Gateway Early College High School is the first school to have adopted the Pursue the Passion program, where students venture into their community to interview people who hold jobs they are interested in. Gateway decided to purchase video cameras and edit clips of their interviews for their senior capstone class presentation. Today I attended Luis Omar Molina’s presentation, where he showed an interview he did with local radio host “Strawberry” of 101.5 Jamz.

Dave Santucci wanted to be a lawyer when graduating from Emory College (the Harvard of the South). He informally interviewed ten lawyers and asked them if he should pursue a career as a lawyer. Nine out of ten of them said he should consider an alternative career.

An internship with CNN led to a job as a producer. A highlight in his seven year career was going on a zero gravity simulator while reporting on science, space, and technology at NASA.

Now Director of Communications at the world’s largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, Dave dives with whale sharks once a month while handling all communication issues. Quite a different life had he not talked to those ten lawyers.

It’s safe to say that John Condon knows Northern California’s Wine Country. A former deputy sheriff of Sonoma County turned Russian River kayak tour guide, John now loads passengers into his twelve seat van and carts them to the wineries that have made Sonoma and Napa counties a worldwide destination.

John’s California Rivers Tours picked us up for a little holiday wine tasting over the break, where our party of five set out to revisit our favorite locations while uncovering new ones. This was the first wine tour for three of us, so John took the reins and we were off for six hours of wine, sightseeing, and fun.

There were three things that I really enjoyed about the tour John took us on.

1) The word “complimentary.” In the past three or four wine tasting outings I’ve made with a guideless group of friends, I ended up forking over $5-$10 a winery for tasting fees. During our day we went to five wineries (Armida, Hop Kiln, Korbel, Harvest Moon, and Hook n’ Ladder) and not one winery made us dip into the wallet for tasting. So instead of dropping twenty-five dollars on fees, I was able to grab a great bottle of Zinfandel from Harvest Moon.

2) John’s lunch. When we were done with the champagne tasting at Korbel we joined John on a private patio, where a table full of goodies awaited us. The salmon we ate was caught by his son and smoked by John. The jam was from the berries he and his granddaughter hand picked. This, paired with a bottle of wine purchased earlier, was perfect. The meal broke up the day and allowed us some time to catch up. It is what John calls, “his differentiating factor that seperates his tour from all the others offered in wine country.”

3) John’s tidbits. As we cruised around a corner John told us to look under the bridge for people for steelhead. When we approached Hop Kiln, John had us smell a hop plant which he then identified as being part of the cannabis family. All the little things that you would never take notice of doing your own wine tour enhanced the experience that much more.

John’s website is www.calrivers.com. He is the owner and operator, and can be reached either by phone at (707) 579-2209 or by email at calrivers1(at)aol.com. He is one of the most reasonably priced (per group, groups 1-7, $50/hr, groups 8-12, $75/hr, lunch included) and experienced tour guides around, and I encourage you to give him a call if you’re thinking about seeing Wine Country.

The smoked salmon alone is worth it.

Noah Kagan, president of software development company Kickflip, will tell you what he does for a living, but don’t make that your lead if approaching him at a cocktail party. “I hate that question,” says the 25 year old Berkeley grad, who has worked for at least four separate companies that should have made him rich, if he had stayed around long enough. Although money is a final result, this self-proclaimed “results oriented guy” is more concerned with making decisions in the moment, not building his 401k. He quickly brushes over stories about Intel, Microsoft and Facebook to name a few, working his way toward current and future projects with far smaller companies.

Noah has a voracious appetite for action, something that is underappreciated in the world of large corporations. No bother. Noah finds places that fit his tastes, not the other way around. Money, to the Cupertino, CA native, has never been a driving force. Rather, Noah looks at jobs like relationships, investing emotionally, working hard, yet keeping in mind that it may just not be the perfect fit. It is an outlook that has made Noah a desired mind in just about any company, and has led him to start his own.

Nathan Kaiser, founder of npost.com, was not sure what to do with his degree in microbiology from the University of Washington. Working for a large medical manufacturer, he began, in his free time, to interview interesting people about their jobs and their career paths. From this sprang nPost, a resource for people looking into the world of technology start-ups. The site is a collection of interviews, and also job listing specific to the tech start-up world.

Nathan has denied listing jobs from Fortune-500 companies, simply because, in Nathan’s view, it would hurt the overall character of his website. Many people thought he was crazy for leaving a well-paid position to start nPost.

“I’d rather be crazy than working unhappily,” Nathan says, “People don’t realize what they’re missing.”

Nathan may not be fully maximizing the profits of his business, but if he is concerned with that, he hides it well. “When you’re doing your own thing and supporting yourself,” says Nathan, “there’s nothing better in life. Plus, he adds wryly, “I’m wired, so I do a lot of work from friends’ sailboats.”

The last television appearance we had was on NBC-Nashville. The segment aired that Friday night, and even though I didn’t see it, Linda Harrison in Hermitage, Tennessee did.

Linda went to our website and submitted her story. She wrote:

“I am currently a Fainting Goat Rancher but have a business degree with an accounting major. I am a LONG way from my first post graduate job of working for a major CPA firm. A few varied pit stops along the way and now I raise goats and have never been happier. Ranching is my passion and goats are my dream. Raising goats is by far the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Don’t leave Nashville before coming to see me…”

I received her submission early Monday morning, and, having little on the schedule that day, ran the idea of interviewing a goat rancher by Zach. I caught him in a sleepy stupor and with a little convincing, we were off for a day on a goat farm.

In Hermitage, where rural and residential are intertwined, Blessed Green Pastures has goats, chickens, dogs, sheep, and bees that bask in sycamore shade. What started as a natural way to reduce the workload of mowing lawns, Linda and Brian have seen their original crew of a few sheep and myotonic goats blossom into a nationally recognized goat breeding operation.

And it all started because the accountant Linda, who worked in corporate cubicles to begin her professional life, just wanted to be outside.

Dr. Helene Gayle is the president and CEO of CARE, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. Out of all the passionate professionals interviewed on the 2007 Pursue the Passion tour, Dr. Gayle could easily be the most distinguished. Formerly the director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV, TB and Reproductive Health program, Dr. Gayle bring to CARE over two decades of experience, working in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, TB, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Using what she has learned from posts at the Center for Disease Control, where she oversaw an annual budget of over $1 billion, and the Gates Foundation, where she oversaw over $1.5 billion in grants, Dr. Gayle now sets her sights on CARE’s target: extreme global poverty.

Although Dr, Gayle did her undergraduate studies in psychology, she ultimately entered medical school because it gave her a “broader way to influence peoples lives.” After medical school, Dr. Gayle continued to earn her Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University, because she saw the M.P.H. as a marriage between the medical world she aspired to enter, and the people’s lives upon which she hoped to impact. Dr. Gayle is incredibly humble about her
accomplishment, saying that she doesn’t “see [herself] as a pioneer until after the fact.” She strives, above all, to live a life that is very “fulfilling,” but also “makes a contribution.”

Under the incredibly adept leadership of Dr. Gayle, CARE continues its mission to make the world a better place, for even those often forgotten by much of society. For more information, and to see how you can help, please visit: www.care.org.

Jesus Delgado-Jenkins, founder and president of JNI, LLC, knows something about hard work and commitment. As the son of Cuban immigrants who instilled a great deal of patriotism in their son, for his new country, Jesus attended West Point and served in the United States Army for five years. Entering the private sector, Jesus immediately began to excel in the world of business turnaround, where business are acquired and streamlined to reach their maximum potential. Jesus points to the mentors under which he was able to work as helping to shape him for his future, individual endeavors.

From 1999 through 2001, Jesus began to look carefully at his own opportunities, but never closed a single independent deal. This proved fortuitous when, after 9/11, Jesus felt obliged to serve his country. In two years at the United States Treasury, Jesus advanced to become the CFO of the Treasury, overseeing account volumes the likes of which most businessmen never see. He calls the numbers “humbling.” After two more years of public service, Jesus once again entered the private sector, this time with a better grasp of economics on a global scale.

Now, Jesus has taken JNI from a startup to a multi-million dollar company, completing his piece of the American dream: an immigrant family, whose son serves his country, then enters and dominates the business world. “If you work hard enough, and long enough,” Jesus says simply. “You will achieve your dream.”

Judy Caplan, a registered dietician and founder of Nutrition Ammunition, in Oakton. VA, is a perfect example of passion put on hold, then reinvigorated stronger than before.

“I see nutrition as an entrée into myself,” says Judy. “I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family and I think I saw nutrition, from a very early age, as a way to nourish myself on the most concrete level. From there, I was able to learn how to nourish myself on many other levels.”

A graduate of the University of Arizona, in Tucson, Judy learned what she calls “Wonder Bread Nutrition,” something she was able to outgrow by reading progressive literature during the late 1960s and early 1970s. She returned to Arizona to get her masters in human nutrition, foods and dietetics, but however benignly, her passion was interrupted.

Wanting to raise a family, Judy put her professional dreams on hold while raising two children, with her husband Dean. As her oldest entered college, a friend asked Judy to speak at her daughter’s boarding school, where the girls had been practicing some atrocious eating habits. The talk went so well that Judy was inspired to write a book. From there, more speaking engagements came, then referrals from doctors and home visits, to patients, and also
accompanying trips to the grocery store, to help teach people how to shop.

Judy exudes energy and love for what she does, and her confidence is encouraging. “There’s nothing you can’t do,” she says simply. “And everything you do do is part of something bigger, later. Everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. It all adds up to something greater.”

Judy’s Nutrition Ammunition can be found at: http://www.gobefull.com/

Some people can’t hide how much they love their job; Emilee Warner, the voice of Country Music Television’s radio network is one of those people.

At 21, Emilee has graduated college, bought a house and found her way deep into the Nashville music scene, all
because she is a charming extrovert and, more importantly, a diehard fan of bluegrass. At 21, Emilee has accomplished a great deal of things. Her freshman year in college, where she studied marketing, Emilee founded a bluegrass radio show. By the time she graduated three years later, Emilee had already had two internships and three
jobs in the music business. The youngest to audition for her current position, Emilee won the job through sheer confidence and will power.

“If I could hug and kiss Nashville,” Emilee says, “I would. I love this town.”

Emilee has placed herself in the epicenter of the bluegrass world, an obvious choice for a fan and banjo player
such as herself. The lesson that Emilee has to teach everyone, even those many years her senior, is that extroversion is an incredibly powerful tool. “If you love music and you’re outside,” says Emilee, “You’re going to meet a lot of people.” And a lot of people Emilee has met, taking the Pursue the Passion crew to numerous concerts, parties and events within the bluegrass community. Emilee’s passion is for music, and could see herself doing just about anything in the music world.

“I’d love plain old marketing,” she says, with a grin. “As long as I’d be marketing good music.”