Zack Gates
Fair Chance Data Coordinator
Los Angeles, California
Email Zack
Zack is Root & Rebound’s Data Coordinator for the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Hiring initiative. He has over a decade of experience with data systems.
He first joined Root & Rebound as a volunteer envelope stuffer during our annual appeal in 2018 and, according to him, fell in love with the mission and the people. “It was like coming home for me”, he says. So it was no surprise when, a few months later, he signed up for the Americorps VISTA volunteer program and came back to us to be our very first Data & Technology Coordinator.
Unfortunately, all things must pass, and when his AmeriCorps term of service ended, another AmeriCorps volunteer took over and Zack transitioned out into the corporate sector. “I definitely didn’t want to,” he recounts, “but it’s the only way to keep a non-profit thriving, you know? You would never fund a position with private donations what you could with federal grants!”
Zack then went to work for Davey Resource Group as a Database Management Specialist. There, he worked inside PG&E collecting and reporting on data related to the safety and viability of PG&E’s in-service utility poles. “I know I signed several NDAs,” he chuckles, “but I can say it was a way to contribute something for a while.”
The whole time he was “out there”, as he calls it, he was thinking about “home”. “I became a part of truly meaningful, beautiful, life-long friendships at Root & Rebound. Almost all of the people I hold dear in this world I met in one year working here.”
But he cites Root & Rebound’s mission as the thing that draws him back here now. “I’m able to share my life with my friends no matter where I work,” he states, “but I can’t do this work except at a handful of places. And who’s funding them? I don’t really know how to put it. This just is who I am, plain and simple. I never want to do anything else but pitch in like this.”
Some things that make Zack really happy are dogs, his friends, his guitars, his 40+ house plants, $1 hotdogs, $30 salads, naps, and, seriously, please may he pet your dog? Please.
Zack Gates
Fair Chance Data Coordinator
Los Angeles, California
Email Zack
Zack is Root & Rebound’s Data Coordinator for the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Hiring initiative. He has over a decade of experience with data systems.
He first joined Root & Rebound as a volunteer envelope stuffer during our annual appeal in 2018 and, according to him, fell in love with the mission and the people. “It was like coming home for me”, he says. So it was no surprise when, a few months later, he signed up for the Americorps VISTA volunteer program and came back to us to be our very first Data & Technology Coordinator.
Unfortunately, all things must pass, and when his AmeriCorps term of service ended, another AmeriCorps volunteer took over and Zack transitioned out into the corporate sector. “I definitely didn’t want to,” he recounts, “but it’s the only way to keep a non-profit thriving, you know? You would never fund a position with private donations what you could with federal grants!”
Zack then went to work for Davey Resource Group as a Database Management Specialist. There, he worked inside PG&E collecting and reporting on data related to the safety and viability of PG&E’s in-service utility poles. “I know I signed several NDAs,” he chuckles, “but I can say it was a way to contribute something for a while.”
The whole time he was “out there”, as he calls it, he was thinking about “home”. “I became a part of truly meaningful, beautiful, life-long friendships at Root & Rebound. Almost all of the people I hold dear in this world I met in one year working here.”
But he cites Root & Rebound’s mission as the thing that draws him back here now. “I’m able to share my life with my friends no matter where I work,” he states, “but I can’t do this work except at a handful of places. And who’s funding them? I don’t really know how to put it. This just is who I am, plain and simple. I never want to do anything else but pitch in like this.”
Some things that make Zack really happy are dogs, his friends, his guitars, his 40+ house plants, $1 hotdogs, $30 salads, naps, and, seriously, please may he pet your dog? Please.
Why do you come to work at Root & Rebound every day?
Here, every impulse I have to act with humanity is seen as essential, instead of as a liability. Wherever that is true, things get better.
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