OOR Graduate One Year Later: Still Union Employed

 

  
Stanley Smallwood at work on top of the Union Trust Building/Mellon Two Bank in downtown Pittsburgh.

   A year ago in May, Stanley Smallwood completed the OOR program. In June 2003, he left SCI Somerset for a community center in Pittsburgh. One month later, Smallwood was at work as a union tuck pointer for Graciano Corp., making $31 an hour (23.43/hr. plus benefits.)

The OOR Newsletter of August 2003 had a story about his post-release employment. He is still working on the same project, the landmark Union Trust Building/Mellon Two Bank in downtown Pittsburgh. He was one of 18 hired and one of two men
retained to work throughout the winter.

Smallwood's odyssey has taken him from employment with Graciano Corp. before going to prison, time in another state correctional institution and then six years at SCI Somerset. He spent 3 years inside SCI Somerset doing masonry work, then found himself on the pre-release OOR Carpentry CReW.

Smallwood said that this experience helped him to develop measuring and cutting skills, along with building forms, which
he uses on his current job. He credits former OOR Carpentry Instructor Ron Moskey with adding to his skills in construction.
"He taught me well," he said.

In a strange way, he said, something good came from his incarceration. "I looked back and saw that my life wasn't the way I wanted it." His description of being in prison was that it was "mentally difficult. I never
want to go back there."

During his six months on OOR, Smallwood and Tim Weimer, OOR Site Manager, talked about helping ex-inmates get back into the work force. When he started his job, Smallwood asked Glenn Foglio, President of Graciano Corp., if he would consider this and Foglio agreed to work on it. So far, one person has been hired.

Smallwood thinks that "a lot of guys don't have goals before they come out" and this makes it likely that they will return to prison. "Some people make mistakes and learn from them and some don't," he concluded.


 
 

OOR Graduate One Year Later: Still Union Employed

 

Trainee Leaves on Positive Note

 Dauphin County Group Visits Oak Hollow YMCA Project PA Legislature Amends Universal Construction Code

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