How Did Graham Thomas Help Grow tnAchieves Across Tennessee?

Speaker 2 (00:00.11)

Welcome to You Matter Nashville, where we celebrate the people and stories that make our community so special. We believe that everyone has a story to tell, and more importantly, everyone here matters.

We're your host, Jason and Mindy Hoover, and we're passionate about shining a light on individuals who are making a real impact right here in Middle Tennessee. This is about community, connection, and the incredible people who are making a difference.

Let's dive in as we uncover powerful stories and meet remarkable people whose journeys will inspire us all, right here on You Matter Nashville.

Speaker 2 (00:37.122)

Welcome back friends to You Matter Nashville. Thank you for joining in today. We've got another exceptional episode for you. If this is your first time, I'm Jason Hoover, your co-host, along with my beautiful wife, Mindy here. And today we are honored to welcome Graham Thomas, who is the Chief Community and Government Affairs Officer with Tennessee Achieves. Welcome to the show, Graham.

Yeah, Jason, many thanks so much for having me. Really looking forward to this.

Yes, sir. So let me brag on you just a little bit. it says here Graham has been with the organization since 2010, beginning in Knox County and helping it grow into a statewide initiative that now supports Tennessee students across all 95 counties. He is a proud graduate of the University of Tennessee with a degree in communication studies. Graham's work centers on building partnerships, recruiting mentors.

and advocating for funding that ensures more students have access to tuition-free college mentoring and coaching opportunities throughout the Tennessee Promise program. With a passion for giving back and a unique ability to connect, he embodies Tennessee Achieves mission to empower Tennessee's next generation.

That's a mouthful. That's too kind. Cram of Tennessee achieves, typically works just fine. Okay. Well, to kick things off, what drew you to Tennessee achieves back in 2010 and what did those early days look like there? Yeah, Minnie. Well, thank you guys again for having me. And I'll tell you, 15 years ago, it looked a lot different than it looks today.

Speaker 2 (01:55.458)

You are a dizzy person, sir.

Speaker 1 (02:19.136)

graduated from UT in 2008 and I was dead set on a career in politics. So I moved to Washington, DC, went to work for a member of the United States House of Representatives. And I just felt very far away from the people that it felt like we were set out to serve. And so I moved back to Knoxville in early 2010 and I went to work for a mortgage company in downtown Knoxville.

Fast forward to today, two of those guys are still my boss. They're CEO and CFO, or two of our founders. But I was working at a mortgage company. know, we were in a recession. I just graduated from college and needed a job. I never thought the mortgage industry was really where I wanted to be. And I saw this job posting come across for the organization in those days was called Knox Achieves.

I went to do a little more research about it and there wasn't even a website. I found like a one page piece of paper on the county mayor's website. But what I learned was that our board of directors were five guys, Tim Williams and Rich Ray, who were the CEO and CFO at 21st Mortgage where I was working at the time. Mike Ragsdale, he was the Knox County mayor. Bill Haslam, who was the city mayor.

And then the fifth guy I didn't know is a named Randy Boyd, who is our board chair and has remained so for all 15 years now. But, you know, I took a look at this opportunity that was allowing Knox County high school graduates to get a community college tuition free. That's incredible. And I thought it's early, it's new, it looks exciting. I took this risk. I took about an $8,000 a year pay cut.

I called home to my parents. I've got wonderful parents who have given me incredible advice over the almost 40 years now. And I said, I'm going to leave this job and go work for this small nonprofit. And they said, you know, the economy is getting better, but are people donating to small nonprofits that no one has ever heard of? And I said, I don't know, but I guess we're going to find out. I don't think that these five guys do things that fail. And so I took that leap.

Speaker 1 (04:26.606)

in 2010, it's the best decision that I have ever made. That first year I was there, we were working with 491 students, all Knox County public high school graduates that were attending our three local community colleges in East Tennessee, Pellissippi, Roan, and Walter State. Today we're working with about, we work with about 65,000 high school seniors every year.

25 to 30 college students. it's grown over the years. It's a much more sophisticated operation these days than it was back in 2010. But it's been such just a fun journey to be with an organization really as it was getting started. We're now the largest college access and success program in the country. believe it. I really do believe it. 2010, you guys just started. You're helping pretty much Knox County.

When did it start going from just being this small entity to let's take on the whole state? Yeah, that's a great question. the program launched in 2008 for the graduating high school class of 2009. So I missed the first year. Our president and CEO, Christy D'Alejandro, has been in the program since day one. She did it for a year. She was working as Mayor Ragsdale's chief of staff at the time and using some of his team to help kind of get the program off the ground.

He was term limited in 2010 and Christie and I went to work for Randy's company, Radio Systems Corporation. PetSafe is their big brand. So, Christie and I were working in this company that made, they make like 4,500 pet products. And then there were two of us that were doing this higher ed work. And one day the Tennessee Higher Education Commission had put out this request for proposals to grow college access programs. And so,

We took a shot and wrote to grow the program that we are operating in Knox County to the seven counties contiguous to Knox. There are just two of us. So logistically speaking, that made the most sense. And so we got this grant and we took it back to our board of directors and said, we're going to go work in these seven counties. And they said, let's do this instead. Why don't you find seven additional county with white demographics?

Speaker 1 (06:41.08)

We'll go into these 14 counties, we'll give them half of the money, we'll probably fundraise the rest, and when this grant funding runs up, we'll be a little bit more sustainable. Somehow that year we went from one to seven to 14, we ended up in 23 counties, including Shelby County, which is Memphis, Lake County in the far northwest corner of the state, usually comes in as like a 15 or 20 poorest counties in the country. Randy had come and said, can two of you operate 50 counties all by yourself? And we were like, yes.

Turns out we would not have been able to do that. But we did successfully grow into 23 counties that first year. the course of the next three years, we grew into 27, including Davidson. We made it to Nashville. was our only middle Tennessee county. I tell this to be a lot of time. think when you're starting a nonprofit and you're operating a small nonprofit for many years, it's a lot of hard work.

And there's some luck involved and it just so happened to be that one of our founding board members became governor and decided that we had six years of data that showed that this program worked, that it was impactful. And he decided to put his name on it and make it his signature initiative and launched Tennessee Promise. And so he launched Tennessee Promise in 2015 and here we are 10 years later, statewide, the first state in the country that has an opportunity like this for our students.

That's fantastic. That's phenomenal. And you kind of was on the ground floor. Yeah, you missed the first year, really it was all the stuff that you did to help it grow. I you were a part of it. And I know just from startup businesses, not necessarily just a nonprofit, but I know being a part of that, I've been there, where it was just three of us that started the business.

And even though I wasn't the owner of it, I always said, you know, he created it, I raised it. the amount of mental energy, you know, we're not even talking about the actual doing thing, the mental energy that goes into it is it can be taxing. It can be really taxing on you. And so how did you handle that along with also with home life?

Speaker 1 (09:01.324)

Yeah, I think being just young and dumb. I didn't have at this point in my life. I didn't have really any other commitments. You know, I wasn't married. There was no kids. I was able to to really pour into this opportunity and give it everything I had to give it my full time attention. I mean, that first year of Tennessee Promise, I put about sixty five thousand miles on my car. We had to visit every single county twice.

Uh, you know, if I ever run for statewide office, I've already been to all 95 counties. I won't have to do the tour. Um, I've been there and I've done that. Um, but I think it was just that, um, you know, thinking about it now at almost 40, like it, seems like a much more daunting task. I think it was just young and we just went out and went and did it.

And how much do you think your degree helped you with that?

I use my degree every single day. I mean, I give a ton of credit to the University of Tennessee and the School of Communication Studies prepared me for this job. I learned very quickly that I'm not a good desk person. I like to be.

in one of the unicorns.

Speaker 1 (10:19.754)

out in the field. I like to be meeting with people. I love going and finding the mentors, finding people that are volunteering their time to give back to our students, connecting with stakeholders in the communities we serve that care about this work. I use that degree every single day. And then there's a ton of writing. If you have ever, you're listening in today and you've served as a mentor, I still, as I go out across state, like, you're the guy behind the emails. Like, yes, we send millions and of every year and text messages.

So yeah, there's a real guy behind those, that's me. And so I cannot give enough credit to the experience that I had in higher ed. Certainly changed my life and prepared me for my career. And so I hope that we're doing that for this next generation. Well, what I really love is that you guys are not just promoting for your college degrees. You guys are also promoting.

you know, like at the community college level, getting certifications, know, degrees in like medical tech and surgical think tax and things like that to, you know, them going to getting their electrician and plumbing. mean, so it's not like people go, you're just helping kids go to college for their four year degree. No, you're not. You're really helping them just to get a start with their education, whatever field they go into. Cosmetology, have known students to go into cosmetology with their.

Tennessee Promise. Yeah, you know, what we know is that today's workforce, the jobs of today, the jobs of tomorrow, the trend is going to continue, requires some type of training after high school. Whether that is a technical certificate, an associate's degree, a bachelor's degree all the way on up, you've got to go do something. You know, here in middle Tennessee, Nissan is one of our biggest partners. You don't just walk into the plant in Smyrna off the street and go to work on the line.

that you're operating machines that costs hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. That requires some type of post-secondary training before they're gonna let you go in there and get your hands on those. There's some crazy sad, it's like if the plant shuts down, every minute the plant shuts down, they're losing like a couple million dollars or something like that. And so it's a much more sophisticated operation than probably what a lot of people think about when you're thinking about advanced manufacturing.

Speaker 1 (12:40.066)

But it's the same thing with all the things that all those trades that you mentioned. It's a really important opportunity for students and there's going to be a huge gap in our workforce. A lot of the people that do these jobs are aging out of our workforce and the next generation isn't going into those fields. And so it's really been an emphasis of our current governor. Governor Lee has really put an emphasis on that.

But you know, want students, we know about 54 % of our students are in either a healthcare or STEM related field, which is something we're really excited about because those are the jobs of the future.

You know, fun fact is, out of high school, I started in a factory building trailer hitches. Before I went to college, I thought, you know, I'm gonna go experience life. then I realized I wanted to go to college. I did.

Okay.

Speaker 1 (13:28.526)

He's like, I want to be on the business side of this factory.

sat down with the factory, the guy over the whole factory and he kind of guided me that way. yeah, for four years, three, four something. But yeah, I did everything building trailer hitches. So it's definitely a hard job.

Yeah, but I'm just, I'm just thrilled that that is not looked down upon, you know, for so long, you know, I taught in the Williamson County sector and, you know, it was just AP honors classes, go to get your four year degree. And that was preached at in the kids who were like, well, when I go to cosmetology, I want to go to electricians. It was like, no, you want to go to college. So I'm just really glad that a lot of the higher ups are really promoting what we're needing and that it's not less than it's equal.

And so I'm really, I'm just thrilled that, cause there's so many students who need that hand on work. My brother went the route of getting his tool dye and machinery license and went through all those classes, went to tech college. And then, you know, I went to traditional college and we always joke that he's like, yeah, you went to school for four years and I make two times more money than you and I only went for two. So, you know, he would just like, you know, just jad that in. like, yeah, but I want to be a teacher. wasn't expecting to make money.

But whenever I left teaching, well, first I want to say all this was coming out and whenever I was working in middle Tennessee from 2010 to 2018 teaching here. so it was neat kind of watching my juniors and seniors learning about this and how it kind of slowly came into the school system and being noticed and, I've got to do volunteer hours. I've got to do this and that.

Speaker 1 (15:11.95)

By the time our daughter got into high school, it was 2017, 2018, it was well known. They knew going in freshman year, what they needed to do in order to be successful. I needed to do so many volunteer hours. I need to take all these classes. And it was set up so these kids could graduate and they could go the hope route or the promise route or whatever they needed for their situation.

But it was funny because whenever I left teaching in 2018, I got an email and I don't know how I got my email into the Tennessee achieves pool. But I don't know somebody put my name in, but asking me to be a mentor. And I'm like, you know, I'm leaving teaching to go into real estate and you know, you can't just stop being a teacher. You just can't. You know, even in real estate, I'm educating people every day on the process. So, um, but

jumping into that, was kind like, okay, I'm to talk to kids I've never known. I've never talked to before, prior relationship. And I'm going to help them get over these hurdles and this finish line to make sure they have everything in so they can keep their Tennessee promise going into college and that they actually register for college and send everything in. yeah, I would love to talk about your mentor program. Like I said, I know I've been doing it, I think, I guess we'll

since 2018 minus one year. But yeah, I'd love to talk about that, how people can get involved. And I first want to say it's not scary. It is literally for kids that may go, OK. But they're nice. They're respectful. They're glad you're there to ask questions. And a lot of the kids I've worked with over the years, English was a second language.

you know, an extra adult in their life that English was primary was important. And so anyway, I just want to start off there. Yeah. So, you know, the thing that oftentimes I think is missed with Tennessee Promise, and this goes back to our early Knox of Tuesdays, is that it's the financial support that lasts all our scholarship. Yes, it's impactful. Yes, it's meaningful. Yes, families need that to help their students go to college. But the secret sauce, what makes it work is the non-financial support.

Speaker 1 (17:29.486)

On the access side, that's our mentoring program. We need 5,000 volunteers across the state every single year that are willing to give about one hour a month of their time to help students navigate the college going process. This year we're going to introduce an additional mentoring program. It's going to help students navigate their first jobs. So we're going to have the access program that we've always had. So you can go and you can work with students at a high school in your community and help them get to college.

Or you can go and volunteer with our sophomores that are either thinking about transferring to a four-year university, you can help them do that, or enter the workforce and kind of help them navigate applying, sitting down for their first interview, building a resume, all the things that we know that they need to be doing that maybe they haven't thought about. But when we launched this program, our goal was to provide a pathway to post-secondary for students that are traditionally left out of the pipeline.

those students tend to be the first in their family to go to college and they tend to be from lower income households. And so we thought if we're really going to reach that population, we've got to support them in a non-financial way. So yes, going into a high school and saying you can go to college tuition free, like that's an attention grabber, right? It's a message that it works. It's easy to understand. We've had some debates here about, we say free college? And we know that there are other costs associated with college, but

going into a high school and saying like, hey, you get to go to college for free if you do this application. It's just a game changer. But we know that if you're the first in your family to go to college, that there's a lot of barriers that will come. It's a new vocabulary. It's a new language. We have students that show up on the first day and think that like someone's just going to tell them where to go. They don't know that there's an orientation and you've got to make an advising appointment. And so it's this whole new process. You know, we get talk about all the time, like

If you had your magic wand and you can fix something and hire it, like it's really hard to access, right? There's a lot of steps. It's brand new for you. It's really easy to leave. You wake up one morning, you decide you're not going back and that's it. So what do we can flip that, right? Like what do we can make it easy to access and hard to leave? We now have a coaching program. This is for our full-time staff, but we ask our mentors, our volunteers to spend an hour a month getting students on a college campus. And now we have a staff.

Speaker 2 (19:32.939)

Speaker 1 (19:50.486)

full of coaches that are coaching our students through their college careers. We're making it hard to leave, right? When you are thinking about giving up, when you've hit that barrier, that roadblock, you've got someone that you can reach out to and we have some additional funding for these students. We can help them pay for books and computers and travel and grocery and utility bills or whatever it is that's coming up. But that's the part of Promise. There's three kind of core principles that we began with. A last dollar scholarship.

to our community and technical colleges. That's what everybody talks about, right? But with mentorship and then the community service requirement. Our students get back eight hours of community service every semester they receive the scholarship. Our students have now completed more than 5 million hours of community service. That's amazing. we launch. says, Randy travels around the state and says that makes us the largest community service organization in the state. We don't know if that's true. No one has fact checked us yet. So we're going to keep saying it.

Yeah, if you're listening and you can prove otherwise, we'll stop. But we're not going to argue with that. And, that was important in the early days when we were privately funded. We were asking volunteers to ensure students were successful and we were asking community members to donate to this cause. We want our students to continue that tradition of giving back. And we also allow career inspiration, job shadowing, some things to count.

But several states have done free community college since Tennessee. Oregon did it the year right after we did it. Nevada did it two years after we did it. And they haven't had the success that we've had here. Essentially what they have done is just continue to pay for students that were already going, subsidized students that were already going. We put 4,000 new students in the pipeline for the first year of Tennessee Promise.

That's amazing. But it's that non-financial piece, the non-financial support of a mentor or a coach is a difference maker for that student that we're trying to reach.

Speaker 2 (21:54.114)

The coaching program, is that what's called the complete? Okay. And so just to bring clarity for everyone that's listening, how's it different, the complete versus the mentor program?

Yes.

Speaker 1 (22:10.104)

Yeah, it's a great question. So the mentors traditionally are working with our high school seniors and they're helping them land on a college campus. And so, you you're reminding them to go to orientation to schedule an advising appointment. You're answering the questions they have about how to navigate finding themselves on a college campus, you know, in August, right? So just a few weeks from now. The coaches are full-time staff members here at Tennessee Achieves.

They are all recent college graduates. About half of them are actual Tennessee Promise students. They've recently gone through this. And so it's like a near peer coaching model. It's relationship building in the name of college success. So we're not tutoring, we're not doing math homework, we're not writing papers, we're getting them to the writing lab, we're getting them to a math tutor. We have that additional funding now to help them buy computers and...

and books and travel and things like that. And what we've seen is students going through this program are four and a half times more likely to graduate from college than their peers who are going without it. It's about an 11 % graduation rate if you're not in this program to a 49 % graduation rate if you are.

That is amazing.

I think a lot of it, takes such burden off of them. Like you said, financially, I think a lot of kids will start looking at their debt and going, my gosh, I can't keep doing this. The great thing about you guys is that like the junior and senior year, it actually goes up because we all know tuition goes up just a little bit every year. It just keeps ticking up. So I love that you guys have even thought of that and like, Hey, you make it to your junior or senior year. We're going to up that Tennessee profits just a little bit.

Speaker 1 (23:54.37)

that's going to help take care of that gap as well. Inflation. Yeah, know, Tennessee has a really, really robust financial aid package. It's as good as any in the country. And again, the message is easy to understand, right? Like Tennessee Promise, go to college for two, you can get it for two and a half years, tuition free. I mean, that is a message that anyone can understand. And then the HOPE Scholarship is there and available for you if you qualify when you transfer.

it's, it's a really like, it's a great opportunity. mean, we have a, a financial aid package here that all other 49 states, would love to have and are jealous to have. And, know, we were fortunate that especially with Tennessee promise, we had a large pot of money that was sitting unused and we had a governor that was forward thinking enough, to put it into a trust. so now promises pay for totally off of this pot of money.

That was sitting unused. it's, you know, no new tax dollars, no new taxes, none of those things. And then Tennessee Achieves is a 501C3 and our peers at the Heirs, our counterparts at the Heirs Foundation operates some counties for Tennessee Promise too. We're nonprofits. We're going out and privately fundraising for our operations and our costs. And so it's this really unique public private partnership. I'm not a state employee.

I'm about as close to one as you can be, but I'm not one. And so it's this really great partnership that allows us as a non-state agency to be nimble and we can react quickly and we're flexible. We don't get caught up in all the bureaucracy of state government. And then the state is just paying out the scholarship piece, right? So the state is just doing the financial part and we're coming in and putting all the supports around students.

and providing all these different opportunities for students to feel supported on their college journeys. But you guys have not just did the private donations and all that stuff. The lottery actually came into play what year? So lottery started in 2004 with the Hope Scholarship. And so that's actually where all the Tennessee Promise funding is coming from. in 2014, when Governor Haslam announced this,

Speaker 1 (26:15.438)

The lottery reserve was, and I'm going to get these numbers probably not exactly. It's been 10 years now since we did this, but there's something like $450-ish million in the Hope lottery reserve. it was required by law that he kept a hundred million in there, which I think he kept a little bit more than that. But he moved 300 and some odd million dollars into a trust. And for the last 10 years, any excess lottery dollar.

has gone into that trust and now Tennessee Promise is sustainable. They don't have to put any more money into it. It puts out enough interest every single year that it will last into perpetuity. again, like really forward thinking. mean, it would be really easy to spend that money on who knows, I mean, who knows the state government budget is big, right? They can spend on all kinds of things. And he was forward thinking enough to put that money into a trust and Governor Lee has continued to support it. And it's wildly popular.

And it's, you know, many to your point now, it's ingrained in our high school culture. And, you know, what we were trying to do with Knox Achieves, Tennessee Achieves, and Tennessee Promise is change the culture, right? To say that college is important. It's affordable. You can go, you can be successful. And that commitment that you're making and that hard work you're going to put in is going to pay off in the long run.

And you know, that culture changing work is hard. Like it doesn't happen overnight. But our college going rates continue to rise and rise. And we took a big step backward during COVID. COVID was a huge challenge in higher ed. Tennessee kind of weathered the storm better than most. And it's because we have these programs in place to help support students, even when things got really, really hard. I mean, when a, you know, once in a lifetime pandemic hit.

We were able to kind of ride that storm out better than most because we had these things in place and now we're really starting to see some rebounds in our college unit rates starting to increase back to not quite pre-COVID levels, but we're getting there.

Speaker 2 (28:20.61)

That's good. You think COVID calls a lot of students to not consider college?

Yeah, you know, we were hearing, you know, anecdotally is they were tired of the online stuff. You know, their college or their high school careers moved online. The colleges went online. I mean, everyone did the best they could. Right. I mean, what else can you do? I think everyone adapted and did what they could. This isn't a knock on anyone. Yeah. But yeah, I think it turned some some people off. And yeah, it's the other thing that we're seeing. We run a summer program for students that

are not testing at college level per their ACT scores. And what we're seeing since COVID is that there are more students that need remediation and not only are there more that need it, but they're starting from a lower spot. Interesting. And so we're really trying to think about how do we kind of revamp our summer programming because students are just coming to us from a place that they weren't five years ago. More need it and they're starting at a lower spot from just being out of the classroom for a few years.

yeah, it's, it's one of those, the pandemic may feel like it's behind us, but we're still, you know, seeing the effects of that.

You know, we have a, we had a kid that went through that as well through the pandemic. She was, that was her junior, senior.

Speaker 1 (29:50.988)

Yeah, junior, senior year.

And, you know, it's just a little snapshot from what we saw with her and of course, you know, the friends and just the people we know. There was a change. There was definitely a hurdle for those kids going through the pandemic and then going to college and many not going, not sure what they were going to do with it. I don't know. It was very, it's very interesting to know what occurred.

Yeah, over half of her friends that were straight A, AP students ended up leaving college within the first semester because of anxiety disorders. And these are kids that we have known their whole lives. They never really had anxiety. They theater kids. Like been on stages and like their whole, literally since they were in elementary. so was watching that was really sad because here you get these AP kids and honors kids who have really been serious about their studies. And then

Yeah, theater.

Speaker 1 (30:52.462)

I don't know what happened, but I don't know why you guys saw overall that first year, 2020, 2021, when those kids were going out. But I mean, everything's great and everybody's found their own way. Our daughter is now in her third year of college and she's doing really great, but she lost all of her scholarships because of that, you know, having to leave.

And, know, we made some, we made some tweaks to promise during that. mean, traditionally, you know, the promise rules had said that you started after high school and there's no gap or anything like that. And we made exceptions for those students. That's started and then started. had an, you know, they, they did have a second opportunity because there's just, nobody was prepared for that. it's crazy. You know, that, did require state action. You know, that's not something we just got to do at Tennessee cheese, but again, it's something that it was a trend that we saw.

hard.

Speaker 1 (31:47.474)

And we were able to go to the state and say, hey, I think we need to rethink some of these things. And to the state's credit, they always provide us a seat at the table. I mean, we're working with the students, right? We're working with almost 90,000 students a year. And so they take our feedback very seriously. It's been a great partnership.

You know, you've mentioned that other programs, different states may not be hitting as high marks as the Tennessee achieves. Do you have any thoughts on why that may be?

Yeah, I think in some of those early programs that came out right after we did, it was just money. It was just like, hey, here's free college. And this isn't something you can just throw money at. If you throw money at it, you're going to subsidize students that were already going to college. mean, when you look at the HOPE scholarship here, for example, and then this was the point of the program. two HOPE and Tennessee Promise, two different programs. But the HOPE scholarship was created and intended that

the design was to keep the quote unquote best and brightest in Tennessee, right? Like incentivize students to stay in state because the data shows that you're then going to stay in state to go to work instead of going to Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, know, fill in the blank, all of our, you know, neighboring, states and it, and it worked. mean, for a long time, it, it kept students in Tennessee. our

Our goal is to provide the path for students that don't think they have a path. now we know, fast forward, you know, all these years later, 85 % of our graduates stay in Tennessee to live, work and raise a family. Oh, wow. So for people in your business, right? That means that home buyers, right? So they're establishing their roots here in our state. They're going to work, you know, here in Nashville. They're going to work at Amazon and Lyons-Bernstein and Oracle when they get here. And so

Speaker 1 (33:43.278)

You know, our goal is to provide Tennessee's future workforce and then they're going to stay, buy a house, raise a family. And this investment that we're making in them on the front end, they're going to pay back tenfold, right? mean, if you go to college and you get a job with, you know, higher wages, I mean, at our cost per student on your first paycheck, the state's probably going to recoup that, right? So, you know, that's our goal is to provide that pathway for students.

keep them here in Tennessee, and let's make sure that our folks here in Nashville are getting these high wage and demand jobs and that we're not having to import.

I love the fact that 95 % stay here. Maybe our kids will stay here.

I hope we moved here. actually came from both came from Arkansas and our families are still there. But I love that they now have their little version that's that's popping up through the Arkansas lottery and for the scholarship program. And they have that going on. was like, man, why wasn't that there when we were going to college? We're both first generation college. So the things you mentioned about us both trying to figure out how to apply, there was no Internet back there. Sorry, guys, we didn't have Internet.

You may have like a homepage for, you know, the place and a few information, but it wasn't a lot. I don't think you could even apply online. You had to go in person still. But it was just like, we didn't know. I was a music major. I didn't know how to call and make appointments for auditions and things. And so it was just really different. So to have teachers and mentors really focused on helping those students and having programs to go.

Speaker 1 (35:25.644)

I know nobody else in your family has gone, but this is an option. You don't have to do what your parents have done. You, you have big options. So I love that. And I sense them like my mother actually ended up going to college. Not the same one at the same time as me. don't know if I could have handled going to college with my mother. love you mom, but she was like two and a half hours away. I'm like, go to university of Arkansas.

Stay on your side.

I'm going to go to Henderson State. We launched Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect at the same time. And, Tennessee Reconnect is essentially Tennessee Promise for adults. And I used to make that joke when were meeting with our students and our mentors. Like, if you want to get our high school students excited about going to college, let them know their parents can go for free with them. And they'd be like, no, mom. But yeah, again, I mean, we have this whole like suite of programs. And I mean, in Tennessee, there is if you are interested in pursuing

a degree, really isn't a... We try to take all the excuses off the table, whether you're a graduating senior or you're 25 and you worked at the factory at the trailer hitch factory and you've changed your mind or the opportunity is there. what we also know is that...

The older you get, the harder it gets, right? Like life doesn't get easier as you get older. And so what we're really trying to do is capture the students. Now, I mean, like we talked about earlier, the reason I was able to go put 65,000 miles on my car and travel around is because I didn't have a lot of commitments. And so like, let's try to grab the students now while they have as few commitments as they're ever going to have and get them skilled up and into the workforce. Love it. Yeah. Cause when she started having those families, it's really hard. Then you have to work double.

Speaker 1 (37:19.308)

Right, exactly.

So what do you think are the biggest barriers for kids to get the, what they're facing to complete the higher education here in Tennessee? What are those major barriers that you guys are helping outside of financial?

You caveat it now with outside of financial, so you stole my answer. What we're still hearing from students across the board is the finance piece. then it's there, it is, while I just talked about having as few commitments now as you're ever going to have, they still have other commitments, especially with students that we're working with. Many of them are working, if not full-time, close to full-time.

They're helping with siblings at home. I mean we have these stories that we're getting in from students when they're requesting grants and working with their coaches I mean the will absolutely it will break your heart the things that our students are going through And then we're we're also fighting this You know, I think for a long time we did a really really good job here talking about putting an emphasis on higher education and how important it is

and how it is the great equalizer. And we've lost some of that momentum. There is a higher ed value proposition challenge currently. You know, we're kind of back to some of that, like, not everybody needs to go to college. And, you know, from where I'm sitting, oftentimes the people that are saying that, their kids went to college. So like, which kids don't need to go to college? know, post-secondary education, all the

Speaker 1 (39:03.936)

all the outcomes, all the indicators are there, right? You're more civically engaged, you're healthier, have a longer lifespan, make more money, you're more financially secure. When the economy turns, you ride that out better. All of those things, like higher ed leads to better outcomes in all of those categories. so the value proposition is still there. And then we were fighting the narrative about

you're going to go graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, like not in Tennessee, right? Like if you do graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, like then you made a decision to go somewhere that you didn't have to go, right? We have opportunities here in Tennessee that you can graduate if not debt free, very, very, close to debt free. We joke around. I have a much loved Excel sheet that I have created for each of the kids.

where all the places they were looking to go to college. And our son is wanting to go pre-dental. So we have, I'm like, we've got to get that first four years paid for as much as possible, you know, because you get into that dental school, it's just going to be crazy. And, you know, I have on there listed, you know, the scholarship that I expect the state, you know, he's going to get awarded based on ACT scores and stuff.

And the next thing I have Tennessee, you know, promise your Tennessee scholarship. That's like the second thing. And then where he works, they also give a scholarship. Shout out to Publix. So, but we have those things listed. I have it with the tuition, but it's just all this research being very aware of what the tuition and sometimes the housing is so expensive at some of these universities. Like the tuition's and the housing is more than the tuition.

It's like going to the movies and getting the drink and popcorn is where they make the money.

Speaker 1 (40:57.87)

Yeah, like we we look in like one university that's close by, he could literally go for $700 a year if he, you know, and this is not extra scholarships. That's just that. So you really could do that. Or you could go to some of the bigger universities and be about 12,000 in debt. So you just got to go, is it worth it? You know, do I want to end up in four years with, you know, 50,000, but that's still still so much cheaper than

what other states are paying. You know, they're leaving with a hundred and hundred and twenty five thousand in debt. So all of these, what the state pays, like all those merit scholarships. And then after the Tennessee Promise, I mean, that's like usually eight to ten thousand off tuition each year just with those two state scholarships. Yeah, it starts to stack really nicely here. I mean, there really are just like I said, I can't.

Um, give enough credit to our, our state leaders. And this is over, you know, 20, 25 years now of, leadership in our state that has put an emphasis on making higher ed affordable. Um, I said that there's 49 other states that would love to have the financial aid packages. I agree. Well, we feel very blessed to have you guys here and, uh, over the years have now left my wonderful teaching job that I did love into real estate.

And it shows.

Speaker 1 (42:23.704)

But I have had people over the years, probably five or six families who are like, hey, I have young children and we live in ball ball state, usually like California or Washington state. And they're like, I heard that if we moved there, you know, lower taxes and my kids can at least go to two year college for free. Like they know this information when they start researching the state. So, I mean, that is actually attracting new families and people to move to Tennessee because

They're like, wow. My kids have a shot of going and getting an education and us not going into complete debt when I have three kids that I have to pay for. So kudos to you guys. Just increasing that those state numbers one family at a time and giving me more clients. I mean, it's, know, there's, there's an old video. If you go digging around our YouTube, you'll find it somewhere. But, I was, we were making a video and I was sitting at Pellissippi state community college in Knoxville and

person asked me like, what's the goal? I was like, you know, one day we'll hope to be in all 95 counties and we're not there yet. And I mean, just a few years later we were. mean, it's a testament to our leadership, our board of directors. And, you know, the one person I didn't mention earlier when I was talking about kind of making this jump to Tennessee Achieves is our president's EO, Chrissy DeLaHondra has been here since day one. I didn't know her at all, but nobody has worked harder and has worked more tirelessly.

to provide this opportunity. I mean, she is a first gen student from McMinnville here in Middle Tennessee. Okay. And you know, she gets it. She understands that story. You know, I was not a first generation student. It's not a story that I get to go out and tell. It'd be really disingenuous of me to pretend otherwise. But you know, I still, I was a student that was on paper, goes to college and graduates. And I mean, my first semester at UT, I called home.

and was like, I think I'm coming home. It's where I'd always wanted to be. mean, it was the dream and it's still really hard. And fortunately, no, for me, it was my dad. My dad gave me that pep talk to say like, hey, you're going to finish the semester. You're to ride it out. It's going to like, you're going to love it. Like if you come home at Christmas and you feel differently, like we'll have a conversation about it. But like you're going to finish the semester and going back to our mentoring program, like a lot of our students don't have that. So you call home and say like, hey, I'm

Speaker 1 (44:49.314)

coming home or I'm done and your parent just says, okay, or maybe they don't even call a parent because they know the parents are gonna give them that pep talk. And so, it comes back to the magic part of Promise is providing that person that can give you that pep talk, that can keep you there. Because what we know is if we can keep students there through their first semester, the graduation rates really start to skyrocket. It's that first semester for

You know, I've heard that many of times that first semester, you know, I went untraditionally, obviously. I went, what, five years later. But I hear that first semester is pretty tough. You thinking, you mentioned about being in all 95 counties, you know, that's pretty big. How do you keep local engagement in all of those counties?

So when we launched Tennessee Promise, it was written into the legislation that the county mayor, the county executive, and all 95 counties put together a group. called them local advisory councils. So was the county mayor, a business or chamber person, a person from the school district superintendent, someone from the college that serves that community. And then the fifth one I always call like the wild card. It was typically like another business person.

But sometimes there's like an education foundation and they, those five people, some of them were a little smaller, some of them were a little bigger. It's kind of a loose structure, loose recommendation, but really helped us navigate those communities in the early days. You we were going into places we'd never been before. In some places, the Chamber of Commerce was the driver. We could open all the doors that could help us find the mentors that could find the people that will support this program. In other communities, there's education foundations we didn't even know existed because we'd never been there before.

And now, know, fast forward 10 years later, we're there, we've been there for 10 years. We're in these high schools at least once, most, usually twice a year. I mean, we've got staff that are in these communities every day, traveling the state. You know, we know who those players are now. We've got our feet under us. But that local engagement piece is really, really important because we've got a model that...

Speaker 1 (46:58.798)

You know, it's working in Memphis and it's working in Nashville and Knoxville. It's also working in Giles County and in Lake County and in Sumner County. But that community buy-in is so, so important. And it's why we spend so much time on the road. I'm going to be in West Tennessee two days next week. I was in Knoxville three days last week. I mean, we're constantly in these communities. It's important that we're there.

still a road warrior?

still on the road, not as much as I used to be. been 60,000 miles on the car anymore. His Zoom is awesome. I got a 17-month-old at home. My wife would frown upon that kind of travel. you know, a little more complicated these days like we talked about, right? But, I mean, it's still my favorite part of the job is to be in the communities that we serve, finding those partnerships and building those relationships with people that support our students. I mean, at end of the day, that's what it's all about.

it's still what energizes me to, get up every day and come and do this. I love it. Now. I know you've talked about the next stage that you guys are doing with mentorship, and helping getting them to the workforce and that those kinds of things. What else do you guys have coming down the pike? What are your, like your lofty next five year goals, 10 year goals that you're hoping to do? Yeah, that's a great question. you know, number one on my radar right now is cementing the complete program.

that we talked about earlier. So that's our coaching and emergency grant program. We just wrapped year three of a five-year pilot. So we've got two more years to turn that into a permanent part of our program. It's currently state funded in a form. So really want to make sure that we get that across the finish line. You know, what we learned was that pre-Tennessee Promise, if you were a Pell Grant recipient, a low-income student at a community college, your graduation rate was only around five or six percent.

Speaker 1 (48:50.06)

Baseline promise moved it to 19 and now we've moved it to 49 It's really important and so that is number one priority for us we've got a Really exciting announcement coming in Memphis. That's all I can say about it. Yeah, we haven't we haven't launched it yet, but something really exciting that we're working on in Memphis and then I think we would really like to think about

expanding some of the access work that we do. So we've got a program in Knoxville that we call Knox Access, privately funded program there, where we've moved our coaches into the high schools and they're doing nothing but college access work. So they're helping students apply for Promise, apply for additional scholarships, do FAFSAs, college applications, get in set up for dual enrollment, anything that leads to a college going outcome. They're in the high schools working alongside the counselors.

And we are seeing that the college going rate in Knox County over the last few years is increased significantly. We're thinking that actually, and the statewide data is not out there yet, but it looks like Knox County is very likely going to have the second highest college going rate in the state behind Williamson. And Williamson is so far ahead of everybody else that it's probably not attainable to catch them or pass them.

I'm gonna leave me hanging.

Oh, sorry. I'm a Williamson County native, right? We love it here. Don't quote me on this, but the college in Williamson County is around 85%. I mean, that's as good as anywhere in the country. And it's 20 points higher than anywhere else in Tennessee. But it's just a different dynamic there in Williamson County. But we'd really like to expand some of that access work.

Speaker 1 (50:42.498)

You know, in Nashville, our college going rates just barely above 50%. So half of Davidson County's public high school graduates don't go to college after high school. And so for a while I grew up in Franklin, you know, I consider Nashville, I live in Nashville now. You know, we're leaving behind the population of people that are from here.

When you zoom out and you look at a lot of our data, it's really, really good. People that are coming here to work for all these big, large employers that we're making these announcements about every day, they're educated and they're coming and they're making a really high wage. You guys are probably working with them every day, but let's make sure that the people that live here are also setting themselves up to be successful to get those jobs so that they can continue to...

to live and thrive here. Some of those jobs that I had mentioned, you know, at the community colleges and like at Nash State and different places. I don't think a lot of these high school students are even aware or even know to look for some of these certification jobs. Like I have a friend who has been very successful being a surgical assistant. You know, went two years and had it paid for, went later.

after she became a mother, did the hard way, but she did it. And she has just kept adding specializations to where she is making more than a nurse now. Like she's doing incredible. But most kids don't even know that's a thing, like going to community college and being a nurse. But there's so many other two-year degrees in specializations where you can go straight into the workforce and you can go straight in making 40 to 60,000 with a two-year degree.

It's like, would love for students to have more of a grasp that, you know, if you want to do something like that in the medical field, STEM, things like that are tangible, like, you know, some of them are geared towards, you know, working at Nissan, the mechanical degrees and total and dies degrees. But like I said, you know, they're not really pushed a lot. It's like, how can we really get these schools in front of these kids and go, we have all of these things to offer. know, we're really thinking about.

Speaker 1 (53:03.574)

that workforce piece and how do we connect our students to the in-demand jobs in the region? so we do like, just did a Deloitte hosted us here, but we had Deloitte, Nissan, HCA and Turner Construction all came and they did like a full day big, like a job shadow, like expo at Deloitte on their campus.

where our students get to go learn about the jobs that they have available. And so how do we get our students connected to it? Just a little earlier today, I was having a conversation with the CEO of the Memphis Chamber of Commerce, and they have a program that they're running in the summer where they're bringing high school teachers in and they're placing them at employers all around the city of Memphis. Because many, it's like you just said, our teachers are the front lines. And so,

If our high school teachers know about the in-demand jobs in the city, then they can start talking to their students about the in-demand jobs in the city. And so we're trying to find these unique partnerships and these workforce partners. you're an employer and you're listening to this today, please call us because we want to get, our employers need workforce, right? They need talent. We have the talent, right? We have 90,000 students in our program every single year. We can help connect them to you.

And that's a win for our employers and that's a huge win for our students. They can start to prepare themselves today for a career. again, I go back to my own college career. Like I went to college because it's what I thought you did next. Two parents that went to college. I didn't go to college with like career in mind. I went to college and thought like, this is what you do next. And I hang out with my friends and be away from my parents for the first time. Right.

I'm sure that there were plenty of students at UT that were much smarter than me that were thinking about their next steps. But I don't know that our students necessarily always put that together. And so how can we provide that early access to the career opportunities that are in their region and get them excited about it so that they can be prepared for those jobs when they graduate? I love it.

Speaker 2 (55:20.942)

So I want to turn a little bit more towards you, personal. You've been doing this since 2010. That's 15 years, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's that Arkansas math. You don't like my jokes today.

I'm

Anyway, so 15 years, that's a long time, especially in one company, one place. What continues to motivate you? What inspires you daily to get up and keep doing this?

Yeah, you know, I think if we were operating the same program that we were operating 15 years ago, I probably still wouldn't be here. I think we have a value at Tennessee Achieves. We stole it from Randy's company. sat when we worked in Randy's company, we sat in the, we sat with their HR team and the values were posted like right next to us. And they had a value to try, try a lot of things and keep what works. And that's a value that we have carried with us.

here at Tennessee Achieves for 15 years now. And so we are constantly pulling the data on our program, the good, the bad, the ugly. And then we try a lot of different things. pilot a lot of programs. The model here is to get the data, see what's maybe not working, try something. And if it works, then you pour gasoline on it. We try to expand it, scale it, take it statewide.

Speaker 1 (56:50.062)

That to me is exciting. I thrive in an environment of change. I know for a lot of people, the change word is a scary word. But I love that what we're doing today is totally different than what we were doing not even 15 years ago, five years ago. We weren't doing the things that we're doing today. I love that every day here is different. It's a new challenge. There's something new to solve for. And then just like I said,

earlier, the people like Mindy that are serving as volunteers, that are serving as mentors. mean, how are you not inspired to at one point, you know, our mentor programs on as big as these, we used to get 9,000 people a year across the state. And the program is modeled a little differently than it is today. But you've got people raising their hand and say, Hey, this is important.

And I'm going to invest in students in my community. I mean, it's inspiring. they're going to volunteer to do it, I can at least, you know, get up and do it for a paycheck. Right. So it's been great work and our team here is just, I'm biased, but second to none, we built an amazing team here. I love my coworkers, the people I get to do this work with every day. I feel much more like family than coworkers.

Um, and I, you know, I tell people, I get the easy job. Like I get to go out and talk about our program and advocate for our program and our coaches and our staff here are doing the much harder work, which is the people work. Um, uh, and they do just, and, and just exceptional job. Our team is, like I said, second to none. Well, I just want to encourage everyone to do the mentorship. know we got an email this year that there were some schools that

didn't have enough mentors. will, I'm very proud to say Centennial High School always has enough mentors because the parents there and the community around Centennial is actually spectacular. I know I'm a little biased after working there and having two kids go through, but just the volunteerism that's there is just so high. But yeah, we saw where there were a lot of schools. They're like, hey, can somebody take on another student? And I was like, hey, I can take on another student, you know, from a different school. me, kids are kids.

Speaker 1 (59:00.588)

But yeah, but just know that there is still a need. We still have a needs. You can just go on the website, it tenneseeachieves or tnachieves.org and go on the link to sign up as a mentor. It's really easy. They don't like make you go to fingerprints or check your blood or anything like that. It's very, very painless.

I did get to go do something different this year and go on campus and get to meet the students because we actually went to the Tennessee achieves meeting at the high school this past year. So, you know, that was neat to be able to go and actually see some of the kids or at least they could see who that we were real people and not like robots texting them and calling. But yeah, I mean, it's very painless, everyone. So it's not just former educators actually saw some of my

my daughter's friends who they graduated three, four years ago. They're like, I don't have enough things to do now. We were empty nest. So we're, we signed up to be mentors. We didn't even know you did this Mindy, you know? So it was kind of cool to see some of the other mentors as well in our community. So I just want to throw that out there and advertise that. I obviously wouldn't be coming back to do it every year, you know, running my own business, having my own nonprofit and then doing this after the salmon like movie store over here. But you know, I wouldn't be doing the extra time if I didn't think

It wasn't important if I didn't believe in it. And I think what you guys do is just miraculous. And you have instilled hope into so many students. And I think that is the most important thing that you guys do. And you give them goals. And I am such a goal setter to an unhealthy level. But for kids to be able to set goals and know they're reachable because they have hope that I have the support system, I can do this.

And so anyway, I'm going to rest on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56.684)

that. What are some other ways that people can get involved?

Yeah. So I can mention, so if you got one hour a month, you know, we, don't ask you for a huge time limit. We know that people are busy. but I mean, Mindy, I think you're exactly like who we would model as a mentor. You own a business, you run a nonprofit, you've got, you've got kids, you've got other commitments and you found an hour a month, right? Yeah. Like Randy Boyd is our measuring stick always. Like if we make a change to the mentoring program, well, Randy still have time to do it. Randy is, you know,

has a goal of running a marathon on all seven continents. He's president at UT. He's all over the place. If he can do it, think the goal is that anybody can do it. so I think like the review that you just gave, mean, we'll just blast that out to everyone. But it is a way, you know, we want to find a way that people in the community can spend just a little bit of time and give back in an impactful, meaningful way.

know, the other ways that you can get involved, like I mentioned earlier, if you're an employer and you're looking for workforce, we want to connect our students to you. If you are a nonprofit listening to this and you've got volunteer opportunities, our students need eight hours every single semester. And so there's a lot of different ways that you can support us.

We are always happy to come. If you have a group of active community members that you think would be interested in learning more about this, would love to come and talk to your group about our program and ways that they can be involved. know, I think we've visited every Rotary Club and Kiwanis Club and Chamber Board, but I'm sure there are groups out there we don't know about. And we would love to come tell the Tennessee Achieve story and get people excited about this.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38.36)

And how would they or who would they contact? Would that be you or somebody?

Yeah, they can contact me. gave the website earlier tnachieves.org. Mine, I'm on the staff listing. That's my personal cell phone number that is on the website there. We put that in our handbooks every year. Every single year, about 65,000 high school seniors get my cell phone number. So please also don't be afraid to use it. I mean, we're either bold or crazy or maybe both. You know, it's important. And our mentors have those because

Thank

Speaker 1 (01:03:12.014)

We know that if you're a mentor and you're reaching out to me on a Saturday evening at seven o'clock, it's because the student reached out to you at Saturday evening on seven o'clock. And that, you know, that interaction with that student at that time could be what makes or breaks them going to college or remaining enrolled. And so, you know, we need to be accessible for our students. And so it's out there, we're easy to get in touch with.

I love that. so Graham, thank you so much. Thank you for taking time. Thank you for taking an hour this month and joining us and sharing with our audience. What you do is a tremendous benefit to Tennessee and not just you. I mean, it's a whole team. It's, you know, all the mentors. It's all all the people that are the coaches. mean, everybody, right? And I appreciate you coming on and sharing with everybody.

Yes, well, thank you. Yes, it is certainly not just me. There is a team of people here that works very, very hard. They do a great job. Like I said, it's an honor to wake up and get to work with them every day. We wouldn't be able to do it without our volunteers and without the leadership across the state of people that have decided that this is important. It's a worthwhile investment. It's a great opportunity for students, but I can't thank you enough to.

help us get the word out about the work that we're doing and talk a little bit about our volunteer mentoring program. Always need volunteers. And so thank you for this opportunity and the great things you guys are doing helping places like Tennessee Achieves and your other partners that you've had come on and talk about the great work. It's refreshing to get to log on and hear the good news and hear the great things that are happening. So thank you for everything that you're doing.

Absolutely. All right. Just as Mindy said earlier, if you are interested in getting involved or finding out if there is any way that you can assist or help out, be sure to visit the website tnachieves.org. We'll have that website for you in the notes. Also, if you're watching, we'll have it up on the screen. And you can reach out to Graham Thomas.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27.116)

What's the best way, email or phone?

One, it's just graham at tnachieves.org or 615-604-1306.

Perfect. Again, we'll have that as well. Thanks again, Graham. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for pouring into our youth. Thank you for helping the community grow. And the world is better because of people like you. So thank you for everybody that's been listening. I told you it was going to be an amazing episode. And hope you feel the same.

shared a lot of great information that could help so many families. Please, please, please share this. And until next time, always remember that you matter. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of You Matter Nashville. We hope you found inspiration on this episode and are reminded that no matter where you are or what you do, you matter.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32.426)

If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe, leave us a review, and even share it with your friends and family. Also, stay connected with us on social media and tune in next time for more incredible stories from the heart of our community.

Until then, remember, your story matters, your voice matters, and most of all, you matter.