OHS, Breiant Youth Alliance Sponsor Successful Career Expo

Ossining High School recently had a wonderful opportunity to partner with David Post and his team from Brieant Youth Alliance for a Career Expo. A total of seven speakers met with students from various grade levels over two days in December. They exposed students to careers in entrepreneurship, computer science, marketing/communications, legal/social justice, banking and finance, video and technology, and environmental science.

“Our goal at Ossining High School is to provide our students with exposure to different career paths,” said Kimberly Mauricio, director of school counseling. Next year, OHS plans to expand this event, she said.

The Career Exploration Program is one the Brieant Youth Alliance’s many initiatives in Ossining schools. By exposing students to different career paths, they gain insight and tools to make better career decisions. The 2019 Career Expo was the organization’s first Expo.

“It brought entrepreneurs, legal scholars and scientists together with OHS students in a way no other program has done before,” Mr. Post said. “We were quite pleased with the way students and teachers reacted to the opportunity and engaged with the presenters.”

The talented and accomplished speakers at the Career Expo included:

Entrepreneur: Mary Molina, an OHS graduate, is the founder & CEO of LOLA SNACKS. Ms. Molina developed simple energy bars to help feed her husband and four children when they were receiving food assistance. The successful company now sells the snack bars on its website, Amazon, and at CVS, Target, and other chain stores. Her company is committed to giving back and has donated more than 175,000 energy bars to anti-hunger organizations, including Feeding Westchester.

Computer Science/UX (User Experience) Designer, Patent Holder: Maryam Ashoori, “Cool Things Czar,” IBM Research. Her work includes developing next-generation human machine interfaces and environments to enable symbiotic relationships between people and cognitive systems. It spans artificial intelligence and quantum computing interfaces. She is the creator of TJbot, a kit for creating a robot powered by Watson, an IBM computer system; and a quantum computing board game called Entanglion.

Marketing, Communications and Event Planning: Chereese Jervis-Hill is president of Events to Remember, a full-service event-management and public relations firm. Events to Remember started as a home-based business in 2004 and has grown to a five-person company. It specializes in creating luxury experiences, event planning and public relations support for its clients, including press releases, social media, event promotion and marketing strategy. Chereese was recognized by Westchester Magazine in 2018 as one of the county’s top Women in Business and was awarded the Chairman’s Award 2019 from the Hudson Valley Gateway Chamber of Commerce.

Legal/Social Justice: Dennis Parker is an attorney and executive director of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice. Prior to joining NCLEJ at the start of 2019, Dennis was the director of the Racial Justice Program of the American Civil Liberties Union, leading its efforts in combating discrimination. Prior to the ACLU, he was the chief of the Civil Rights Bureau in the New York Attorney General’s Office and with the Criminal Defense Division of the New York Legal Aid Society. He is an adjunct professor at New York Law School and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Middlebury College.

Banking and Finance: Ramell Ridenhour is vice president at BNP Paribas and a master’s degree candidate in accounting at Syracuse University. Mr. Ridenhour is a 2009 graduate of Ossining High School,where he was a varsity football player. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and business management from Johnson & Wales University, where he served as the student chapter president for the National Association of Black Accountants. Mr. Ridenhour has leveraged his focus on finance and created opportunities for himself in prestigious companies such as Wells Fargo, Ernst & Young, and BNP Paribas.

Video and Technology: Donvil Collins is president and CEO of VeeKast, a video production and strategic video services company. As CEO and president, Mr. Collins helps businesses and nonprofits get more clients using video targeting strategies or interactive event technologies. He has received numerous awards for his entrepreneurial success, including being included in Westchester Magazine’s 2016 Wunderkinds list and the Business Council of Westchester’s 2015 list of “40 Under 40” Rising Stars. Mr. Collins earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in film and video from Five Towns College in Long Island and has roughly 20 years of production experience with some of the most well-known brands as clients, including TD Bank, United Way, YWCA and Malibu Rum.

Environmental Science: Erika Boetsch is a landscape restoration specialist at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Among her many duties, she designs post-construction landscape restoration plans using native plants that suit the conditions and needs of the sites. She also manages a pollinator-habitat program on city-owned lands in the New York City watershed. Erika is a graduate of Smith College with a degree in biology and botany. Erika serves on the Village of Ossining Environmental Advisory Council, which advises the Board of Trustees on matters affecting the preservation, development and use of the natural and man-made features and conditions of the community.