Program Director Maurice Good returned to his hometown to give back, and is now changing lives through employment at Maryland New Directions.
Beyond being a key member of our leadership team, Maurice also oversees our lead instructor and job coaches, ensuring they have the guidance and resources they need to best serve MND’s clients. In addition, he also meets regularly with stakeholders, including public officials and employers, to help raise awareness for MND’s mission and seek new opportunities to fill Baltimore’s employment needs.
“Our goal is to connect job seekers with livable wage career opportunities,” he says. “That means a big part of my role is identifying those industries that are on the rise and building relationships with employers and other community stakeholders. We then strive to build training modules to help job seekers gain the knowledge and credentials that will allow them to take advantage of those opportunities. My position continues to evolve, and that’s very exciting for me.”
Maurice has dedicated his 20+ year career to youth workforce development and creating alternative education and employment opportunities in underserved communities. And this is actually his second stint with MND – he initially worked with us back in 2000, leading our youth initiatives for a time before moving to New York City. He spent nearly 15 years in NYC, providing leadership and vision for several youth development and alternative to incarceration programs in the South Bronx. But after seeing the social unrest that erupted in Baltimore following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, Maurice felt compelled to return home.
“I love my hometown, and after watching the uprising in April 2015, I decided to cash in a few of my retirement accounts and come home, just to give back,” he says. “I went back to my old neighborhood in southwest Baltimore and started using the skills I had gained academically and professionally to pursue philanthropy work and assist with several grassroots non-profits in the city.”
His journey would lead him back to MND in 2017, when executive director Grace Lee encouraged him to apply for the opening of program director. After securing the position, one of his most immediate contributions would be to help launch the Commercial Transportation Careers (CTC) program, which helps job seekers earn their CDL-B (commercial driver’s license) learner’s permit and secure employment with local transportation providers. Since 2017, at least 194 individuals have completed the CTC program and started new careers with employers like Transdev and the MTA.
“I recently learned one of our clients who earned her CDL with us just celebrated her 29th birthday in Mexico,” says Maurice. “Three years ago, this young lady came to us as a single mother of two who was working two jobs to raise her family. To think she’s now in a position to vacation in another country – that’s amazing to me. It’s very rewarding to help people improve their quality of life through employment.”
From Maurice’s perspective, providing these employment opportunities is vital to improving life in Baltimore City.
“For me, to move the city forward, you have to get the residents excited about Baltimore. And you do that by putting them in a position where they can earn a higher wage to take care of themselves and their families. If a person can advance from making minimum wage at two or three jobs, to making $22 an hour at one job, with better benefits, they are able to move their family to a better circumstance. And now they’re excited about where they are in the trajectory of their life, and their family’s life, and that gives them hope. At MND, we want people to know that we are here to support them and give them that sense of hope. We’re very proud to be part of the solution for the challenges in the city.”
And it seems employment solutions are needed now more than ever, as the COVID-19 pandemic has created both a new pool of job seekers, and an unprecedented need for workers. While admitting that having to quickly shift from in-person to virtual training was a huge challenge, Maurice also believes the pandemic created many opportunities that will help MND in the long run.
“As an organization, COVID gave us the push we needed to go virtual, which was a direction we had wanted to explore anyway, but we hadn’t had the time to figure it out,” he says. “Our name is ‘Maryland New Directions,’ but before we went virtual, we really only served the Baltimore metro area. But now, we can reach people out west, on the Eastern Shore, and elsewhere for the first time and truly represent the whole state. We have also worked closely with employers during COVID to create more employment opportunities for our clients. While the hospitality and transportation industries were hurting, the supply chain was thriving, and that created even more openings for our Maritime, Transportation, Distribution, & Logistics (MTDL) program. And because we were virtual, our employer partners were more available to present directly to our clients and talk about their companies and promote their job openings. Our role has been to keep our ear to the ground, listen to employers, and help address the needs of the community.”
Looking to the future, Maurice hopes that in addition to expanding on the virtual training opportunities created by the pandemic, MND can eventually expand its physical footprint, too.
“I would love to get us to the position where we have our own space to not only offer the classroom training we have now, but also our own vehicles to provide behind-the-wheel training,” he says. “If we have our own forklifts and our own commercial vehicles, we won’t have to rely on partners to provide that training, and it will help us provide even more value to employers and grow as an organization.”
And growing as an organization means helping more clients achieve their goals and dreams, which is what keeps Maurice going.
“My favorite part of my job is witnessing when clients get to the point in their journey where they see their own success,” he says. “That’s what fuels my fire and drives me – to see our clients live their best lives.”
