of us along with our amazing members create the well oiled machine that is you this career day event is more than just a panel this young career day aims to provide our students with valuable insights into various career cfts industry Trends and skills necessary for success in the professional world today we will have our panelists share their and highlight their key aspects of their field how to get there and engage in meaningful dialogue with our students today we are joined by 13 panelists Dr Jason Bain Mr Andrew mgur Mr Teran Anderson Mr Stephanie Craig Mr Santa Palmer Mr James Brown Mr Mitchell Mr Carlos Elon Dr Anna Marson and missa Cruz Troy to our panelist thank you for your time and commitment into empowering our next generation of professionals tonight's program will continue as follows our panelists will stand up one by one and introduce themselves then they will go through again and and and discuss their career Journey then the floor will open up to questions so please hold all questions for the end once again thank you for being here panelist G good evening everybody thank you Kay for that Wonder introduction my name is Jason Baines and I'm an orthopedic surgeon that's hi good evening my name is Andrew mcer I'm the chief of police for the Senate Police Department this is my 30th year meeting with the police department hi there my name is Justa Cruz Troy but we're amongst friends you can call me Jesse um I am right now have my own consultancy so I am consultant I can't talk so um but I deal with Partnerships and hi everyone my name is Stephanie Craig Stephanie chetam Craig and I'm a senior supervisor with the FBI hello everyone my name is Shelina Palama I'm the special events manager for the nework of art good evening my name is Dames Brown and I'm a certified public Academy good evening my name is Kirk Mitchell and I'm an architectural design my name is culture comp attorne hello I am Dr Ena Mar obstetrician gu colist in P good even my name is T Anderson I'm a firefighter for fight Department I also own a boot camp gym angle as well and I'm a part-time DJ I've been a firefighter for 10 years there another so now our panelist will discuss where they grew up what high school they attended what your major in undergraduate studies was what made what made you decide to choose that major and how you landed your masters in political and how you landed your first job have about six minutes to all right so I'm J B as I said um and I'm an orthopedic surgeon in eng New Jersey I well my parents and my brother mov to T when I was 4 months and we first lived over by Amon park behind the Dairy Queen and then that was my first 10 years that we moved to the BG field Side by Brian School interestingly back then I went to almost every school I went to Brian school for first grade because kindergarten my mom was working in private school I went there for kindergarten first grade I went to Brian school he know the other side of town because they were trying to make the schools more diverse most of the black kids were at Brian school and most of the white kids were over on the other side of town but I was black but they Shi me over to gring school so I there were first grades then second grade I went to Long Fellow third grade I went to B doesn't even exist anymore I know what that is yeah third and fourth grade I went to Hawthorne and then we moved in fifth grade I went to Whiter and then I went to BF and then I came to T high school so K through2 was an event I met so many people I went to so many schools so allowed me to really get to know people have fun get to know all different types of cultures ethnicities people grew up but they ate at their homes my mom was a single mom so she always got us out the house so we always there was no internet there was no Wi-Fi there was no under this stuff so we all got out the house so I met all these people ate all different types of food it was a wonderful wonderful wonderful experience growing up in Te I was also a pretty good athlete not as good as Kirk Kirk was my teammate in a lot of sports um but I was pretty good at soccer I only got I got one soccer offer um I did not go but I ended up going to preach for college um and I started at Princeton I didn't even know what Princeton really was um I thought it was a good basketball school because my favorite basketball team growing up was Georgetown and Princeton almost beat Georgetown in 1989 and so when my mom told me I needed to apply to Princeton because it was a good school in New Jersey I was like I don't know what that is but I'll apply because I my mom was in education so I she always be best for education so I applied to Princeton as my only New Jersey school every other school I applied to was in the South I Duke rice UVA every University in Georgia to Lane in New Orleans CU I really like this stuff like warm weather like a party like a lot of good music a lot of good food so I apped all those schools and Princeton somehow some way I got into Princeton and I said Mom I got into this fck got into Princeton she was like you got into Princeton how'd you get I said I like she like well you going to Princeton and I was like I don't want to go to prin I never heard they probably play basketball I wasn't good at basketball I couldn't play basketball there she's like no you're going to Princeton I'll get get you a car so that way you can drive home if you want you don't like it I was like I'm going to Princeton so so it was very shocking to a lot of people I remember my AP Calculus teacher me and this other kid at d c in my high school class we both got into pron and he goes you guys got into preton and we did because you don't necessarily have to have the best grades the best at score SAT scores you have to do well but college is look for a lot of different things I was like top 10% of my class I wasn't in the top 10 um and I had 85th or 90th percenti sat good but they weren't the most highest you ever got but if you did a lot of things that a lot of people knew how to speak with people a lot of colleges like that so in my opinion that's what got me into Princeton because there's a lot of kids that were ahead of me in my class that did not get into Princeton so when I got to Princeton this was in the in the 90s when businesses were popping and so I was like I'm going to be an economics major I wanted money because everybody was popping with money and so I was like I'm going to do economics I had a Honda Civic I upgraded that to a Honda for after my first year I had five businesses made pizzas I delivered Chinese food I delivered newspapers I was doing insurances for people can't remember the fifth one um so I was vacing and so I had a Honda Civic with a CD changer you pull you guys you you pull the CDs out and you load the CDs in there you put them in the car so I had a CD changer I would drive my friends and all around it was awesome awesome so I did that fresh M on sophomore year summer of sophomore year I was like you know this money is good it's really fun I'm having a great time partnering with my friends but I don't feel fulfilled I I just didn't like looking at people's numbers like I was getting paid a lot of money doing people's insurances for credential but it was not a fulfilling job to me and so I remembered so well the summer after my sophomore year I stayed in bed for a week at my mom's house on Hamilton Road in B by burfield and she goes what are you doing I said I'm sick first I said I sick she like never sick I don't get sick off the than goodness um she said you're never sick I was like I'm sick she was like well you better get your sick but up does not stay in my house all summer doing nothing and I was like all right next day I'll go to work so Wednesday I didn't go to work I stayed in bed Thursday stayed in bed Friday stay the bed so I was in bed for 5 days because I just felt so empty there was nothing going on except this money I had in my bank account so that Monday she grabs me out the bed she's going to Camp cuscus I said excuse me she said you going to Camp kusus to be a camp counselor to take care of these three autistic kids they need somebody there that's a strong guy I can take care of kids and know you can take care of kids I used one of my jobs also was a babysitting business I had because there weren't a lot of male babysitters all my female friends with baby City making cash I was like I'm going to start a baby in high school I start a baby C bus and so my mom got me out of bed she was uh at that time working for the TX School District so she can get me in for the camp because I was going to the school district so I went work with these three autistic kids at campus which was down hathor at the time I had an absolute blast my salary went from about $30 an hour to about 6:25 however I had so much I got up every morning like 3 hours before I was supposed to get to work I exercised more and I said I have to work with people this is what I need to do and so she was like what are you going to do and I was like maybe I could be a teacher but she was a teacher and she was a very good teacher so I was like I can't do that I be able to live up to her standards may be a guidance counselor the guidance counselor the K kind of transi one you know stud for a year and then move on I don't want to do that I was like I do like science I remember going to my mom I you know what I think I'm going to try to be a doctor she almost laughed me out of her own house she said you don't even like School you didn't even know what Princeton was in second grade you said you want to go to school anymore he just wanted money doctors don't make that much money and I was like no but this is what I feel I want to do and so she said all right good luck with that go back to college and figure out how you're going to do it so I stepped back on campus September Aton my junior year I went to the Premed office and I remember this so this lady's name is Jan car Miss Cary was this caucasian lady and she was the most amazing person to me she said well you have a lot of problems getting into Medical School CU I didn't study my first years all I did was party and make a lot of money so my GPA was below it was about a 1.8 1.9 and she was like you have a lot of problems so first thing you need to do is change your major to show that your science scores can get high so I changed the molecular biology and for two years Junior and Senior year I had jobs no money but I got my GPA up to a 2.8 I all I got was a and Bs my junior senior year then I remember to so I took the MCAT which is the test to get into medical school and I absolutely destroyed it because I knew that was pretty much what I need to do to get into Medical School destroyed it destroyed it 95% time so I go back to college campus I said but Carrie I did pretty good on MCAT so I can probably get into like you know a State University or something that right she said I thought she going to say you still have no chance she goes you got 95% on your M you're a black man you're graduating from pron on time you should apply to Harvard Yale columia pen I was like really and she said absolutely so that's what I did and I got into yell for medical school best four years of my life I learned what orthopedic surgery actually did because I had two ACR reconstructions where Sur on your knees probably a lot of athletes was done at ACL reconstructions when I was a freshman in college senior of high school and freshman year of college and so I knew about it and so when I learned actually what it was and the science behind it I said this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life and I've been blessed that I'm 15 years in practice now right in engood New Jersey so I get to see a lot of my friends and family and people that knew my mom from when she was teaching as patients and sometimes it gets tiring because sometimes they want to talk to you for a long time we have some that knows about that they want to talk a long time and you need to see patience because you got to help as many people as you can that's what God put me here for to help as many people as I can and so some patients get upset I'm like all I know it's wrong with you this what you need to do to get better and you need to do it to get better and they do it most of the time umie and so so that's what I do now I take care of people from the age of 8 to 1008 for knees shoulders hips ankles elbows necks backs whatever a you have for your muscle system and it's just a blessing that I've been able to do that and so I'm here for anybody if you have questions about the medical field at all not just being Sur I know everything about or surgy but I know a lot also about the medical field in general and so if there's any questions about that later please feel free to ask me so thank you very much for having me right that's going to be a difficult one to follow uh you should have put me further down the line um my name is Andrew mcer born and raised in t uh the same town that my mother was raised in since uh about 1939 I think the houses and our family um one of five I grew up in town uh my father had an electrical business growing up if I wanted to get any money to buy comic books or anything I had to go help my dad on an electrical job U but I learned how to work with my hands and I learned how to work with people um over the years every summer every break I would get a job somewhere working with someone in town my didn't have enough work for me I did carpet cleaning I did alarm systems in people's houses I mowed a few Lawns um but I got a good work experience growing up and understanding what it is I like to do and sometimes what I didn't like to do um went to school Brian School Long Fellow TJ I tried buring Catholic but then I found out there's people faster and bigger and stronger than me on the football team so soft one year came back to T but I wanted to give the tries um but grew up playing baseball in town football ran track had a great experience and and similar to anybody who went to school here you you learned from different people different backgrounds uh it's great to see people that you know I grew up with and went to school for years with in town and again um after high school I graduated and went to Ruckers to study uh ended up studying economics I wasn't sure if I was going to go engineering or not I got into the engineering school I took chemistry calculus uh my first semester to see how it was and decided that the economics click with me a little more um so I went with the economics the statistics as my minor graduated in four years and it was the uh actually the spring of my junior year their family friend mentioned me ask me about what I was going to do after I graduated and I said I wasn't sure and he said oh you should be a trooper I'd never thought about it I don't have family in law enforcement like a lot of people do that go into this field but I had planted the seat and I started thinking about it and then uh when I graduated in '92 uh T was giving it test they were ading so I went and took the test there was a large turnout for it at the time um I took the State Police test as well Tina came up first so I stayed with that and I kind of wanted to stay in this town this is the town I knew and and the people that I knew so um you know went through the Academy I had the fortunate opportunity in the department to work at several different divisions I worked in patol for a short time Community Police thing uh I worked in the detective Bureau for 9 years as a detective made Sergeant with back of Patrol for a year back to the bureau as a sergeant for 2 years then made lieutenant back to patrol for 2 years and then back to the uh detective Bure as a lieutenant for 10 years um then made Captain I was in charge of service where I learned about the budget process for the town and the purchasing which is an education that I really needed to get um right now I have a deputy chief that we just promoted January 1st and he hasn't had the opportunity to work in that area so we're working together for me to help him learn what I did in that time because the government purchasing process is is very invol there's a lot of laws that cover it and fortunately T and I'm sure other times have we have great employees our purchasing agent in town she knows it inside out so she is the one I turn to for information she tells me how you know we go go about projects if we want to buy cars uh it's just there's a lot of laws that we need to follow and um so last was it last January for the past year is when I got promoted achieve um so been there again this is my 31st year that I'm in AUST um again working in all the different divisions I've got a great appreciation for what goes on and in a daily basis my job is to make sure that we provide provide all the functions that we need to in an orderly way that we provide the law enforcement Services people get on the street and that everything functions properly that we get the vehicles and equipment that we need that we're hiring people that we need to do and to get jobs in t to be a police officer in t you know first you have to be 18 years of age a US citizen you have to have a valid driver's license um and then you have to pass a uh background investigation that we do there's a psychological examination medical examination there's now physical assessment that they do with the police academy which uh we're finding a lot of people struggling with uh and it's not that it's crazy but there's you know people have to be able to run have to be able to do push-ups um spit situps U but it's a new aspect that the state put in about a year and a half ago um but our goal always is to try and get the best candidates for us people understand how we do policing in and that are going to understand the residence and right now it's a little different people aren't putting in for this job the way they used to uh we we're trying to encourage that we're actually working with the company right now to do a promotional film to try and encourage people to come out in law enforcement come work at the Tina police department and we're selling our department to people it's a little different before we used to have people knocking on our door Hey I want to get hired um but it's always fun to sit there and explain to people here's what T is this is a diverse Community you have people all different you're four miles from the George Washington Bridge if it can happen anywhere it already happened here um I can tell stories and stories about stuff that never happened in another area but we have a hospital a college three train tracks three major highways 4 80 95 all go through our town um multiple houses of worship every kind of religion you can imagine in this town and that's what makes us unque you know because you like people if you like working with people this is a great opportunity and that's what we tell people come make a difference you we will help you get started but get out there meet people be part of change you know and not that I don't think we do things right but we can always do things better and we're always trying to do that te um so I enjoy it I really do I like working with people I do have people tell me hey you know when are you going to hang it up because I could but I still enjoy what I do I enjoy it a lot and I enjoy being in the position where I can make a bigger change at this point and trying to put pieces in place for the Department going forward to continue in a positive way so again I'm here right down the street at any time if anybody needs uh I was in study hall in this room years ago uh it was a great place to go to get an education and if anybody needs me or afterward please let me know seated for the deed like I said before need just send Troy I actually didn't grew up in new I grew up in the Bronx and GR I went to high school also the high school of Justice Supreme Justice sort of for me I grew up in a in a mile radius so I was only allowed to walk within a mile of my house um it was more for security safety made my mother a little less an but what I learned was i l people so I would walk to theod I would know every neor and I would know the nebor what he home basketball practice baseball practice so I realized you know I really like people and you know as I went to college I went to college up statec mayor's College I you know I majored in Communications and then I thought that that was an enough and I douj in Psychology and then I got uh the food bug and I got a job at The Culinary uh the CIA um and just because umol I wanted more like do I want to be a chef do I love food and I did love it but I realized that they didn't so that's my passion right my passion is food but then I realized okay so what can I do with u with my life I like people um I'm a killer at Monopoly I love playing games and you know what you know I always get Park Place so for me I'm the youngest support H if I if I need money I need to dig in the couch because I my brothers and sisters would have Chang go in my brother's Pockets so I went into advertising sales so that essentially is Bridging the Gap between advertisers and Impressions eyeballs what we watch it could be a show I work for this the Discovery Channel TLC planet travel channel um oh my God and my last network was the win Network and working with o was amazing um it was really very high expectations made you problem solv you know at every moment and it really allowed you to learn about the the revenue that African Aman women bring into the home how they're the chief family officer and being able to speak to definitely a crown jewel for me so after that I realized okay so O's going to leave and now she's going to go buy Weight Watcher so I decided let me tap out so I'm like okay so what do I do now so then I went into the digital space so I worked at me which is a digital Latino Millennial platform and I love I loved it everybody said my name beautifully I didn't have to explain no it's not just any of the Y is a j it was amazing I loved it but like okay this is great I was there for almost a year and I realized you know what I want to do more I'm ready I want to do more so then when I started to do is I built my own consultancy so right now I work with different startups Tech startups where I take what I know which is the gift of the gift of process optimization and I bring it to some of these Tech leaders who really don't know how to bring their products to Market are bringing products to the market and the tech is really where I'm at right now I have a couple of clients who are dealing in Ai and for me that's really interesting because I'm a big Oculus anybody have an Oculus I have the old Oculus I got a g stop so just but I love it and think beity us ours amaz so um throughout my whole journey I guess the real point I want to share with you is you have to what you're um again I love Monopoly so for me it's always like okay how can I negotiate if I really need $50 how and I need it to be 50 I'll ask for 200 so I know I can cover my margin down so I use a lot of that to kind of figure out instinctually where where I can bring a deal ining deals for me is my spot it's really one of those it's a great accomplishment and I always love the fact that I can create a large experience for consumers by Bridging the Gap between all Medi um but again I can say a lot and I have a I went I'll just say this I went to opr win house I can't beat your story so I fig I got a I went to Oprah win's house I know imagine I went to her house in Hawai and we we did a sales conference so in sales you have a you have a budget you have to so one year she said to me um we group of all my colleagues and she's like well do you think you can hit that budget and I go no I know we can and she's like well what do you want if you know you can I'm like I want to go Hawaii I want to go Hawaii I want to go to your house I want to eat of your house I want to eat what you eat and she started laughing she's like oh Jessie oh Jessie but it was hysterical and then the she's like um we're going to Hawaii I'm like I'm like great that's amazing but it's just for me it was really about put it out there and the because knew I bring it I can't bring it again but I brought it lean into what you're good at really and and just realize when you try to find yours of purpose it's not just one thing it's multiple things um so for me leaving into Tech right now and still doing partnership trying to lean into that space that's a passion but again every day is a different day just lean into what you're good at try to YouTube is amazing really self-development a little girl right here said yes it is self-development is amazing in the I you know there weren't a lot of people who were really into but I made friends with the librarian I was at the library all the time all the time I love books I love reading learning about different ways to negotiate different things and psychology butan into what you're good at so I'm you know there not one track to you know what you what you're going to love doing so I wasn't born here born in New York raised here I went to Washington Irving anybody remember that I he Washington Irv so I went to Washington Irving I went to Whittier um I'm a tjer and then the high school de I'm the baby of five we were all Jacks and so I played baseball in TBO um just basketball with Mr March B Jim so I'm all teen that um coming to the high school I was a tom boy didn't understand that there were actually girl Sports like softball I'm like what is this what is this big ball right so I I I'm leading it to a story here because it it leads so I asked the principal here hey can I play baseball because I don't want to play with girl I want to play right no you have to play this girl sport all right so I play this sport when I say girl sport this long so I played softball Varsity very first year killed it that was my Foundation of when I found myself um Sports basketball I was all state here out of T High School Softball All State out of T high school and then I went to college and wanted to study accounting like econom like accounting I'm like this isn't who I am right it was nothing but numbers kind of similar to what you said nothing but numbers this wasn't who I am I went to a small school here I I had D1 D2 D3 scholarships everywhere I was 17 years old very young went to a small College here in New Jersey that's no longer um it doesn't exist anymore called upsa um you know a lot of people don't know remember got heavily recruited I was recruited by Clemson by you out in Brigham Young like so many colleges my mom said nope nope nope nope nope nope and then I'm like all right so I'm just going to go to this small school in New Jersey called ABS I play softball and basketball there full ride didn't like it didn't like my major didn't like the small school and you know what I did I transferred so I transferred to a school in Georgia called valasta State not many people know that it's a D2 School play softball and basketball there as well introduced I was introduced to a major at the time which is common now but it was called sports medicine right sports medicine was very new it was a major that back then led to people led to the physical therapy field so I did Sports Medicine exercise science graduated from there um um came home worked in Englewood as a physical therapist that we used to do that back in the day you didn't need a doctorate you didn't need a master's degree even back then so did Physical Therapy but I also worked at American Express downtown so this is I'm it's just a wind world of circle to where I got like it makes no sense whatsoever so I worked for American Express a Fortune 500 company I did Wellness there Fitness and Wellness there in their corporate Fitness is a very lucrative field um 9/11 happened boom running for my life because I was down at the World Trade Center so ran from my life changed everything sitting at home got a ton of job offers and then my cousin said hey you want to go to the FBI yeah never want to be in law enforcement I said all right let me fill out this application it was a handwritten application back then and then I got in all right so what's this FBI thing about um went got some trading sitting in the FBI so now I went from running from terrorism to fighting terrorism and I caught myself mad at everybody in the FBI because I felt like we were lazy because of what happened with 911 so at that moment I said I will stop the next 9911 and that was my goal was to stop the next 9911 there is no typical day in the FBI I'm often called in the middle of the night hey we have the serial killer we have to go in the field to get hey there's a there's a we have to set up a command post to go get this um the child was you know taking things like that we work with the local police departments to you know figure things out so I love the job I'm a senior supervisor now over multiple programs from our evidence to our electronic surveillance to our Central monitoring systems like I I I I supervise a lot of programs and I have a sports medicine degree right I have a sports medicine degree so while there the FBI will pay for you to go to school pay back his new loan things of that nature so I went to school and I got a criminal justice degree and in the meantime I picked up a lot of certificates along the way um anybody seen Criminal Minds so Criminal Minds folks they host our Behavioral Science unit we host they they had this um certificate program through the University of Virginia I went down there and got that to help out with the uh profiling um what else I don't know I mean it's it's the FBI is a beautiful place whatever we have mechanics we have nurses I have supervised nursing program super I'm the second in charge of the New York City field office when it comes to Administration and all of that so we have every program that's out what I call in the real world so we have trainers we have nurses mechanics of course we have secretaries we have um you know electricians we have we have everywhere in the bureau so it's a place where if you don't if you want to make a difference in your community and you want to help protect the Constitution and protect the people of the United States government it's a place where you can work by protecting by putting those sirens on those cars if you're a mechanic by making sure that you know when we go overseas that you have the right vaccinations if you want to be a nurse so we have a lot to offer and I'm here to talk to you guys about it if you want to come join us so is not there hello everyone um again my name is Shelina Palma I am uh the special events manager for the New York museum of art um it is the largest museum in New Jersey I am born and raised in t New Jersey my mom and dad actually met at Ben Franklin Middle School so I went yes I am deeply rooted I I have to be on my best behavior in this town because I know a lot of people um not saying I wouldn't but um I to school then I went to um LEL then I went to bener Franklin and then T High School I am graduate of T High School um I'm not sure if Mr ludus is in here but I was actually one of his first classes um which is pretty cool um I'm happy to see him here um after I graduated C High School I attended Virginia State University which is an HBCU it's a historically black College University Virginia State University and my major was mass communications public Rel which I enjoyed um so much and I I always enjoyed like events being hospitable to people making sure catering to people I like people to be happy um and just feel comfortable and relaxed that's my thing um so after I graduated college I worked for a Rada Inn which I loved it was Army based and um I got to serve a lot of the guys that were um you know on the in the fields um so I was cool like just catering to them making sure they had Foods everything um but I have a lot of background in Hospitality um and events so at the New York museum of art I am head of all the special events which is the weddings um also business meetings lunches um just any special event that you would like to have birday parties I also do the um High School reunions which are pretty cool um but my favorite is probably the weddings um having the brides come in and just you know catering for that special day um but for the most part I really just love Hospitality I feel like I'm probably the youngest on this panel so because no I'm sorry I'm saying that because um I feel like they're they've been in their field for a very long time I've been in Hospitality in especially EV for 10 years um I'm actually in a process where I would like to start writing my own book about Hospitality because I feel like today is just not something that um people are aware of like that quality service going to a restaurant or just anywhere even a doctor's office um just having that customer service making people feel comfortable caring about people I just feel like that's not a thing anymore so the book that I would like that I'm starting to write is called charm me and it's just about you know catering to the person because when when you give out that good energy it comes back to you and I'm a firm believer in that um also I would want to go into Hotel Investments um so basically I'm just trying to tie it all in um my PR background with hospitality events um again I've been in in for 10 years um I feel like when you're passionate about something sometimes things just come easily uh when you're passionate uh you care about things um but do your research um go to conferences I'm also going to be a certified meeting planner uh for the end of the summer so that's pretty cool um as well I just like go for your dreams and you know U kind of be selfish is a is a fine line with that being selfish of just knowing what you want you know once you know what you want you make that decision I feel like the universe will meet you halfway with that um I don't have much more to say again just I I just love I love my field I love Hospitality I love event um again I just I love so if you're looking to have an event a birthday party my Mitzvah a wedding any type of occasion um if you want to come down to the New York museum ofar it's a beautiful Museum a lot of people don't know about it again it's the largest museum in New York New Jersey or in New Jersey in general um and we have like a beautiful collection of art and if it's very family oriented well um and it's just art from all over the world so I I would advise everyone to please come down and support the Muse and just have a visit okay thank you well it looks like they put the youngest person on the panel next to the oldest person on the also looks like I'm one of the few people that decided to stick with to working with numbers then run away Jason uh so what is start what high school I attended a a small uh private high school in the Bronx not too far from uh Cardinal Felman in Northeast Bronx I left at Harlem so I took uh two trains and a bus to school or two buses and a train depending upon which way I U I went which which really took um when was time to go to college I was kind of like Jason you know I I didn't know what I was doing uh you know my parents didn't go to college my grandparents didn't go to I think my grandmother went to school for a little while so I was kind of on my own so it wasn't really a whole lot of science that went into my college search So my aunt and uncle had moved to tenek uh 2 years before I graduated and they said well if you go to fdu you can stay with us so that sounded like a good deal to me right my my mom was a single mom uh both I have a brother who's 6 years younger than I am and she was was putting him through private school also so it gave me a chance to get out of the city I was smart enough smart enough to know that I needed to get out of the city if I was going to be a productive college student you I wasn't a bad kid but I I got away with doing the minimum like I I don't ever remember like studying in high school or everything I just I I kind of cruised and I was able to do it in high school but I knew going to college I would have to develop a set of study habits uh and what have you so so like I said my school my high school is very small we had a very limited curriculum like we had you know basic math English we had foreign language history and we had religion because it was a religious school it was a Lutheran School so I really had no idea what I wanted to major in when I went to college so I went in as a liberal arts major right just basic taking basic stuff I was smart enough though to know that need to take a variety of different courses to try to figure out what I wanted to do so one of the courses I took my freshman year was uh introduction to business management and in that course it went through all the various uh aspects of running a business then it got to this thing called accounting and like I said I didn't know anyone who was an accountant we didn't have any in my neighborhood uh I didn't know anybody who used an accountant or was was an accountant but I said numbers you know I'm a guy I always like working with numbers I'm that kid I used to watch uh the Knicks growing up on TV and I would actually keep statistics in the notebook like how many assist guys had how many skills also kept statistics uh for the sports teams in high school so I said that sounds like something I may be interested and then what really uh clinched the deal the the professor said if you graduate with an accounting degree this was uh when I took this course this was probably 1976 right it said you can start at $122,000 a year all right uh loal Arts Majors were coming out making 9,000 a year so that's uh you know that's what that's 33% more doesn't sound like a lot like my son worked at Chili's last year he made more than $99,000 part time but but that was big money back then I said okay I can make 12,000 I like working with numbers I think I can do this so my my sophomore year took the two basic uh accounting courses uh principles and managerial accounting I liked it did very well so that's what made me um decide to become an accountant and then I got a few years into my career and I was at a a conference I belong to an organization called National Association of black accountants and they had a CPA review course that was there as a vendor and they had a raffle for scholarship for their course so I put my uh my my ticket in the raffle and somebody told me they said you want the raffle so I was like oh I'm not taking the CPA exam because at that time uh a common uh what I found out to be was a misconception was that you have have EXP experience in public accounting working for a public accounting firm to get certified and one of my friends was there she actually was from team that she went to U at the with me she was like no in New Jersey they will allow you to substitute um private experience like if you needed two years of public to get certified but if you had four years of private and you worked for another CPA you could still get certified so again by happen stance I said okay I I'll I'll take this exam I took review course study for exam passed it on on the first time so you know I I became a CPA so kind of you know by half the status I wound up uh at fdu by happen stance I wound up as an account accounting major and now by H happen stance uh I'm a CPA uh how did I land my first job that was that was interesting uh when I got out of school it took me um a while to find a job so my first job was uh as an internal auditor with Coca-Cola balling Company of New York which was headquarted where anybody want to guess Hackensack right Continental Plaza 4 411 Contin PL the building still there and that was that was an interesting job uh got to travel uh because we had uh facilities all over the country so got to travel first class uh stay stay in five star hotels uh but then 6 months later I got laid off right they they decided they want to cut stat so last H first last hir first fire and then uh looked around for a while and then I wound up getting a job with Planned Parenthood of P County based in Patterson and I was the finance director which means I was responsible for anything remotely related to finance right I did the payroll I did uh security for the clinics I had to file all the paperwork with the state and the uh federal agencies you know with those type of agencies there's a lot of paperwork to do and here I am 23 years old and all the other directors all had like nursing backgrounds right they were all you know doing they were in the clinics and the exactor director with a nurse so there's nobody we I could go to for help we had a consultant old guy probably his 60s or 70s I thought that was older and I don't think it's so old now uh who would come in like once a month and like fix all the stuff that I screwed up uh so that that was my first and second job there've been several jobs since then uh let's see did I hit all of the uh oh it it says what made you decide to get your master's degree I don't have a master's degree but uh something uh that if any of you are interested in accounting they now Most states have a requirement to get certified first of all you have to have a a bachelor's degree uh usually in the accounting but if you have uh a sufficient number of accounting credit to be related field Finance C you have to have you have to pass the exam you have to have experience but now Most states have passed what's called a 150 hour rule where you have to have 150 college credits in order to get certified so that's essentially that's 5 years so you more or less have to have a master's degree there been a lot of push back around that because you know put the kid hasn't put the kids at a disadvantage and I think it's it's probably U causing less and less students um to to shy away from accounting going to something easier like U pre and but you but uh also I want I want to shout out uh T high school because like I said I I had no idea what accounting was I had a very straightforward curriculum but both of my sons ATT attended tenic high and they both both had two years of honors accounting classes here so you you guys who go here you have a a wonderful um well-rounded curriculum so make sure you take advantage of that thank you good evening everyone again uh my name is Kirk Mitchell and I'm pretty much teenag born and raised so we moved here when I was 4 years old in 1982 our brother was just born we came from Hudson County and um I went to Washington Irving I went after daycare at a teet Country Day School at St Paul's church and then I went to Longfellow L and uh Benjamin Franklin and then high school I graduated 1996 um so I always love art I'm an architect and I also invest in real estate I was always a very good artists both my parents are artists they just never found a way to monetize art meaning they didn't know how to make money out of art so they went to art school they were in you know amazingly creative um so I took art classes extra art programs all my um every time I was in art uh I did amazingly well exceptionally well I was also in all sports in t so I play tck baseball organization TBO bitty basketball um and soccer t Junior Soccer League um so when I got to high school scho um I didn't take High School very serious I knew a lot of people like Mr Bain over there um I grew up I'm sorry Dr Baines my boy Jay Dr Baines um I know a lot of people I had a lot of friends I was very friendly and I I befriended everybody I think really because of T Sports and one thing to point out is tck organized Sports is a blessing and us growing up in t having a very diverse school we used to play schools in all different ethnicities and races but they never look like us which was like a multicultural rainbow so that allowed me to meet a lot of different people from different classes and so forth um so I became very people friendly so when I got to high school I didn't really take it very serious I had a lot of fun I was very smart I just didn't apply myself and I love art I was a creative so that was my excuse not to you know be very intellectual at the time so I used to get in trouble I used to go skip School Heist and lunchtime my family had a restaurant in Harlem I used to go to Harlem with my friends and drive illegally and I going say too much stuff to FBI here the chief of police are here but uh I think I passed the threshold of U of those crimes but um the statue of limitation right so I take it serious and I saw that I was traveling down the wrong path my parents were always telling me that and you know but I played all three Sports in high school I play soccer baseball and basketball so I always felt like man I'm doing all this I was in a school band I I was very extracurricular involved so does anybody know what the name of this room is or who this room is named after Cheryl Miller Porter her her portrait is right over there I don't know why she's still alive but um Mrs Miller Porter was the dean at the time and she sat me down my the beginning of junior year and he said Mr Mitchell if you're in my office office one more time this year I'm going to expel you and then you're not going to do anything and then guess who I'm going to tell your father and you know he I was definitely afraid of my father at the time he's a West Indian they don't play that so I said all right I have a decision to make um it's is junior year this is most pretty much the most important year in high schools when you take all your big exams when you start thinking about what you're going to major in what colleges you want to go to so um in my summer uh in my summer from sophomore to junior year my sent me out to Washington DC where my cousin was going to Howard University so I went there with one of my friends and we stayed for about a week and man we had a blast it was so many women at this school it was like 10 to one I mean and it was at HBCU which is a historically black University uh like Virginia State University and another thing that happened in my junior year was Mr March rest in peace was my basketball coach and also my African-American histories teach teacher here at the high school took us on a black college tour so he loaded up a bus very brave of about 15 to 20 students of his African-American class with Mr Gardner rest in peace and uh Mr Cheryl M Porter and took us to Morgan State University Howard University Hampton University Virginia State University and I think like two others and at the time I was on crutches from a basketball injury but I still had an amazing time so the two times that I went to Howard I knew that that was the only school I wanted to go to I didn't want to go anywhere else even though I've been to several other places so um now junior year I had to kick it in gear so one I couldn't get in trouble anymore if I was in Miss M Miller Porter's office anymore I'm going to be expelled and then I knew that if I didn't buckle down I wasn't going to get a chance to get get into Howard so I buckled down I did my work and then I was talking to my art professor at the time his his name was Mr otosan Mr otosan was the head architect uh sorry head art teacher here with Miss wear and I said Mr otosan you know I'm I'm trying to figure out what I want to major in in college I love art but I don't want to be a struggling artist my parents love art they never found a way to make money off of it I don't want to be a broke artist he said why don't you look into architecture light bulb went off I started looking into architecture and I never looked back so um I pulled my grades up I started doing a little bit more extracurricular activities my senior year I only played soccer and a little bit of basketball left baseball behind um and then I had an amazing friend at the time um he's passed away since then his name was gani Manago and um his mother was a Howard University graduate and she was very into education here with uh Dr Bain's mom Mrs Baines um and she wrote me a recommendation letter and I think that's what really got me in I had a good SAT score my grades were so so but I did a lot of extracurricular activities so like a lot of people said it's not always a about your grades it's about how well-rounded you are because schools want people that they can graduate and they can promote and say look what you know we did with the student so I applied to four or five dist schools I got into two schools and one of them was Howard University and one of the happiest days of my life got into Howard and then I uh because I got in I I wanted to get in so bad I didn't apply for architecture the major because I didn't have any experience or background in it and I was afraid that I wouldn't be accepted into the School of Architecture so I went in Lial Arts like Mr Brown here and which is basically undecided take all your your um your base core classes so when I got there I figured okay I'll I'll do the first semester my second semester I'll go into architecture I get to the school I go to the School of Architecture they're like no we have prerequisites you can't go to School of Architecture until next year so architecture is a 5-year program to get your Bachelor's of architecture if you want to become an architect you need to do a 5-year program so I'm like oh I just made six years out of this so I'm going to enjoy all six years which I did I had an amazing time in Washington DC um and big shout outs to Howard University it is next to more colleges than you can think from Washington Maryland and Virginia very similar to Massachusetts so not only do I get the party at Howard I get the party at College of College Park Maryland George Washington George Mason Georgetown I mean American Catholic all these universities um but architecture is a very demanding um major because it's many hours it's one of the few programs that you go to our studios in classrooms and there couches like why are there couches in here because you're going to be sleeping there at night trying to finish um deadlines for the next day so the great thing about it is that a couple of panelists have said this if you find your passion the money will follow the opportunities will follow if you really love something an architecture is what I loved um I got through it I excelled I did uh exceptionally well at Howard University I graduated um and then I got my I got so I graduated my Bachelor's of architecture and then I ended up going to Carnegie melon University for my Master's of Science in architecture which I got a full ride and um I did that because Howard University had a program in the summer to go and um work on a seminar and we did that for about 6 weeks and then we got to study in Germany for another 6 weeks so I did that I got all this amazing experience um so much so that I got a full ride I did a an accelerated master's program for one year there and then that's when I came out and I started my actually no I I had internships so one thing I don't think anybody discussed up here was internships and how important they are um while you're in school if you can get jobs and I I also have um I offer internships and I've had a couple of tin high school students um come come through my office and having an earned internship allows you to see uh to Shadow what you're going to be doing day by day with somebody that's in that profession and doing well with that profession to see if you like it you may hate it you know you may to go to school for many years which some panelists have said they went to school got a degree went to start working and they didn't feel fulfilled so having an internship going and seeing what people do and shadowing somebody and and asking questions is a great way to discover whether or not you want to practice something so um I had internships um from when I was in um College from my freshman year all the way to my senior year and by the time I got out I had offers from um uh various different um companies so I worked for several companies um up until about 8 years ago and I went out on my own I started my own practice I have my own architectural firm based out of angle with New Jersey we're on Palisades in uh North Dean if you ever want to come visit the name of the firm is akt designs we do architectural Design interior design and on the side because I'm already in the field and I used to do some construction work I started a real estate investment company so I also flip houses so for those don't know what that means it means buying a house that needs work or repairs you do the repairs you renovate it and then you sell it to somebody else for a higher price um and you'll see a lot of that being done here in Tac and other areas of buron County um so uh the creative side of me LS architecture there's a way to monetize it make good money from it and then also it leads me into different industries of the of the building practice like construction like construction management construction Administration real estate investing and so forth all these different areas that you can potentially make money of um a lot of the architectural students that I graduated with didn't become Architects because what the School of Architecture does is it teaches you to how how to design and then all the different aspects of the building industry so people I've graduated with they're furniture designers they're set designers in Broadway they're gamer um game uh modelers so they model games in Germany um they do all STS of do uh you know interior design project management construction so there's a a wealth of different and various um opportunities that you have if you go to uh school for architecture or interior design um so I love my practice I love the field of architecture if anybody has any questions are looking to find out more please you can reach out to me um other than that thank you very much for having me hello I I am Dr Mar I am an obstetrician gynecologist out ofis New Jersey I am originally from I grew up yeah I grew up in Anglewood um and I went through the Anglewood public school system I graduated from Dwight Maro and my calculus teacher was Dr um after Dwight Mara I went to the University of Virginia in charlott Virginia I majored in Spanish I minored in sociology um and I found out that I wanted to do something a little bit different I knew from the beginning that I wanted to go into medicine but you kind of I think I was a little bit trepidatious I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it I'd always been a really good student but you know you always hear about oh so hard I mean it is but it seemed Larger than Life and I was like let me just uh kind of Stack the pile like what if you know I don't get into mid school like what else can I do so I made Spanish I had a good time at UA um I got out in four years but I had a good time and once I came out I said well yes I do want to go to med school but let me just see what else I can do before I do the whole med school thing so I came back to New Jersey I went to Ruckers to their School of Public Health and I got a master's in public health with a concentration in healthcare organization and administration that took two years um I came out and I worked for Planned Parenthood for a year doing um educational things with um with with medicine yeah and women's women's healthare and then I got into med school so I went to the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine out of um NYIT in Long Island so I lived in Long Island for four years and after that I went to residency so for I I'm I am a medical doctor I'm an osteopathic medical doctor and sometimes we do what we call a rotating internship so for one year after I graduated from med school I rotated at a hospital in Philadelphia St Joseph's hospital hospital system is now Clos but you would do three months of surgery two months of Family Medicine a month of you know peeds a month and you'd go through all of the rotations again because I was like well I want to be a doctor but what kind do I really want to do you know now you just invested all this time and I really always like women's health but like oh am my God they're like delivering these babies all the night blood on the floor I don't know maybe I don't know so it still stuck so after I did the rotating internship I was like all right you know let me see you know cuz OBG is hard to get at that time it was it was it was hard to get and I did one of my rotations as a med student at Nar County Medical Center in Long Island and I knew a couple of residents I was like hey you know what do you think you think I can get in oh yeah yeah I think maybe you can get in whatever so I applied and there's something called the match and then you interview at all of these different residency programs and I guess they like me so I got in so I spent another four years in Long Island um at Nassau County Medical Center and then I graduated and after I graduated I came back to New Jersey and I actually worked for a federally qualified Health Center in Patterson New Jersey that was my first real job and I was their obstetrician gynecologist um for about 10 years I work there and I did everything I was delivering at St Joseph's Hospital in in patteron New Jersey so I did my surgeries there um I delivered a lot of babies there and I did my clinic work at the at the health center which was at that point on Broadway and then it moved to Clinton Clinton Street I stayed there for 10 years I loved it and then I got an opportunity to be the director for Women's Health at a federally qualified Health Center in Jersey City so then I went there and I worked there for two years that was learning experience I learned a lot about the money aspect and the budgets and you know how to make things work and still get speculums paid for and you know hiring nurse practitioners so that kind of Incorporated a little bit of my whole Healthcare organization and administration with the Master's Degree so that was interesting um and then after that I decided I wanted to try private practice and I applied for a job I got a job in Manhattan I was there for about three years working in a GYN only practice because I decided I was done with um delivering the babies I'm done with you know waking up in the middle of the night and um as beautiful as it is I just you know I had done 10 years of that and I was um and this practice was very nice it was on 7th Avenue and West 27th Street it was beautiful and we did a lot of and a lot of insertions of um different forms of contraceptives um all kinds of women's exams procedures I I was doing a lot there a lot and then I said hey you know let me see if I can bring this over to New Jersey and I started looking for another job and I found a job here in pamis New Jersey I live in Tina and I work at Bergen Medical Associates um their gynecologist so I do women's health I do lots of procedures um small procedures in the office I do not do any babies and um I'd say that's about it but I would say you know with my whole you know trying to get to becoming an attending or becoming like a what we consider like a senior doctor I think if you're always staying true to yourself like what it is that you honestly like to do because you're going to have to get up and most of us have to work and you know make money pay bills all that but if you're actually doing something that you like it makes it a little bit easier so I would definitely say that pick something that that you like even if it's hard to get there just pick something how's it good everybody my name is Taren andon again um I was born in New York adopted at Birth by two dopee parents we moved over here when I was 3 years old to ingood I went to all ingood public schools up until high school I went to Bergen Tech um in TBO campus when I went there it was a vocational school and I was the first class where it kind of transitioned into more of an academic school um I went there primarily to play football I didn't care about academics at all going to be honest with you guys um I was an all County runningback ended up getting a scholarship to ston University out of Long Island um I majored in sociology when you get a scholarship your coach doesn't care what you do as long as you can fit your classes in to be around the the practices right sociology degree the motel was C's and D's get degrees right I'm going to tell you that is not the right way to go about college career at all I regret having that mentality but I was fortunate enough to to you know put myself in certain situations so I was always active sports player I really had no idea what I wanted to do I just know I didn't want to the death um I ended up getting my National Academy of sports medicine personal training certification my senior year college but when I graduated personal training just wasn't taken seriously at the time and uh my mom said you got to get a good job so my first job at a college was working at a juice bar at 24hour fields and I thought it was the coolest thing ever I wanted to be in a gym setting I wanted to continue my athleticism lift weights workouts and be in that atmosphere my mom said I did not tell you to go to college so you be working at a juice bar she said I got a job for you working as a case manager in Harlem for artistic for autistic kids um you're going to take this job I don't care what you say so I took the job and it was cool you know we we walked around Harlem I would uh do a case load for kids making sure they're okay making sure that they had the proper services to you know just Pride um then I end up transferring to another unit for a women's uh homeless shelter as a case manager for women's women's homeless shelter that was in the Bronx that was a great job as well but it wasn't my passion um I wanted to try this personal training thing out and I said you know what I'm going to try this out so it was an opportunity to be a substitute teacher in England England public schools for the middle school so I said you know what I'm going to be a permanent sub and then you know you get out of school at 2:30 I'm going to personal train so I told my car I would walk to school then I would walk to my gym and then I would just try to do the best as a personal trainer around that time I was I was always in good shape but I never really had the body that I wanted so the person I was working for at the gym he was like hey T you work hard every single day you you you don't eat the best though so every weekend I would go I would call with my friends I was 22 23 years old I'm drinking alcohol Thursday Friday and Saturday week in and week out and going back to the gym and working hard like really working hard though he said t if you just would dedicate 28 days to your diet don't go out don't party your physique will change and it will benefit your personal training career I said okay challenge acceptable I did that for the first time in my life two been playing college sports I had a six pack for the first time in my life and I was hooked um I started competing in CrossFit and I was making a big money that's when Instagram first came out so I started train other people I had my first client and I made him trans he uh dropped 40 PBS and I posted that transformation on social media next thing you know I went from making $20 an hour to making $5,000 a month living in my mom's house I was so happy um that was a lot of money at that time I'm 23 years old I'm living with her making 5,000th cash my mom said you know I still want you to kind of look at getting a real job I was like whatever whatever mom you don't know what you're talking about I'm happy I'm making money it's cool I hurt my back and I hurt my back very bad where I couldn't walk for two weeks and um that was just at the point time where they start to kick you off your parents insurance and um I was blessed enough to still be on my parents insurance but it was a close call at the time A friend of mine I was working out with he said hey you know can I use your address to apply for the Engle fire depart I was like okay uh sure where did you see the application at on Facebook I was like there's no application on Facebook what are you talking about so I check it the application on Facebook I like Okay cool so we both applications in and we B all the mails getting sent to my house we had the the written test first pass that and it send you a letter to do the physical test killed that um next you know we have our interviews and I'm HED I had no idea as a firefighter you work two days a week right and you get a six figure salary after seven years I was like I hate the lottery um 2 years after I graduate probation I open up a gym in bfield there like a little small boutique gym we had a lot of clients but I was way over my head I did not know what I was doing and um it looked good on social media but as far as the money we were always behind on rent had some bad Partners things didn't work out um so fast forward open up another gym got some new partners they were a blessing the gym is very successful right now so right now I have the fire department which I do 24 hours on we have a 72 hour off for 3 Days in between and then we're back at the fire department again in between those days I'm able to do so many other things Chase whatever passions that I want to have and just do things that fulfill my soul firefighting fulfills my soul as well it's one of those jobs where you literally are risking your life for other people um day to day things vary you know you wake up in the morning you get you go to the fire department you do what we call Rollo it's kind of like an attendance you stand in line make sure everybody's there you check the trucks and then for the 24 hours you def know you're going to get into we do everything from motor vehicle accidents fires grandma just might have burnt toast and on so we got to go make sure she all right um anything goes water rescue doing ID doing water rescuing people from water up to here all different types of things and um but you get paid good your benefits are good the schedule is good but I've been in definitely situations where I didn't know if I was going to make it out of that burning house so I remember the first fire that the second fire I had um it was a blizzard the snow was literally up to this table I have no idea I'm like a year on I have no idea what I'm doing really didn't go to much fires don't have that much experience at all and we get the call for the fire it's on shepher Avenue work and as soon as we get down the block we have a captain he gets there before us he's in the car and he's like we have to upgrade this to this to a third alarm I don't know if you guys know the alarm system but it's the first alarm second alarm and a third alarm so first alarm was like oh it's not that serious second alarm you know you're going to get busy but it could be it could be an easy fire third alarm you know it's it's about to get real so I'm like shaking my boots like I don't know what I'm doing as soon as I get to the front lawn snows up the hair there's a little girl in the front front yard saying my daddy's in there and he can't get out and like I was like all right it's game time now so we went in there put the fire out we were able to actually drag the gentleman through the wall cuz the fire had overcome he had passed out in the in the bathtub and we got him out did the CPR he survived for about a week but then unfortunately his lungs were burn through so he didn't make it but um as fun as the job is it's a very serious job um it has allowed for me to do a lot of things for my all time and you know it's very fun I travel a lot I'm able to provide for my family I just bought my first house um so it's a great career but it's a serious career I just went down to a funeral in Playfield this Saturday where fir fighter passed away um fighting a fire fell through the second floor of the house that was on fire blazing and uh he so wonderful job serious job highly recommended it's just like the the police we work together um with the police very hand in hand a lot of people don't apply for it as much as they should but it's a great job you'll be able to take care of your family take care of yourself and and have a great career and there's always opportunities for advancement um I'm currently studying for my which will be coming out next October and you can make more money uh with that to so that's that my the factory andwood it's literally right ACR from my fire station and the police station so if you guys want to get in shape come check me out also I do have a YouTube channel where I have at home workouts um you just go T Anderson you can find me on there and if you want to do some cool workouts at home you can do that as well I might be the last speaker so uh I'm standing between you and uh having a nice night at home so I'll try to make it brief uh but I'll I'll give you just a little bit of background about me uh first off I'm very honored and excited to be here uh my name is Neil Greenspan uh I was asked to join I'm a managing director of Investments at Oppenheimer M company um it's fascinating to hear everybody here on the panel your story and uh I I think actually they put me to shame now mine doesn't seem so exciting um but I'll give you sort of my brief background what I've been through it seems like a lot for me um essentially I grew up uh probably different than most of the people here I grew up in skoki Illinois uh out in the midwest very typical family mom and dad working 5 days a week out of the house uh pretty much just uh you know you come home from school you sit down you do your homework uh I remember sort of my earliest passions thinking about business career um I was interested in sports cards if anybody who ever traded baseball cards or basketball cards all of a sudden you start to just get a sense of what the market value is for something um you know how the market value changes based on demand so I lived in Chicago so it's all about Michael Jordan uh sports cards uh growing up um and you just get a really good sense it was one time I bought a booth at a baseball card stadium and I set up all my cards I don't think anybody came over to look at my cards at all I was just sitting there and I couldn't believe it but it just gives you a sense that the world is not just sort of sunshine and butterflies and here was I was sitting in my bedroom thinking I had like the greatest collection and everybody's going to come to buy my cards not a single look from anybody nothing just sitting there and I had to pay $50 to set up my table and that that was a lot of money back then um but I remember turning to my parents at some point and saying I I want to make a lot of money when I grow up what do I have to do in order to do that and they said uh they they said you got to be an orthopedic surgeon um so I said fine I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon I didn't know what an orthopedic surgeon was but I was going to be an orthopedic surgeon um so I went through High School uh just working getting odd jobs I I like working actually I think a work ethic is maybe more important than being smart uh I you know and I say that because nowadays I've interviewed and hired people from Harvard and a lot of the IV Le schools I can tell you as a matter of my personal experience I have never had a great experience hiring somebody who's extremely smart nowadays When I Look to interview and talk and hire people it is 100% personality based and based on how I see the work ethic of the person um to some extent uh I think that relates back to just the experience that I've had I was never sort of the smartest kid in the class I did like to get into trouble but I always like to work hard so I did uh caddying uh so I carried golf bags for a few Summers when I was little I painted public school locker uh the public schools downtown Chicago I cleaned uh leaves out of gutters uh I did catering on the weekends to set up any cash job that I could find as a kid I did and I you know I just kept saving up money and saving up money uh what I didn't know was the first thing about interest rates uh because I just kept my money pretty much like in a shoe box in my room um to sort of fast forward ultimately I went to college uh I didn't graduate high school I had a GED um my high school was a private high school and they didn't like my hand ticks after three years so they said uh you're on probation and I said I don't want to get thrown out senior year uh so my grades were good enough I went to lyola University in Chicago and because I had no clue what I wanted to do in life I was a biology major sort of on track to be an orthopedic surgeon even though I don't think I knew still what that was at the time uh I'm not sure I know exactly what it is today but uh apparently it makes a lot of money uh anyway I did uh my freshman year at Loy University and then I met up with my class uh I did abroad for a year I came back to the east coast and did school at Yesa University here um I was a officially like a sophomore or a junior in college still having no idea what I wanted to do and it was the dot bubble of 99 2000 um that was one of the coolest times of my life just because you got a sense of how wealthy people got wealthy incredibly incredibly fast without actually having to work hard I couldn't believe you know you just see or hear about like an IPO or initial public offering and you could buy stock in a company and the stock would start out at $100 a share and by the end of that day it was like $1,000 a share and people were not lifting a finger to do one minute of work they were just making money and I remember sitting there in college being like I'm busting my hump sitting trying to figure out biology and chemistry to be some doctor or whatever like people are literally just sitting at a keyboard pressing buttons and they're making tons and tons and tons of money how do I get access to this I remember calling up Fidelity at like 20 and being like how can I get those IPOs and they like laughed at me they were like yeah yeah you no no no you're you're not getting those um and so I tried I I was trying to wake up early like it was Sports tickets or something you know I could really fast it nothing was happening and then um lean Brothers came to my campus to my college campus and I remember waiting in line and the line was about a mile long to get an interview with Lan brothers and they sent somebody through the line to check uh the resume or you know basically like what your education was what your GPA was everything and they got to mine and I had I was a biology major and they just said get out of line like this is not even word they're like you're going to stand in line for hours and we are not going to hire you they're like so I'm just doing you a favor um and and I I couldn't believe it I was like I I will wait I'm a hard worker I'm going to wait I'm going to show them they were like honestly they're like we're just doing you a favor so I went back to Chicago I went to a temp agency because I was literally just like living with my parents uh junior year trying to figure out you know where I was going what I was doing I did the computer keyboard typing thing I actually got a job that summer at Vienna sausage Factory in Chicago I was filing papers for them for about $12 an hour um and uh while I was at Vienna sausage they got rid of my job and I went to a different place downtown Chicago and I saw that Bear Sterns was on a floor below me where I was working cuz I you know the elevator like opens I was on whatever the 15th floor and I happen to notice like on the 14th floor people were getting out they were dressed nice and they went to be Stern so on my lunch break one day I waited and um I waited for somebody to open up the glass door and I just sort of slipped into the door and I was starting a magazine business at the time where because I don't know if people know this but like if you go through like People magazine they make all their money on advertisements uh they don't need like people to actually sell it but so I I matched up with somebody who was like look they need more circulation so if you can help circulate people will give it to you for like $5 a year and you could sell it for like $25 a year which is a steal because a lot of people pay $100 a year so I went in the Bear Sterns and I was like look I want to sell you magazines for your uh area where you could sit here because I started this company and uh I ended up meeting up with this HR lady who was apparently the head of their magazines even though she wasn't she said look you seem like a hardworking guy I don't know how you got in here or how you got to me but uh she goes I actually know somebody at Leman Brothers a few blocks away who just lost somebody in a maternity leave so uh why don't you go down there and you can interview for that job because he's looking to hire somebody right away I was there in like 20 minutes interviewed got the job started working in Chicago at lean Brothers I did not leave there without having them write a recommendation to the New York office of Leman brothers and then my Junior and Senior year of college instead of doing real college I just worked at Leman Brothers I I still graduated uh but I was really focused on there I got a job at Leman Brothers which sounds like really cool until they went bankrupt in September of 2008 uh that was a real problem uh not going to lie um but anyway I Le Brothers I started at a very bottom of the barrel type of job just supporting traders who are Traders for those who don't know are Big Wigs who make a lot a lot of money they make very important decisions they have very good education they're very smart and I was in awe of these people um and I was basically their assistant uh just doing anything that they asked me to do uh after a few years of doing that I had an opportunity to move to What's called the front office where the top salesperson for Leman Brothers needed to hire somebody on his team and I um let him know that I was available to do anything that he wanted he hired me uh today he and I are 50-50 Partners uh after the demise of L Brothers we went over to Oppenheimer together um he's in charge of what was called corporate cash management still is called corporate cash management um I don't want to take too much time like I said I know I'm standing between you guys and having a great night but I have the absolute pleasure today of managing over10 billion for mostly Fortune 500 Fortune 1,000 companies a lot of private companies anytime you hear about like a private raise of a company for a few million dollar typically 5 or10 million or more is where we'll start to lob in a call um but we do uh wealth management for companies primarily for universities for Ultra ultra high net worth uh people who I think is really cool but they barely know I'm the manager they generally have like office that handles it for them but they interview me and we put on a really good presentation as to why we're very good in finance and can help them grow their wealth um the only thing I would recommend to anybody and by all means I'm happy to stay around if anybody has any questions I read a book when I was probably like 21 years old called Rich Dad Poor Dad and if anybody's ever heard of it or read it I love it I think it's absolutely lifechanging my parents were the Poor Dad type of parents don't get me wrong I feel very very blessed my parents are still alive healthy happy today but I grew up in a household where everybody worked really really really hard all the time and I think that's a great work ethic but I also so encourage everybody to just sort of think about how Financial work can be done so that you don't have to work so hard so that your money is working for you that is what I do for a living and it really I don't want to do it for people necessarily because it's a lot a lot of work so I'm not here to sell myself but if anybody has any questions basically I compete against the banks today Banks to me is sort of like the enemy of the people I don't get me wrong I have an account at JP Morgan Chase I like my bank nobody tell JP Morgan right like they I go in there all the time but they give you like 0% on your money and it's crazy and if you leave money there for any period of time so I basically just spent a lot a lot of time educating very wealthy people corporations about the idea like look you don't have to take risk you don't have to work hard you can just handle your money smarter thank you everybody so much so now we have a two pre-made questions for our panelists I do ask if the panelist keep this fairly short because we do still want to open the floor up to questions if there are any so the first question is what do an average day at your work um so uh there is no necessarily average day for me just because it's uh basically we start trading at around 7:00 in the morning and we have a lot of money available that we need to invest for clients so starting at about 7:00 in the morning uh we're just active putting that money to work at the best offerings that we can find starting at about 9:00 straight through the day we're doing intermittent calls portfolio reviews um primarily with clients and also with potential new customers uh average day can change based on anything that's going in town um I attend a lot of meetings whether with Chiefs organizations or with organizations in town um every day I get briefed on anything that happened overnight from the last time I was in there's emails tons of emails U that I've always just trying to stay up with a lot of communications from the town and U there's always projects there projects going all the time like I mentioned earlier buying cars equipment projects on the building trying to just make sure that we keep everything moving forward but each day is a little different um just based on whatever is going on at the time so it's kind of did every day is different um we just try to stay one step ahead of disaster and um hiring like we just every day is just different which is a good thing so um that's it um everything is every day is different as well in my office um I could have I could be preparing for a wedding I could be preparing for a gallery opening um so we might have some guests that we need to invite in VIP guest membership um also just meetings in general lots of emails um I also go out sometimes to the other uh local venues just to see what they have going on I have catering uh events sometimes I have to be different catering managers um and then I also host once a month a stff breakfast for for everyone that works at so every day every day is different seems to be a common team so no no two days are the same for me either for instance this morning um I had I had a meeting scheduled with a a potential new client uh at 12:00 he showed up at 12:30 someone else wanted to come by and pick up some paperwork I told him to come between 1: and 2 because I had another uh meeting scheduled for two a guy called me last week said looking for a new accountant but he wanted to do a 45 minute interview for his due diligence so he said he was going to call me at too he wound up never calling me the guy showed up at 1:00 he showed up at 10:2 but my 12:00 was still there cuz he came late that's kind of glad the 2:00 guy didn't call me because one of my computer monitors went out and I'm I'm my in-house it guy so I had to try to figure out first I had to try to figure out what was wrong then I had to try to figure out how in between these meetings uh I was going to get a new monitor then I had another client come by uh at 3:30 wind up having to go to Micro Center on patteron to get the monitor because nobody around here had it I came back got it up and running then I came here so another typical day I might just like tomorrow right now I don't have anything on my calendar so hopefully I'll be able to do some real work do some tax returns I have several people who reached out to me uh via telephone or through my website potential new clients I I need to get back in touch with them but a lot of times like I'm on the phone with the IRS or the state of New Jersey or the state of New York during the day and returning phone calls people leave me messages so I might start actually doing work 7 8 9:00 at night you know and I'm sending people emails hey here's your tax return 12 1:00 in the morning and I'm also U on several uh boards uh both here in the township right the teacher as well as uh with some nonprofit organization for um two Chambers of Commerce so you know I I get busy there too so no no two days on the same um yeah I guess the life of an entrepreneur or a business owner is very hectic uh we working all time through the day and night so my um uh average day for me after dropping off the kids at school is either um I'm talking to clients about what they're looking for in their designs whether they be their homes or their developers or buildings um production work which is actually designing with the staff in house working on different designs trying different options out or it's visiting construction sites and seeing how the construction of our previous designs are going um so it's very hectic busy day and as an entrepreneur or a business owner you have to wear many different hats um you have to be your own it person sometimes your own accountant your own attorney uh well I have a good accounting sometimes I have to check my accounting by being my own accounting and and uh but it's uh yeah very fulfilling um and very fast Pac um I'd say although I'm always practicing medicine every day is definitely different um sometimes it just you know usually depends on the age of the patient what I'm doing I do a lot of Well Woman exams and know your C talking HPV human virus properly vaccinated sometimes there women that have issues that may need surgery we doing surgical consults inserting you know certain kind of contraceptives and doing procedures removing things so I mean it's definitely challenging but ites one of the things that attracted me to the fire service is that noow day is the same um usually it starts off the same though do R call like I said before and then for the first hour of the day get roll 8:00 from 8 to 9: we're making sure that every tool every truck that we have is working properly cuz when the community depends on us we got to be ready to go we can't say oh my truck broke down oh this don't work you need us to be there you need everything to work so from 8 to 9 we do that sometimes that last to 9:3 10 then it depends some days I've been in the firehouse some days but we literally didn't do anything we sat there all day and we watch TV we cook we laugh we were a whole bunch of immature men there um I'm not going to lie very immature but it's a good time not to say women we we encourage women to come actually Eng was looking to have their first women soon I know te Haack hired their first few women the past couple years um but then there's some days where like you get no sleep it'll be 12:00 at night 1:00 at night 3:00 at night all the way up till 7:00 in the morning you're running ragged and you're tired and the next day you're completely shot anything from fires like I said to car accid to you know flooding spice basement you got suck it up shut electricity anything you can imagine that's an emergency that's a nuisance to you we respond to so when the word fireman is not really accurate but really everything do everything that you know cause harm or a hazard to the citizens so now we're going to have our next question for all the panelists um so the second question is what are common challenges you face that come with having a job uh the most common challenge we have is is just general competition there are NE not necessarily um competitive barriers to being a financial advisor so technically uh there's tens and tens of thousands of financial advisors uh the assignments that that my team go after are primarily some of the larger assignments in the country and um you know we definitely have some very strong competitors and so it's very common that somebody's going to interview Goldman Sachs UBS JP Morgan Oppenheimer um generally they're going to interview five or six Financial uh advisers and they're going to choose either one or two or three so we really just need to present and and make it clear that we're uh you know one of if not the best choice for them um some of the challenges we Face uh again I mentioned earlier the purchasing process um we're trying to get vehicles right now and every Department around it's a very difficult process there's a shortage of vehicles there's a process we can only get them through with the state um when we do finally order them it takes about 8 months when they come in then it takes another four months to get them upfitted with the lights and Sirens so it's a very long drawn out process but if we don't keep on top of it then we are going to fall even further behind um keeping up with with all of our projects um trying to make everybody happy some situations obviously that we get involved in uh there's going to be people that are unhappy and some that are and sometimes nobody's happy you know we have to come up with resolutions for every situation that we get called to and you know hopefully it is the best resolution for every situation um Staffing is a big issue you know over the past year we've had a lot of rotation over the last several years with uh people retiring and trying to hire new people so trying to constantly keep Staffing levels uh where they should be keeping uh overtime in check uh while also keeping up with certain deadlines and we have a lot of applications that come through US investigations that have to be done with certain timelines but if I have everybody working in control I don't have people to do those so it's a matter of working our staff and rotating it around keeping our within our budget limits and um it's just part of you know it's like every other job there's there's timelines to meet budgets to manage and um just keeping everything in line say d but I'll try to see a little more so um there are a lot of challenges funding is right now like for instance we're working under a continuing resolution which means Congress is buing oh Lord they recording um so funding we we're not technically funded right now and um in order to effectively work we have to have money um so that's one challenge that we we have we're trying to work within you know just what what you have at this point also recruitment diversity recruitment um is Big right now um the FBI you know for some reason like I think you said as well law enforcement a lot of people aren't trying to come into law enforcement at this moment and the FBI we're catching a bad name we get caught up in the political game so recruitment is tough more specifically diversity recruitment we love to be able to represent the communities of which we serve and often times it's a white male organization right so if a school calls you know a school like Tina high school it's primarily um minority at this point um we would like to send a rep representation to a career fair that reflects the community in which we serve and we're having a hard time with diversity recruitment we're having a hard time with recruitment period um a lot of factors come into play when it comes to that it's a long process and people you know in the middle they drop off we have to do a polygraph a drug test you go through your background so kids we go all the way back to 16 so right now we go and check your background when it comes to your drug usage so even marijuana we have a marijuana policy of course all drug policy you can't use it but a certain amount of times and we'll holograph you to to that standard if we say you can only have smoked marijuana twice then we polygraph you we ask you if you fail that you're out so it's a huge background we we go knock on your neighbor doors we we ask about what type of person you are do is are they loud so some neighbors are snitches you know neighbors will tell on they will tell and listen I don't tell any of my neighbors where I work all of my neighbors know where I work and because it's crazy they tell you they don't tell your neighbors where you work but then at every every 5 years they will knocking on your neighbor's door so we constantly have you know we do we do Financial background Financial checks like every every year we have to put in a financial disclosure what we bought how much this cost our bills they're constantly checking we you have to have really good credit so when people come on it's hard to retain them because then you're going through that same process that you went in it took you a year to get there and it's it's stressful and there are other companies that are willing to pay for same job like IT jobs or other companies that are willing to pay and you don't have to go through that you can work at home no no polygraph every other year no drug you know things of that nature so right now we're having a retention issue a hiring issue and you know so those are big things right there and also for me personally being a black female and the level of leadership I'm in it's a challenge because it's it's a constant I'm not going to say a fight but it's I'm constantly trying to prove myself and I'm I've been in a Bureau for 22 years that should not be but there are not a lot of people at my level sitting at the table as a matter of fact I'm the only one sitting at the table for the most part that looks like me like female so it's it's a it's a challenge working in that type of industry and I have the same if not more education same if not more um experience than my counterparts but the respect level was not there for the most part so those are some of the challenges that I experien so working in hospitality and special events I feel like it's a luxury to be able to have an event or stay at a hotel um so the only challenges was probably like something like co uh which could shut everything down and no one's interacting with one another um as far as my job at the Museum I the only challenges is probably just maybe dealing with people because again it's a luxury so they feel maybe that um they can do whatever they want um at the museum for the event but I'm there to make sure they abide by the rules and regulations um of the museum because we're just not a typical venue we're not in theuse in a park or um just like a like a room you can get at a hotel you know so there are rules to have mov in at the Museum so I have to make sure that those rules are followed for someone that is going to rink the space uh privately so that's and just you know someone just um wanting to do whatever they want I mean just having to come in and shut them down and tell them that no you know we have to do it this way and kind of K killing them with kindness um that's the only challeng I honestly have to say that I face um with special events in Hospitality so I I guess I have a couple of things that I would consider my most significant challenges number one is is just gathering information from people I would say uh the times that I can get through say someone's tax return even even individual and definitely a business return without having to reach out to them for more information is definitely the exception as opposed to the rule you know people I've had people that didn't want to give me their social security number doesn't work like that and the other thing uh that Kirk alluded to earlier is being u a soul practitioner like I don't have any staff so it's a big challenge because I'm I'm doing everything right I'm I'm the receptionist I I answer the phones I return emails bills I I do the work um I I pay the bill for the company I build the clients I have to do collections if they don't pay Believe It or Not sometimes people don't uh pay cook always pays his bill for right and Jason Bane's a client he paid one time too I had shout them out but that that's the other thing is that um you know when you're a small business owner you you're wearing a lot of hats and you have to be very careful especially in my business which is very much deadline driven and also very sensitive right CU people uh you know I had a partner one time and I would say you know this person's it's a you know it's not a very complicated return and he said and he would tell me he said remember this no matter how small a return a person's tax return may be to you it's important to them so I have to try to to keep to keep that in mind so those are uh I would say my two biggest challenges I think funny enough my biggest challenge with my clients um wearing many hats could be being a marriage counselor being a mediator being a financial advisor I get some clients very wealthy but don't know what they want the husband and wife fighting nobody knows how to make a decision so I got to come in between and kind of explain things I have to explain how um a house will add value by doing something to it and not over capitalizing by using too much money and not being able to to sell the house afterwards and get your money back um so working with people as fun as it is it can also be very challenging um because in my practice you have to be able to make decisions and you have to stick with those decisions and if you can't stick with those decisions you end up spending more money and more time um I have some clients that will get through a whole design and they absolutely love it and then they go on vacation and they stay at an amazing Villa and they come back like Kirk we got to change everything now of course course I get to build them more but now you just slow down the whole process now it's going to be more money we have to redo things that we've already done so a lot of times clients get in their own way even though I'm very clear in the very beginning that you know it's it's a very you know it's a difficult process but if you can make decisions and stick to it um uh you'll be better off and only other challenges is probably building departments building departments like good old t-x building departments not so great and and one of one of the reasons that overworked and underpaid a lot of public jobs you know people have been working today I was in the building department there were two two people there and like 15 people at the counter and um you know trying to get through small projects or big projects that have to be reviewed and um you know when you're doing a construction project the longer it takes the more money it costs so every construction project the goal is to get it done as quick as possible and within budget and and it's hard to do that if you don't get approvals or inspections in time so timing and and our clients great I would say my two biggest challenges are time constraint with the patient and Google so with the time constraints believe it or not even though everyone comes to the doctor they took the day off and they want to tell me 156 things that are wrong with them I have 20 minutes and about 12 of those I got to get an exam done I have to I figure out you know you're processing everything as you're talking I'm trying to decide what's important what's not important and you know like there is a and some of the stuff that they're telling me I know that it's not important but you can't be rude but we're wasting time so I wish you know in a perfect world I just had all the time that I needed and chitchat and talk about everything you want to talk about but that's just that's not the case and then Google patients I would say unfortunately um are getting a lot of their medical information from Google and then they want to debate you and it's like I just I can't do the exam debate you on Google and and and get you out of here in like 20 at least they use Google get their accounting advice from the barop say hi heard so I don't really want to say that we have the challenges that we Face aren't really big challenges um you know the moment we step in there the firehouse is literally like a family so like these people are literally my brothers and you just you start to learn yourbody as kids you start to you know be joking all day um but then you have to realize that it is a job and sometimes the lines be blurred so you got to maintain that professionalism what you still know is you have your brother's back and there's different egos in there so some people just get on your nerves just like like your real brothers and sisters and cousins they get on your nerves you don't want to be around them but uh one of the main challenges is that sometimes you know it can be laid back but the snap of a finger things going to hit the F and you got to be prepared and um you got to stay on top of your training um you know just when you think you know everything you don't you know the fire is always changing the different emergencies are always changing um you know they they have electric cars now so now we got to learn electric cars there's always things just coming out that we have to be able to battle and stay on top of it and not get complacent because complacency can to so that's challenge for us so does anyone have any questions from the audience for any of the Camas hi everyone thank you for everything it was very informative my question is how has AI affected your career another internship are internships each uh so the in there is a formal internship program at Oppenheimer I definitely definitely definitely recommend uh anybody who's thinking about joining the financial world to focus on internship as early as possible particularly they're very strict on it like if you want to get it as a freshman in college you can't get it it's not available and If you go to them as a senior in college it's not available either they really will only take internships as a junior in college so that way they can give the seniors like uh an actual offer as they're going into their senior year because they want to have all their jobs filled like they want to know who's who's our incoming class um those internships are very hard to get but I think it's just a lot of um just trying different places you know that the more you try the more likely that you have an in and I've had a lot of even people just reach out to me through Linkedin and other places to make some connection with me I didn't mention but I went to NYU for business school eventually uh NYU alumni any way that you can connect with somebody if you do want to work in the financial area feel free to just try to reach out to somebody in that sphere and there's a lot of people who really do help their kids I mean I get that a lot especially from clients that'll say to me my son is a freshman or a sophomore in college can you help him when he becomes a junior to get an internship the answer is no they try to separate like they want to make a barrier so that it's not everybody just doing favors for wealthy people um but you certainly you know you try to help those people that are important to you and really so uh as much as people want to be in the financial industry lean on Friends lean on family to try to get those internships um in terms of AI thankfully it has not affected my job uh very much much uh a lot of what we do is really just very specific Custom Tailoring portfolios for wealthy individuals and clients as well as just you know endowments foundations everything like that really hard to just sort of plug that into a model um and I'll stop there as far as internships we do occasionally over the summertime have some opportunities um not a whole lot just because anything we do they has to be a certain amount of supervision within our building why we do have opportuni available and as far as AI I'm trying to think of specific instances um in La enforcement is a challenge always to stay up to date with technology um we have budgets like we've spoken about to stay within and some other options for trying to keep up to date but criminal Enterprises have a lot more funding and they can uh spend a lot more on technology that we're trying to keep up with whether it's dealing with u the dark web Bitcoin um there's of frauds that are committed where technology comes into play somebody can imitate someone's voice they can imitate an image make fake images um so it is a challenge for us to keep up with that but specific examples with AI would probably be under under the fraud area and that's the frauds unfortunately are always evolving it's amazing I've done this for so long and still I find people come up with different types of frauds to go after the elderly to go after trust is they go after people's trust and um it's just new versions coming out all the time so AI yes definitely an issue um internships we actually have our Collegiate internship open right now um for next summer so we are already since it takes us so long to you know get people that top secret clearance um we open it it's open like literally this week for next summer for Collegiate students col scho not high school so collegate so so and it's it's not just a junior so if you you have a freshman in college now they can put in now for next summer um and it's a paid internship it's for the summer paid internship and then they will maintain their top secret clearance throughout the year by um um working in their local field office for 16 hours a month so that's not too bad so if you have a colle college student that goes to college like at Howard then they can work in DC like my daughter she's in New Haven she could work in New Haven office so that's the good thing they can come like she can come home do her internship here and then maintain her top secret clearance at her local univer you know in her local area we also currently um have so many jobs open on FBI jobs.gov so that's an always but New York where currently hiring entry level we have a position called Operational Support technician they support the operations so it's an entry-level position right now that you can actually if you're interested you can hit me up on S Craig at fbi.gov and it doesn't this position particularly doesn't require a degree and you can be as long as you're 18 you know as long as you're out a high school that position is open and honestly it's a ENT very entry level no degree and it starts at about 60 70,000 a year so it's not a bad gig so if you even if you're in college um you know people may want to work we have a lot of Operational Support technicians that work full-time and go to college working full-time making 70,000 and going to college and then possibly having us pay for the college it's a win-win because we do have that program where we give 10 thou through application we give $110,000 a year for previous student loans that you have before you come in up to 60,000 and then we also have a program where you can apply to go to school to get your B Associates a certificate a Bachelors and a masters no PhD I tried um they'll pay for you to go to school as well that way so there are a lot of benefits that way so if you know anyone who's looking for a job right now entry level six maybe if they have like six months of some kind of administrative experience you know s craig. um FBI Craig fbi.gov they can hit me up but we also have analyst jobs other jobs special agent jobs obviously other jobs available through FBI jobs.gov but internships every year paid thank you the are offers internships uh so it depends on like what you're looking for um but you can also come to me if you want uh but as far as the advents Department yes we um always offer internships or just to come to an event and see how an event is ran as far as AI there there no problem with that right now yeah as far as uh AI hasn't impacted what I do directly uh we know it's coming though there there's uh been articles in uh accounting journals about you know the future of AI and accounting but as I said hasn't impacted me directly at this point uh I don't currently have an internship program but many accounting firms typically uh your larger firms they do uh usually they go uh through the school like a lot of schools have uh internship programs and uh if you remember I mentioned earlier about the 150 hour requirement how it was uh becoming problematic for a lot of students because it's extra year at school right College tuition some 7 $80,000 a year now so a number of the larger accounting firms have began partnering with uh colleges universities and the St Peters Jersey city has a program somewhere else it maybe seat Hall where they partner with accounting firms where that fifth year the student actually works for the accounting firm and gets the 30 credits that that he or she needs in order to meet that 150 hour requirement um I provide internships in my office and we uh typically have about 2 to three a year um either high school or college level um and as far as AI I've been seeing a lot of AI architectural designs so it is coming um I'm a little weary of it though because having U being able to speak to somebody um get a a wish list and materialize that into a design is very personal so I'm not sure that AI will be able to compete however in the production side of it I definitely see an AI um taking off in the industry kind of on the customer um my private practice where I work do have Annam believe it's for high school students as as college students they have have it on their terms of uh the fire service is very blue collar so it's very physical you're interacting with the people in the community face to face so I don't really see AI being something to I don't say worry about but something that's going to affect the fire service um as far as internships uh most departments do not offer internships however the majority of Bergen County is volunteer the only career departments that get paid are Ridgewood haac Eng T and they have what they called combination in burfi and C where the daytime workers are paid the night time workers are not if you really want to get involved in the fire service you can apply for the volunteer services I think it starts off like 16 but you must be I think 18 in order to actually go inside of the burning building and actually save lives so everybody who's younger than 18 has to wait outside kind of be like a support cast cast MERS however to be a career firefighter you do not need to have any volunteer experience whatsoever they will teach you everything at the fire academy that you and your personal uh department will teach you their way of doing firefighting so um it does help to be a volunteering and just be you into it and make you some study beforehand if it's something you're passionate about but it's not required when you say so as a as a new guy there's just basic things that you need to look out for you to be mechanic whatsoever okay you should be mechanically inclined um you should know look for those are all things that can be taught um you just want to make sure that everything you need to use for that day is working prop um is it gas in the gas tank is oil in the O oil tank you know transmission fluid you know is everything working that you need to work and you do that every single day so usually the guys from the previous shift they'll let you know there there an issue for example you know one the tires were going you should know that you should a you send it up to your officers your offic will put a ticket in it'll get fixed you know things break down be aware of everything that can break down you a round Applause we're a little bit over time so we're do the closing speech and also the tickets and then I'll get you guys first number is three 2 9 1 3 0 3 2 9 1 three two new number 3 2 9 1 77 3 2 9 177 three new number 3291 99 one9 sorry 3291 99 we're going to pull one more 3 29141 3 29141 um you can come up to Kayla and she your information down because so as we close off today's event I hope that you all learned something about a field about yourself or what mindset you should have moving forward as a high school senior I cannot express how important it is to hear about different professions from a young child I always wondered what I'd be doing once I got older I will be graduating in just four short months so it is now my turn to start my journey into the professional world for all of you here that happen to be my age or younger than I am I hope today's panel give you some insight or confirmation as to what your life might look like in the next few years I hope you all enjoyed tonight's panel please look out for future y events such as our annual Civics event that will be taking place sometime in late April we would love to have you there as well thank you everyone for being here and once again can we please get a final round of applause for our panelist have a good night everyone everyone is give bags Bel for gift B for