Jarred Gaines

In March 2020, Per Scholas Graduate, Jarred Gaines, 35, was working as a personal trainer and planned to open his fitness center. As the coronavirus pandemic hit, he struggled to make ends meet as a fitness instructor and picked up other part-time work as the pandemic worsened. Later in the spring, Jarred heard from a friend who was applying to enroll at Per Scholas Greater Boston. With little tech experience, Jarred was intrigued by the opportunity to learn about the Amazon Web Services cloud platform. Both he and his friend were accepted to the program. Over the summer, Jarred participated in virtual training from Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., receiving training in Linux, Python, networking, security, and relational database skills. After graduating in October, Jarred started his first job in the IT field as a customer service analyst at IDBS, a research and development company in Boston, where he uses his new skills to troubleshoot software issues and streamline IT support for its partner organizations.

According to Jarred, the Per Scholas AWS re/Start course, “literally gave me a restart in life and it allowed me to rebuild that confidence and enter a field where I can make a competitive income to sustain myself in Boston.” Encouraged by his experience, Jarred has also enrolled to earn a computer science associate’s degree with an emphasis in cybersecurity to continue his new career path in the tech field. He says his job allows him flexibility, such as the ability to work from home and supervise his 9-year-old son doing online learning, and he looks forward to using his new skill set to improve his fitness business on the side.

See Jarred featured on CNBC.com with this story.