Kim Mahan, founder of Maxx Potential, is a 2018 honoree of The Valentine’s Richmond History Makers program, recognized for demonstrating innovative solutions aligned with the Capital Region Collaborative’s priorities of workforce preparation, job creation and transportation. Celebrate the 2018 Richmond History Makers at an event Tuesday, March 13, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at Virginia Union University’s Claude G. Perkins Living and Learning Center.
Technical adviser Jorge Vargas (left) with apprentice Ryan Jacques (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Single mom, three children. Ran a day-care business out of her home, went on welfare, worked at a copy shop. Drove a Geo Metro under a tractor-trailer, escaped with a mangled arm and no use of her left hand.
If those sound like the elements of a winning resume, then please welcome Kim Mahan, who overcame, well, nearly everything to earn a college degree, start her own web-design business and become a successful executive for a Fortune 500 company (General Electric).
And, now — take a breath! — she is heading up a technology-outsourcing company in Richmond that’s open to hiring not only apprentices with good tech credentials, but also the disabled and career-changers who are willing to learn.
Recent hires have included a former assistant grocery store manager, an insurance worker who majored in craft and material studies in college, and a computer science graduate who learned that his missing ingredient was real-life experience.
It’s a new way to build and develop technical talent — training technology professionals by doing real work.
Kim Mahan, founder of Maxx Potential (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Mahan says she and her team will give anyone a chance if they believe the person has the talent, the willpower and the resolve to learn the technology business and see tough problems through to the end.
“I’ve had many gifts given to me, so many experiences,” Mahan says. “I’ve taken all the things I love to do, all the things I’ve done, all the things I’m good at and rolled them into one, and this is what you get.”
This is Maxx Potential, a 5-year-old company based in the renovated Corrugated Box Building in Manchester, where apprentices deliver entry-level information technology services in testing, maintenance and support.
An experienced staff of technology professionals provides quality control on the projects while teaching apprentices key fundamentals as they go.
Mahan says the company has worked in a broad range of industries from New York to Brazil, while bringing back to American shores jobs that were previously outsourced to other countries, such as India.
The benefit for clients in the Richmond area is that they get their work done, help improve the local talent pool in the rapidly growing digital economy and potentially find their next great employee.
If the apprentices run into problems while working with a client, Mahan says that she; the company’s technical advisers; or her business partner, who earned a computer science degree from Vanderbilt University and whose technology abilities far surpass hers, can provide the necessary backup and tutoring, if needed.
But the idea is for the apprentices to work through the problems, so they can learn by doing.
Mahan says it’s the hope that all the apprentices — there were 33 of them as of early December — will eventually receive job offers as their knowledge and skills increase through four levels of apprenticeship.
Maxx Potential finds its apprentices through free career labs in which participants are guided through programs that give staff members an opportunity to evaluate their promise and potential.
Molly Micheux, a 27-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University graduate, left a job in the insurance industry in Norfolk —her bachelor’s degree is in craft and material studies — to come to Richmond to apprentice with Maxx Potential.
“I just believe technology is the future. There is just so much opportunity, especially opportunity for women,” Micheux says.
She explains that while she was climbing the career ladder at her previous employer, she found a lot of the work uninspiring and repetitive.
She wanted to find something more challenging and interesting.
On the job, Micheux says she tries to make asking a co-worker for help a final option, because struggling through an issue increases her understanding.
“I learn something every day from the people I work with,” says Micheux, whose apprenticeship has taken her to a digital consulting agency. Micheux’s spouse, who works in restaurant management, transferred to Richmond and they’ve been able to keep their finances stable as she learns a new career.
Technical adviser Trish Mahan with apprentice Bill Fitzgerald (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Steven Hubbard, a 31-year-old who worked in the management side of the grocery-store business for a decade, had a more difficult time transitioning to a technology apprenticeship, because his spouse was also going through a career change —she’s now a teacher in Richmond — and their finances were in tatters.
So they moved back in with his parents for two years as they worked toward new careers.
Hubbard says his parents were initially suspicious of Maxx Potential and weren’t shy about telling him so.
“They thought I was getting into a multilevel marketing scheme,” Hubbard recalls with a laugh. He says he’s now earning more income than both his parents put together, and their wariness about his career shift has become full-throated support.
Before he came to Maxx Potential, Hubbard says he had an inadequate understanding of the technology business and the potential it offered.
“What I’m most interested in now [cloud architecture], I didn’t even know was a thing when I came here,” he explains.
Looking back, Hubbard says everything he and his wife went through — including moving back in with his parents — was worth it. He now has a job with CapTech, a local IT, digital, technology and management consulting firm.
In addition to apprentices, who are required to work 40 hours a week with one of Maxx Potential’s clients, the outsourcing company also employs college interns who are pursuing a degree at a four-year accredited university and are majoring in computer science, electrical engineering or computer engineering.
Maxx Potential pays the interns, but they don’t have to work the mandatory 40-hour week required of the apprentices, a company official says.
Mahan believes the apprenticeship model that she and her co-workers are continually refining at Maxx Potential can be reproduced in other cities. A branch in Norfolk already is in development.
Because she knows what it is to overcome a disability, Mahan says she has hired an apprentice who is legally blind and one who has Asperger syndrome, as well as others whose education ranges from high school equivalency to doctorates — “GEDs to Ph.D.s,” she says.
The greatest predictor of success in the technology field, according to Mahan, is whether people relish the work and embrace the challenges inherent in the field.
There is a waiting list for those who want to get into Maxx Potential’s apprenticeship program, but Mahan says that list will shrink as the outsourcing company expands its client base and creates more slots for apprentices, while broadening the local talent pool for technical workers.
“We’re in it for the long run,” she says.
