Meet Isaiah Mcgregory of Venture Road in Curtis Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Isaiah Mcgregory.

Isaiah, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was born in St Louis Missouri. My childhood wasn’t always easy because, by the time I turned 18 years old, my mom and I had moved 11 times. My mom raised me on her own and at times worked four jobs just so that we were able to get by. I was a bit of a troublemaker in school and was a self-proclaimed class clown. It wasn’t until high school that I got serious about actually educating myself. Luckily I got my act together before college. I ended up going to college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I was so excited that I actually got accepted into a college that I applied for. In the first week of going to school, my mom had an accident at work and was unable to work as much as she had once been able to. I then took it upon myself two get a full-time job and help take care of our home. At that time I was working more than 50 hours a week and subsequently, my schoolwork started to fail. By the end of the semester, I had failed every class that I was in. Because of this, I was put on academic probation. Of course, nothing changed and I was kicked out of school after the second semester of flunking all of my classes.

After this experience, I never thought that I would be able to get into any other college. However, the universe had something in store for me. After hearing about my mom’s and I’s situation, a close family friend called me one evening and told me to be ready for a road trip the next morning at 4:00, we drove to the east side of Nebraska where she introduced me to her cousin who is the president of a small Christian college. He understood my story and how all right wanted to help my family and reinforced that the best way to help is to have an education. That day, I enrolled in school and got a full-ride scholarship. Just as I thought everything in life has turned around for me, I hit a road bump. The school that I attended in Nebraska was a very conservative institution. Long story short, I ended up getting kicked out of that school for disciplinary reasons. In my opinion, of course they were minor offenses that included not drinking, but being at a party that had alcohol. This action, to their conservative rules at this college or grounds enough to be expelled from a college.

I can’t back to Colorado decimated because of all of the experiences that have been presented to me that have not worked out. I felt defeated and that nothing could go right. I started working and earning. Luckily at this time, my mom was getting better and was starting to work more. After a couple of months of me moping around, my mom told me that she sincerely wanted me to go back to school. This seemed impossible to me. I failed my first year of college and had been kicked out of another. What other schools in the world could want me. Of course the universe showed me that I knew nothing. The next semester I got a call from a childhood mentor of mine who asked me to come to his office. This man was a great example to me. He had been a state congressperson, a presidential cabinet member, and the CEO of one of the best nonprofits in the entire state of Colorado. He intimidated me, and when he told me that he wanted to talk to me I felt like a kid who knew that they were going to be in trouble and they got home. As soon as I walked into his office he told me that he knew about everything that had happened with my education and wanted me to go and talk to his friend who was the president of another University in Colorado. Of course I did as he said. And as you could probably, guess I ended up getting into this college. Four years later with many ups and downs and even becoming student body president of my University, I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications and two minors in political science and music.

As soon as college ended, I was led to a wonderful opportunity to travel the world in an incredible study abroad and performing arts program. It was here that I discovered a love travel and cultural immersion. The program is special in that every single week I got to travel to a new city somewhere in the world. I loved it because I got to meet people, I got to do things that I had never done before, and I got to exercise the skills that I’ve learned in my life and in school. I ended up working for them and stayed in different capacities for four to six years. towards the end of my time with this organization, it became apparent to me that this experience had changed my life and my perspective on the world for the better. I wanted to be able to give similar experiences to as many people as possible. So I came up with a formula to offer this kind of experience two young people for very inexpensive prices. I had learned through one of my positions with the organization that while many young people want to travel the world, their biggest problem is that they can’t afford it, and they can’t spare the amount of time that it takes two do a study abroad program. This is how I created Venture Road.

Has it been a smooth road?
Aside from all the challenges that I overcame before actually starting venture road, there have been some things that I had to smooth out as we were getting the program started.

As you could probably imagine, we struggled with simply establishing the program. Since we wanted to be an official nonprofit, it took a lot of time before we received our 501 c 3 status. coming up with all of the programmings that we wanted to accomplish on our tours was another huge challenge. I wanted there to be an official education aspect of it, so partnering with an accredited University that would allow us to become a bonafide study abroad program was also I challenge. The biggest challenge of all was probably the financial aspect of it all. Because of all of the work that I had done since the early days of college, I had a little bit of money to help start my dream. But that little bit of money came and went in just a blink of an eye. I applied for grants and got turned down everywhere I went. I put out the feel for donations and was successful in raising a few thousand dollars to help us continue our mission. It was actually those donations that really put us in motion. I was fortunate because I had a lot of talented friends from all over the world who believed and what I was trying to do that helped set alarm duration for the entire organization and all of our programming. We went through position changes, losing people, and hitting brick walls down many of the paths that we took. It took over two years to get the organization to a place where we could finally actually do business. But once it started, we just couldn’t be stopped.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Professional Development in each country that Venture Road visits, the world becomes a little clearer. Travelers meet so many important people, thus growing their professional network. We engage in classroom seminars and complete educational programs to expand minds and hearts. This mixture of theoretical and experiential learning provides Venture Road participants with a unique and invaluable global experience. Within Venture Road, every participant engages in all aspects of the program including sustainability projects, group education sessions and the preparation of workshops. Participants can also apply for internships, assistantships and special team projects that provide them with an in-depth learning experience and an opportunity to develop their leadership and management skills.

When learning so much about the world, our travelers experience new thoughts, opinions and ideas. This requires time to process. The staff of Venture Road is trained to facilitate workshops that provide a platform to express new feelings. Venture Road workshops revolve around Diversity in Culture Global Citizenship and Interpersonal Communication. In Venture Road, we aim to build better communities. Better communities start with ourselves. From there, we ignite the spark to impact others in a positive manner throughout the world.

Venture Road prepares participants for the world of work, school and life in general through workforce development. Our educational program is created and centered around a vast curriculum that enriches the tours that we provide. We bring key lessons in soft skills and hard skills to life through exploration, self-discovery, formal study, and the implementation of lessons learned. Delivered in an experiential learning format, members of our group leave their experience having a deeper commitment of their own missions in life, and with the tools to navigate the complexities of today’s ever-changing world.

A central pillar of our curriculum is to strengthen individual communication skills, including personal communication, public speaking, interviewing, facilitation development and presentation techniques that will help them excel in the companies of tomorrow especially those skills related to hospitality and marketing industries. Aside from that, we teach participants how to interview, best practices for resume development and how to express their experience with us to stand above all of the other competition that they will have when job hunting.

Our participants not only get trained on a specific job of their choosing, but they have the training necessary to diversify themselves enough to compete for any job.

In addition, our participants have these opportunities when traveling with us:
– Volunteer opportunities abroad
– International job shadows and internships
– Worldwide professional references
– A personal intercultural network
– Diverse mentor groups
– Life-long positive influencing peer group

In general, experiences in different countries set applicants miles ahead of other applicants without. Our soft and hard skills training sets people up forever-lasting success. When we give our participants these advantages, it helps them as individuals and our community as a whole because we are not only training people to work and have a better life, we are building leaders who will positively impact Colorado. We are dedicated to a better home in Colorado and communities beyond by providing transferable skills for a sustainable life.

The thing that we are most proud of is the partnership with Colorado State University – Pueblo, accrediting Venture Road’s tours. Participants can receive an accredited certificate from CSU-Pueblo, stating the number of Continuing Education Units or CEU’s. CEUs, is awarded by many education and training providers to signify successful completion of non-credit programs and courses intended to improve the knowledge and skills of people. The beauty of this is that even all participants, even international ones, can use these as a certification to use for professional purposes.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Denver in general is a great place to be. The population continues to grow and become more diverse. It’s really a city or opportunity because people are always looking to try new things. the networking opportunities that I have personally found here have been amazing. For that reason alone it’s a great place for Venture road to have started and to continue to grow. Anyone who decides to start a business in Denver will find themselves satisfied due to the fact that the American dream can definitely be obtained here.