Dripping in Knowledge and Wealth

Shawn Stafford was born in 1972 to an 18-year-old single mother in the inner city of Detroit. Mr. Stafford lived in low income housing and his family received government assistance during various times throughout his childhood. His family moved often but his mother always stressed the importance of school and always made sure he was in attendance. Mr. Stafford’s neighborhood environment offered many opportunities that could have led to his imprisonment or death – the fate of many of his childhood friends. However, Mr. Stafford avoided these tragic outcomes when he realized he did not want to end his life that way. Mr. Stafford attended Cooley High School in the Detroit Public School system with every intention of getting a blue-collar job in a factory after high school. No one in Mr. Stafford’s family had ever graduated from college and less than 10% of Cooley High graduates attended college, so going to college was not something he even considered. College became a possibility when his English teacher, Ms. Tobin, encouraged him to apply because she recognized his potential. Ms. Tobin’s encouragement, Mr. Stafford’s persistence, and thousands of dollars in student loans allowed him to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in business from Michigan State University in 1995. This was a huge milestone because Mr. Stafford was the first person in his family to graduate from college. This gave him the opportunity to end the “cycle of poverty” in his family without relying on sports or entertainment to make it happen.

Over the course of his 8-year career with several auto… Read More