For the first time in her life, Mary Lamar is driving a new car to a job she loves. But it was a rough journey getting to this point.
“I was in prison. I did three and a half years for something that I never saw coming,” Lamar said.
The Cleveland native slipped into a life of crime at a young age, eventually serving time for robbery when she was 50 years old.
“I chose a different lifestyle and, uh, drugs and alcohol is in my story,” she said.
Now 56, Lamar is a first-time homeowner and a supervisor at her job, where she leads a team of machinists
“Your recovery is what matters, and you have to have that support,” Lamar told CBS News.
Lamar found support at Magnet, an Ohio-based nonprofit that helped retool her life. Magnet’s goal is to educate and engage people on the available careers in manufacturing, in part, to help fill the more than 400,000 open jobs in that sector. Magnet has filled 3,000 of those jobs in Ohio.
Magnet offers year-round career classes for adults who are unemployed or underemployed. The three-week course offers soft skills and helps connect participants with jobs in the area. For students, it offers summer camps, field trips and apprenticeships, all free, thanks to grants and donations.
Magnet CEO Ethan Karp wants to fill factory jobs by helping America’s Rust Belt workers.
“We can’t just say, ‘Hey, pick yourself up by your bootstraps,’” he told CBS News. “You need the grit and determination to do that, full stop. But you also need some help.”
But Magnet does more than just give folks a pair of bootstraps.
“If somebody doesn’t have child care, if health care is an issue, if transportation is, if crime is — all of those things affect their ability to get a job. That’s what we’re trying to remove with access and give people the wraparound supports to do all of — to overcome all of those barriers,” Karp said.
One of Magnet’s workforce partners is Talan Products, where Lamar works at a facility that stamps specialty metal parts. The company said it’s added 40 jobs in the last year.
“There’s a lot more manufacturing that we would love to have here. It’s gonna take a little time to build the workforce,” Talan Products COO Adam Snyder said.
For Lamar, her advice to people: “Be open, be fearless, take a chance, be honest. You can be successful at any stage of your life. I’m proof.”
Sadly, shortly after CBS News met Lamar, her house burned down, killing her partner of 18 years. She was able to jump to safety, but was seriously hurt. Talan Products and Magnet helped set up a GoFundMe to assist with her recovery.
Ian Lee is a CBS News correspondent based in London, where he reports for CBS News, CBS Newspath and CBS News 24/7. Lee is a multi-award-winning journalist whose work covering major international stories has earned him some of journalism’s top honors, including an Emmy, Peabody and the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ Tom Renner award.
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