About J Prothero

Born and raised outside of Pittsburgh, I was blessed to have a dad who required of my having a hard work ethic and the know-how to do things right. On this foundation, my summers were spent working my way through college painting houses. From fall through spring, I studied Finance for the sole purpose of knowing what to do with my paycheck once I entered ‘the real world’. After dabbling in post-graduate studies in MIS and Computer Science, I became bored and restless. It was time for me to go to work and find a company whose opportunities matched my career objectives. Five years of boot camp with AT&T in hardware sales prepared me for having my own business again, coincidentally in the Finance space. Some 25 years later, I left that company so I could explore my longing to teach and work with kids. By then, it was late 2014 and finding myself perfectly situated at Roswell High School as a parent volunteer in their new Construction Technology program. It was here that I fell in love with the opportunity to be a part of something truly great which had the potential to impact hundreds of kids, many of whom lacked a ‘personal connection’ to public school. So, here I am… never before happier… and a member of an awesome team of Toolbox volunteers who pour themselves into the lives of elementary and middle school kids, so that they might discover more about who they actually are when they get to build with their hands. It is my belief that all the while they are building with their hands, so too are they building that ‘personal connection’ and so too are they building confidence and pride, two things that are imperative to our overarching hope for all children. And, that hope is for them to simply be happy.