Alfredo Perez rose from a lower-income and sometimes dangerous Fort Wayne neighborhood to become a corporate executive.

“I’m an example,” he says, “that you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it.”

That is what he tells young people associated with Latinos Count – an organization he helped lead in its early stages. He was the organization’s inaugural board chair. He helped develop Latinos Count’s mission and vision statements.

Now retired, he was the first in his family born in America and first to earn a bachelor’s degree. He went on to become an executive at Johnson & Johnson, where he led training and leadership development for thousands of employees.

He talks to young people in Latinos Count about many things associated with professional success. Interviewing.  Writing winning cover letters. Acquiring skills required for the future.  Learning how to shine on the job. He also talks to them about careers in the orthopedics industry – something he was heavily involved with at Johnson & Johnson.

“I think there are a lot of students like me who are first-born whose parents tell them that just work hard and good things will happen,” he says. “That’s not true. Yeah, you work hard to keep the check coming, but that doesn’t get you promoted. There are all these other things. Performance. The way you work with others. Building trust with your employer so they know what you can do.”

He also talks to young people about the value of education. He was a student in the Groups Scholars Program at Indiana University. It is an initiative that puts first-generation students and those with socioeconomic barriers on the path to college success. He completed his studies with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.

“We talk so much negative to kids,” he says. “I get sick of hearing things like, ‘Don’t go to college. It’s a waste of money.’ “

In his case, a high school English teacher introduced him to the Groups program and it changed his life. He was initially planning to go into the military.

“My family valued education,” he says. “They just didn’t know how to get there.”

His father was a native of Mexico and poured high-end flooring. His mother was a homemaker from Texas, helping raise Alfredo and a younger sister. The family home had two bedrooms, one for his parents and one for his sister. Alfredo slept on a sofa.

“When I was inside,” he says, “it was wealthy with love and support. But when I walked outside, it was unpredictable in our neighborhood.”

Perez likes to joke that he first thought orthopedics referred to shoes and not the high-tech products his former employer produces. They are products that enhance people’s quality of life.

Today, he is enhancing people’s lives in a different way through Latinos Count and other endeavors. To see young people succeed, he says, is a profound experience for him. In part, it reminds him how far he has come.

“We change people’s lives,” he says. “That’s what it comes down to.”