BOSTON, Mass.—He grew up in nearby Lowell, the son of a dentist and dental hygienist, bent on cutting his own teeth in the business world.
Today, Gerald Chertavian is riding his own crest as a social entrepreneur, founder and CEO of a nutmeg called “Year Up,” an extensive one-year education and training program that serves low-income young adults between the ages of 18-24.
He helps 2,100 young adults every year, including African-Americans, Hispanics, and the downtrodden; has visited 63 countries including Armenia; has written a best seller; and has compiled a resume that reads like a “Who’s Who.”
As if his notoriety didn’t already precede him, a recent stint on TV’s “Sixty Minutes” vaulted him over the top.
The sequence showed the value of Year Up both to the young adults in the program as well as to corporate partners like JPMorgan Chase and American Express. Most importantly, the 20-minute stint had significant impact in changing perceptions of what talent looks like today by showing urban young adults as valuable assets—skilled, motivated, resilient employees—rather than as liabilities.
Year Up’s communications firm, Tager & Company, introduced the idea to a story editor at “Sixty Minutes,” who recommended it to a producer after hearing about the program’s impact and scalability, as well as Chertavian’s best-selling book, A Year Up: Helping Young Adults Move from Poverty to Professional Careers in a Single Year.
Chertavian was interviewed by Morley Safer following a year of preparation for the show. They filmed in four different sites: Boston, New York, the Bay Area, and Miami while interviewing two CEOs and three Year-Up graduates that were impacted by Chertavian. The segment aired Jan. 26 and got immediate results.
“A CEO of a Fortune 500 company saw the segment and immediately called us up to participate in our program,” said Chertavian. “His company will sponsor 100 interns a year at $24,000 an intern.”
Who is Gerald Chertavian and what makes him such a hot commodity in the world of business dynamics?
It’s the case of a local boy who’s made good, attending local schools, plying the neighborhood playgrounds, and stomping around local ball fields.
His dad Levon was the product of Armenian immigrants and worked as a dentist while his mom Joyce was employed as a dental hygienist. The family has been supportive of Armenian charities while catering to a large ethnic clientele. A tiny beach cottage in Seabrook, N.H., has served as a family get-away.
Gerald graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College with a degree in economics, later earning a master’s with honors from Harvard Business School. He and his wife Kate (Smallwood) live in Cambridge with their three children.
“My brother Lee and I were schooled early in Dad’s uncompromising work ethic,” he recalls. “Beginning at 12 or 13, we always had summer jobs and the money went straight into a savings account.”
Chertavian went on to say how a history teacher at Lowell High inspired him with his lectures on Jacksonian Democracy and the Manifest Destiny. “If you were good enough, you simply had to attend his alma mater [Bowdoin], which he considered a Valhalla of enlightened education,” he brought out.
Chertavian began his career on Wall Street as an officer of the Chemical Banking Corporation. He moved on to become head of marketing at Transnational Financial Services in London, then co-founded Conduit Communications in 1993.
In short order, he fostered its growth to $20 million in annual revenues and some 130 employees in London, Amsterdam, New York, and Boston.
Within five years, Conduit ranked as one of England’s fastest-growing companies before Chertavian cut the cord and turned his full attention to social entrepreneurship.
In 2000, he founded Year Up, which combines hands-on skill development, college credits, and corporate internships designed to promote such qualities as effective communication, leadership, and teamwork.
In the inaugural year, 22 students began classes in downtown Boston. Since then, the organization has served over 4,000 students and partnered with more than 200 major corporations across the country.
Just last year, three major awards came his way, including one from the White House for being “a champion of change.” Mount Ida College presented him with an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters.
Looking back on his Armenian side, a grandfather immigrated here in 1917. Following a stint in the woolen mills, he became a cobbler and worked seven days a week for decades to put four children through college.
“I learned the value of hard work from my Armenian heritage as well as the constant quest for knowledge,” Chertavian proudly said.
As to the future, Chertavian is looking ahead with gusto, working to scale up his program through community college partnerships and other channels to be able to serve 100,000 young adults annually over the next decade.
“For me, this is a matter of social justice,” he pointed out. “I believe that young adults deserve opportunity and that the country needs to better utilize its human capital. This has been my dream for decades and I feel lucky to help it come true.”
Tom Vartabedian
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Imagine that, doing all this and no welfare and no food stamps, just self reliance. What a concept!
“Self reliance” ?! The man attended Bowdoin College (tuition $43,676); his family owned a beach cottage; and his father was a dentist. He had immense circumstantial advantages that the youth he is now counselling didn’t have. Good for him for exploiting his advantages and now for giving back, but don’t you dare assume that his experience is replicable by anyone who just has “self reliance.”
Social mobility in the US is the lowest among all developed countries. Where you end up is due in large part to where you start.