In a converted showroom at Gallery Furniture on Houston’s north side, adults in work boots and safety glasses practice electrical wiring fundamentals. But in a quiet office nearby, staffers are working on something equally important: ensuring these students have reliable transportation, childcare, and stable housing.
For Mike Feinberg, co-founder of the WorkTexas vocational training program, this dual focus represents a fundamental shift in thinking about workforce development.
“A lot of people we train are one flat tire away from disaster,” Feinberg explains, leaning forward intently. “You’re not going to do well in your job if you’re homeless or hungry, or your car stops working.”
Breaking the Certification Cycle
Since launching in 2020, WorkTexas has trained Houstonians in trades ranging from welding to HVAC repair, plumbing to commercial truck driving. But unlike many vocational programs, certification isn’t the end goal.
“You go to community colleges, trade schools, you see billboards on the highways, and ask them, ‘Are you successful?'” Feinberg says. “And they say, ‘Sure, we’re successful. 97.8% of all of our students earn a certificate.”
After a brief pause, Mike continues “How many of those people got jobs? Crickets. They don’t know.”
This insight has shaped WorkTexas’s unconventional approach. The program monitors graduates for five years, checking in every six months to track employment, wages, and career progression. This long-term commitment reflects what Feinberg calls the organization’s true mission: “to help people get jobs, keep jobs, and advance in careers.”
The Social Safety Net as a Career Strategy
For Vanessa Ramirez, who co-founded WorkTexas with Feinberg and furniture retailer Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, the comprehensive approach stems from personal experience. Once Feinberg’s fifth-grade student at the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter school he co-founded, Ramirez now leads Project Remix Ventures, applying WorkTexas’s model to justice-involved youth.
“We’re not just doing hands-on vocational trainings,” she explains. “It’s an and, and, and. We also have behavioral health programs. We have a sensory room.”
These supportive elements seem peripheral to job training, but they address crucial barriers to employment success. When participants face challenges from housing instability to transportation breakdowns, the program connects them with a network of partners, including the Houston Food Bank, Journey Through Life, and the Wesley Community Center.
“That’s what created the sandbox, where different groups can all work together for the same end goal,” Feinberg says.
This collaborative approach has yielded impressive results. According to program data, approximately 70% of WorkTexas graduates secure new jobs or improved positions, with average starting wages of $19.10 per hour.
A Different Kind of Partnership
The program’s relationship with employers also breaks conventional molds. Rather than designing a curriculum and then seeking employer partners, WorkTexas begins with employer needs.
“We start with the employer,” says Yazmin Guerra, workforce development leader for WorkTexas and the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department. “If the employer is telling us they have a need and will hire a set number of students, we always ask, ‘If we could wave a magic wand, how many people could you hire tomorrow?’ Then we work together to establish a curriculum.”
This approach has attracted 148 employer partners who contribute more than just job openings. They’ve shaped WorkTexas’s understanding of what employment success truly requires.
“The technical skills are about 30% of what the employers want,” Feinberg notes. “What they really need is people who get to work on time, people who can work on a team.”
From College Prep to Life Prep
For Feinberg, WorkTexas represents the culmination of a career-long evolution in educational philosophy. After co-founding KIPP, he helped build a network of schools focused primarily on college preparation. But over time, he noticed something important: many graduates who didn’t complete college were nonetheless thriving in trades, military service, and entrepreneurship.
“Our kids are all involved in the juvenile justice system,” Ramirez adds, referring to Project Remix participants, “and a large majority also have been involved in the Child Protective Services system.”
Feinberg and Ramirez have come to see wraparound support as not just helpful but essential for these students. It’s particularly crucial for justice-involved youth, whose past experiences may make workplace success especially challenging.
“The adults in their lives have taught them not to trust because it makes you vulnerable,” Ramirez explains. For these students, Project Remix provides what she calls “guardrails”—a structured environment where they can develop technical skills, workplace behaviors, and the emotional regulation that employers value most.
For both Feinberg and Ramirez, this holistic approach represents a maturing of workforce development thinking—one that recognizes that career success requires more than technical training alone.
“We’re interested in what that looks like in terms of career contentment,” Feinberg says, “and especially in terms of earning power and creating sustainable lives for themselves, their families, and future generations.”
In a labor market struggling with skills gaps and worker shortages, the WorkTexas model suggests that the most effective workforce development might not be the most obvious: addressing life stability alongside technical skills could be the key to building successful workers and thriving communities.
