How Hanson Rodriguez found his future with the help of JPMorganChase

Hanson Rodriguez, an undergraduate student studying supply chain management at Howard University, is an outgoing, confident and motivated person, but according to him, he wasn’t always that way. Growing up in a low-income community in the Bronx, he had to wrestle with challenges, including his queer identity and his father's incarceration.

“It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood the effect my father's incarceration had on me,” Rodriguez says. “My mission became to ensure I never ended up in that space and never put my family through something like that.”

This mindset wasn’t without its burdens, however.

“I was so focused on where I would go and how successful I could be, I wasn’t thinking about who I was during a time when I was still finding myself,” Rodriguez says. “I was only thinking about the means of making it out and building a better life.”

A critical moment

With an incarcerated father, a hard-working mother and five siblings, Rodriguez had to develop independence. At the same time, however, he also had a fundamental need for community. During his freshman year in high school, he found The Fellowship Initiative (TFI), a discovery that he would later describe as a “critical 180 moment.”

An after-school program JPMorganChase provides for young men of color during high school, TFI provides professional, social, and emotional support and guidance during critically formative years. But, when Rodriguez’s teachers and mentor encouraged him to apply to the program, he was skeptical.

“I wasn’t sure about an all-boys program,” Rodriguez says. “When I talked to my high school mentor, she told me she knew of many others who went through the program and were doing great things after. She encouraged me to try it rather than miss out on the opportunity.”

Rodriguez applied to the program and stuck with it. “By junior year, I fell in love with it,” he says. He recalls that the best part of TFI was the community and the dependability of his peers and mentors in the program.

“They were always there for me,” Rodriguez says. “Even if I wasn’t able to make a class, they would call me just to check on me.”

Facing challenges ... and overcoming them

As a queer man of color, Rodriguez has faced multidimensional challenges. “Growing up Black and Puerto Rican, it was hard to find the balance of those racial identities,” he says. “Because there’s so much diversity in TFI, I met so many people who, in some ways, weren’t like me but, in many other ways, were. Some of the other students and my mentors were at a point in their lives where they knew who they were, and that inspired me to feel like I could be like that, too.”

Justin Courtlandt was one of those mentors. “When I first met Hanson, he was eager to build a connection,” Courtlandt recalls. “Hanson knew what he wanted to accomplish and had a clear plan for achieving his goals.”

“Justin is someone who continued to throw himself at me,” Rodriguez says. “His persistence broke open my need for others.”

Staying open to the future

Coming from a low-income community with an incarcerated father, it might have been easier for Rodriguez to draw inward, but he says his willingness to pursue other opportunities was the fuel for his critical 180 moment.

“I just think it’s so important to be open,” he says. “Find those uncomfortable spaces, and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Sticking with opportunities even when I was uncomfortable sparked so much growth and led to more opportunities.”

After TFI, Rodriguez started studying finance because he always wanted to be good with money. However, by coming to know himself better through community support, he shifted his focus to supply chain management and fashion.

“Figuring out a career path is so hard,” Rodriguez says. “I chose supply chain management because it can be practical knowledge for running a business in any industry and because I saw how Covid hit the supply chain so hard, and I know that field needs good people."

And he's still remaining open. He's interning with a cosmetics brand, serving as a liaison for a modeling agency, serving as a treasurer for the Coalition of Activist Students Celebrating the Acceptance of Diversity and Equality, and volunteering as a member of a professional business fraternity.

With all of that on his plate, Rodriguez hopes to work for a fashion company with sustainable supply chain management. But that doesn’t mean his career in finance is over.

“I wanted to pursue finance because of my goal to make it out, but having learned about it, I also want to teach people about financial literacy,” Rodriguez says. “I'm coming from a low-income neighborhood, so I want teaching finance to be a way to give back to my community.”

“I believe this commitment to helping others is a result of his innate character and the influence of TFI, which instilled in him the importance of leadership through service,” Courtlandt says. “Throughout his time in the program and beyond, Hanson has demonstrated a genuine desire to uplift others as he continues to grow himself, and that is emblematic of TFI’s mission.”

As for Rodriguez, he credits TFI for helping him break out of his shell. “TFI helped begin the molding process for who I wanted to become,” Rodriguez says. “It made me more comfortable with being uncomfortable, and it gave me the chance to better understand myself and become more confident.”

The opinions, findings and experiences expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of JPMorganChase or any of its affiliates. They may not be representative of all perspectives or of results that other Program participants may achieve. Neither JPMorganChase nor any of its affiliates are liable for any decisions made or actions taken in reliance on the testimonial information provided.