Coach D and HYPE Youth After our weekly Friday afternoon soft skills training

HYPE Success Story. This student eventually graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.

HYPE students after a training with local business owner, speaker and author Burt Freeman.

In the early 1990’s,  Darrell “Coach D” Andrews and his wife Pamela were working successfully in Corporate America. During an evening of relaxation, they viewed a show on 60 minutes that changed their lives forever.  The show highlighted this generation of youth and how their future was bleak from both an academic and workplace perspective.  The 60 minute program was the stimulus that lit the fire of change and transformation in Coach D.  He and his wife committed to spend their lives transforming the next generation through passion and purpose. They researched and created two programs designed to teach soft-skills to under served youth and young adults. BASIC (Building and Sustaining Internal Change) was the first program developed with the goal of helping young adults understand the power of personal transformation in order to succeed in the workplace.  BASIC made our company a pioneer in soft skill development in the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware.  Subsequent to BASIC, we developed the HYPE Program (Helping Youth Pursue Excellence) to help secondary school aged youth to understand critical soft and life skills needed to succeed in school and in the workplace.  Both programs started out as pilot programs, but eventually became one of the top funded programs in their WIA and JPTA contracted areas.  BASIC was considered successful due to our high employment retention rates within program participants placed on jobs.  We averaged a 75% retention rate over a two year period..  The average program hovered around 52%.  The  HYPE Program also had a high retention rate but was best known for its high dropout prevention rate (A goal of WIA Funded Providers in Delaware.)  HYPE had a 96% graduation rate while working with under served in-school youth. Most programs had a much lower average than this. 

Darrell “Coach D” Andrews  now travels the country speaking to youth, program providers, schools, corporations, government agencies and non-profits about the importance developing a ‘no-excuses” mindset in the workplace and academically.  He regularly speaks at conferences and events nationally with the goal of inspiring stakeholders to synergize around the objective of helping Generation-Y Youth succeed in the workplace, in school and life.  Organizations such as the National Association of Workforce Developers (NAWDP) The Association of Job Search Trainers (ASJT) and the Wisconsin Careers Conference (One of the largest in the USA) have all books Coach D to share his insights. Programs such as Michigan Works, Jobs For America’s Graduates and SERCO-Workforce Solutions have all contracted with Coach D to inspire their youth to identify gifts and talents and connect these talents to career and education (A process called Passion Mapping™.).

If you are looking for a high energy, effective speaker who is also knowledgeable of workforce development solutions for Generation Y Youth, then Coach D is your man!  Very few speakers in the country have the unique combination of motivation and hands on experience regarding Workforce Development initiatives. 

Click here to book Coach D for your Workforce Development Event

HYPE students enjoying a dinner gathering over former program manager Sonya Blake’s home.

HYPE student providing mentoring services to elementary school children.