meet the team
the other side academy salt lake city staff
the other side academy denver staff
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Meet Joseph Grenny

Chairman of the Board

Joseph was co-founder and president of California Computer Corporation. In 1990 he co-founded VitalSmarts, which today is one of the most respected corporate training and organizational development companies in the world, with clients representing 300 of the Fortune 500 companies and over 10,000 trainers across the world. Named the 2008 Business of the Year by The Association of Learning Providers, VitalSmarts has also been ranked four times by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America. Products resulting from Joseph’s research have been used to train over two million people worldwide.

Joseph is co-author of seven books, including four immediate New York Times bestsellers–Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, Influencer, and Change Anything. Over six million of Joseph’s books have been sold – and are standard texts in major universities across the world.

In 2007, Joseph and his co-authors were named Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year for their work in founding and leading VitalSmarts.

Joseph is the Chairman of the Board as well as a co-founder of Unitus Labs, a 501(c)(3) non-profit which manages the strategic direction and initiatives to achieve the Unitus mission of reducing global poverty through economic self-empowerment. The Unitus group of companies has deployed over $1 billion globally to battle poverty and to enable grass-roots entrepreneurship in developing countries and has reached over 20 million poor around the globe.

In 2015, Joseph and his wife, Celia, joined a remarkable team to establish the first campus of The Other Side Academy (TOSA) with the goal of creating an opportunity for those with a lifetime of addiction, criminal behavior and homelessness to create new lives for themselves. It has since been replicated in Utah, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Denver, and is setting the standard for both transparency and efficacy in the troubled “rehab” industry. Most recently Joseph and the other founders of TOSA have committed to creating The Other Side Village, a self-reliant community for 400-500 chronically unsheltered men and women based on similar principles.

Joseph studied at Brigham Young University from which he received a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations.

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Meet Ted Broman

Board Member

Mr. Ted Broman serves as Chief Executive Officer of IntegraCore LLC and served as its President. Mr. Broman served as Managing Director of two $30-million venture capital pre-IPO funds for Red Rock Capital. He grew Financial Freedom Report, Inc., a sales and marketing company where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, to annual revenues of over $120 million in less than one year. He was President of MG Technologies, Inc., a technology incubator and holding company. Several of its holdings were successfully funded and/or sold including The Windsor Casket Company, which Ted sold to Mity-Lite; he then went to work for Mity-Lite to manage their investment. He is the founder of Health Connect, a healthcare software solutions provider to insurance companies and private practice.

Before assuming roles in executive leadership, Mr. Broman worked in sales and marketing, where he created and managed multiple million-dollar marketing campaigns as well as managed sales forces of up to 100 people. In less than four years, Ted increased sales at FreCom Communications from $5 million to more than $100 million. He owns Conduit (conduit1.com) and Health Connect (healthconex.com).

Ted’s social initiatives have been primarily in five areas, but his greatest passion has always been to address addiction and recidivism in Utah. Ted’s other social initiatives are:

  1. Working with/supporting orphans in Haiti – Haitian Roots
  2. Doing water projects for indigenous populations in the remote mountains of Honduras – Amigos of Honduras
  3. Working with/supporting AIDS orphans and AIDS victims in Roatan, also via Amigos of Honduras
  4. Supporting, being a executive mentor and business competition judge with Defy Ventures to help ex-convicts via entrepreneurship
  5. Helping lift immigrant families in Utah out of poverty through micro-credit loans, business and financial mentorship and English language training via the IntegraCore Bank (which he founded)

Ted has been involved with and strongly financially supported other local non-profits such as The Road Home and Primary Children’s, etc. but has not been involved with them at an operational level as he has been with The Other Side Academy and the 5 initiatives listed above.

He graduated from the University of Utah with a BA in Accounting. Mr. Broman also earned an MBA from the University of Utah, where he returned as a teacher in their MBA program as well teaching in the MBA program at the University of Phoenix.

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Meet Tim Stay

CEO

Tim Stay was formerly the CEO, as well as a co-founder of Unitus Labs. Tim Stay started and ran Marketing Ally, which became one of the Top 50 Call Centers in the U.S.A and had over 1,110 employees. He started and later sold FreeServers.com to About.com. He was a co-founder of Bizcradle, a business incubator that launched such technology companies as SenForce, which sold to Novell. Tim was former CEO of Perfect Search Corporation, an innovative search engine and software development company.

Tim was voted as one of the vSpring 100 technology entrepreneurs in Utah and was recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from BYU. He has served on the Utah Valley University Foundation Board and on the Advisory Board for the Center of Economic Self-Reliance and the National Advisory Council for Religious Education at BYU. He has been Community Council Chair at Lakeridge Jr. High and at Mountain View High School. He serves on the Utah State Board of Education Advisory Panel for Community Councils.

Tim holds a civil engineering degree and also has an M.B.A. and an M.A. in International Studies, with a focus on economic development in developing countries, all from Brigham Young University.

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Meet David Durocher

Executive Director

Dave Durocher was arrested for the first time at the age of thirteen. By the time he was 38, he had been to prison four times for a total of fifteen years. Dave was arrested yet again, and this time he was facing a twenty-nine year prison sentence. In what the Judge called “the chance of a lifetime” he afforded Dave the opportunity to go to Delancey Street instead of prison but reminded Dave in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t complete his commitment at Delancey Street he would be spending the rest of his life in prison.

Not only did Dave complete his initial two year commitment, he stayed for a total of eight years and became the Managing Director of Delancey’s Los Angeles facility for five of those years, overseeing two hundred and fifty residents and a multitude of vocational training school businesses that funded the operation and provided the training ground for residents to learn how to live a constructive and meaningful life. Dave oversaw a 300% increase in revenue during his tenure over the facility.

Dave is tenacious, interpersonally skilled, a good manager and an inspiring public speaker. He had helped countless others regain their dignity and their lives before he moved on to enjoy his own success as the person he had become.

Now Dave has moved on to the next chapter in his life as the Executive Director of The Other Side Academy, in Salt Lake City, a two-year Life Skills Academy similar to Delancey Street, where men and women can come to learn about honesty, accountability, integrity hard work and self-respect. All the traits that will insulate them from a life like the one Dave had and enable them to become the kind of person Dave is today.

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Meet Lindsey Nelson

Executive Assistant

Lindsey was a driven, perfectionistic straight A student and professional ballerina. Seeking an escape from the strict discipline and unrelenting pressure in her life, she discovered drugs. Drugs helped her cope so well that from the very start, she was unwilling to go without them. They became more important than anything else in her life. She began to feel like a black sheep with her family and friends. She walked away from the life she’d known and descended into a fifteen-year downward spiral of addiction. Her values, integrity, and self-worth were drowned in the chaos her life had become. Once, in a drug-fueled haze, she accidentally set her house on fire. Fortunately, nobody was hurt, and this incident prompted her to seek treatment. She tried short term 30-day and 90-day rehabs, outpatient programs, and sober living houses. Nothing worked, she always relapsed. As time went on, she suffered seizures and pancreatitis caused by drugs and alcohol. On Christmas Eve of 2013, her five-year old son found her dead on the kitchen floor from a drug overdose. She was revived by paramedics, but she still couldn’t stop using. In fact, her drinking and using got worse. This would have gone on until her premature demise, except one day she woke up and decided she wanted her soul back. She found a program called the John Volken Academy, a two-year therapeutic community modelled after Delancey Street. She had to leave her child and family behind and go to Canada, but she was willing to make the sacrifice to get her life back. Completing that program was one of the hardest things she has ever done, but by far the most worthwhile. Those two years transformed her. She learned the power of ownership and accountability, and rediscovered the values, integrity, and self-worth she had lost so long ago. Having experienced the life-changing capacity of the therapeutic community model, she knew she had to stay connected and involved somehow. After graduating from the John Volken Academy, she came straight to The Other Side Academy to help carry on this important work of saving lives.

Lindsey graduated from Utah Valley University and has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication, with an emphasis in Journalism.

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Meet Cathy Holt

Director of Development

Cathy joined TOSA in August 2020 as Development Director. A Utah native and University of Utah graduate, Cathy and her husband moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to raise their three sons. After 17 years, their love of family and the outdoors brought them back to Utah. Her career includes, financial management, project management, grant writing, grant management, and nonprofit fundraising. In addition to her work experience, Cathy’s family history of substance abuse combined with her passion to empower others by building avenues of inclusivity, accessibility, diversity, and equitability spurred Cathy’s decision to join the TOSA team. Ms. Holt is an accomplished grant writer and manager having worked for a wide range of nonprofits with budgets ranging from two to twenty-five million dollars annually. Her fundraising accomplishments include grant awards totaling in the millions from local and national foundations, corporations, and city, state and national government funders. Cathy enjoys stewarding mutually beneficial partnerships to support deserving people, programs, and projects across Utah.

“TOSA’s students, staff, and board are the most diverse bunch I’ve ever had the honor to work alongside. And we are stronger because of those differences. All are welcome in our community; the dysfunctional, the criminal, the substance abuser, liar, cheater, thief. Our doors are open to the homeless, the addict, and those pushed aside as undeserving. We are stronger together as a family and we are saving lives by changing behaviors. Our students work to support each other while forging new lives filled with integrity, honesty, and genuine connection to others. I’m grateful to play even a small part of building the context in which these critical lifesaving changes take place. These are truly my people, and I am grateful to be part of this incredible TOSA community.”

In her spare time, Cathy and her family love Utah’s outdoor scene and spending time together. She’s a winter skier and snowshoer, and spends the other three seasons paddle boarding, hiking, cycling, running, swimming, and water skiing. Cathy also serves on the Board the Utah Museums Association’s Fundraising Committee.

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Meet Chris Nelson

Manager

Chris was a “latch-key kid.” His step-dad was an alcoholic and Chris had little supervision growing up. He began drinking at age twelve and by his junior year in high school Chris had been arrested twice for D.U.I. After high school, he began using cocaine, acid and other drugs. His life unraveled quickly.

By the time Chris turned twenty, he was going in and out of jail regularly, and at twenty-four he went to prison for the first time. Chris did two more prison terms and was arrested again, facing another ten years in prison. Chris wrote Delancey Street and begged for help. He told them he wanted something different and he’d do anything to achieve it. He was accepted and the judge agreed.

Chris stayed at Delancey Street six years. He earned his Class A commercial license in that time and became a stalwart in the moving company. He was put in charge of the moving department in Los Angeles and eventually was charged with overseeing all five Delancey Street moving companies across the country.

Chris graduated and was driving over the road when he was approached by The Other Side Academy to become part of the The Other Side Academy team. He agreed to come on board and now manages The Other Side Movers, one of the vocational training schools of The Other Side Academy. Chris has joined the other Delancey Street Graduates who manage The Other Side Academy. “I’m happy to help lost souls save their lives just like someone helped me. I can’t imagine a more gratifying way to make a living.”

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Meet Sharon Nelson

Manager

Like so many who go down the path of addiction, Sharon’s childhood was characterized by trauma. She is a survivor of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Yet Sharon’s is a story of strength and triumph over adversity.

As a child, she witnessed first hand gun violence and death, and sexual abuse by both father figures in her life. By the time she was placed in the safety of foster care, she had already experienced more horrors than any person, much less a child, should ever have to go through.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sharon turned to a life of drugs, abusive men, and chaos. She lost everything, including her children, and began getting incarcerated. After 2 years of County Jail and 3 prison terms, Sharon had finally had enough. She knew that a short-term program was not going to be sufficient. She heard about a place called Delancey Street and was drawn to the idea of getting her life together.

Delancey Street was an amazing and transformative experience for Sharon. She ended up spending the next 5 years there, working in Corporate Development, the Business Office, Finance, and Retail Sales. During that time, she had the opportunity to get her GED and, after 10 years of not having a license, she got a Commercial Drivers License. Not only did she get her life back in order, but Delancey Street also empowered her to do the intrapersonal work that was necessary for her to undergo a genuine transformation. She was able to unearth all the shame and self-pity from her past and come to some dramatic and empowering realizations. “I will eternally be grateful to Delancey Street. I decided I didn’t want to be that weak person anymore. I realized that it’s not about me, and that I could turn those things that happened to me into a strength. If I can spend the rest of my life helping people instead of giving them poison to hurt them, then that’s what I want to do.”

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Meet Tori Dixon

Program Staff

Tori was born to parents who were addicts. When she was young, her father got clean and took custody of her. Her father was disabled and had to rely on disability to make ends meet. Tori hated that her life wasn’t like the other kids. She isolated herself and started hanging out with kids that were getting into trouble. At age 12 she started using meth, smoking weed, and drinking. Despite that, she graduated high school early and got a scholarship to Utah Valley University. Age 16 or 17, she got into heroin, which quickly became her drug of choice. She went to college and started working on her general education requirements, but because she was doing hard drugs, she ended up dropping out of school. At age 18 she started getting arrested, going to jail, and enduring the nightmare of withdrawing from heroin. Her dad enabled her by giving her money and a place to stay which he believed was helping her. She had two children, and because of her drug use the state came in and took her children from her, she had to sign over her parental rights. At this point, Tori overdosed a couple of times, she wasn't trying to die but she wasn't trying to liver either. She was constantly in and out of jail, using drugs, and living on the streets. When her father passed away, she took it very hard. She felt guilty for having never given him the opportunity to have a daughter that did good in life, which he deserved. Tori fell deeper into the hole she was already in. She had given up.

Tori went to jail for the last time in 2016. She wrote to The Other Side Academy and got an interview. When she came to sit on the bench, she had no idea what she was getting involved in, but she knew she couldn’t go back to the streets. She saw this as the rare opportunity it was, and promised herself she would give it her all. She has kept that promise to herself, and during the course of her stay she has gained confidence and self love. She is able to look in the mirror today and be o.k with the person who is looking back at her. She attributes the positive change to the sometimes harsh feedback she received from her peers over the years. Now she wants to be here for the newer women. She loves teaching women to mentor other women.

In 2019, Tori was hired as a full time staff member of The Other Side Academy.

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Meet Matthew Sims

Program Staff

Matthew's criminal life began at an abnormally young age, and he became a convicted felon by age 13. Juvenile detention drove him deeper into the world of addiction and crime. He joined the military in an attempt to gain some structure but remained out of control; resulting in military prison and a dishonorable discharge. Matthew's life dissolved into chaos with multiple failed marriages, gang affiliation, and a cycle of prisons and jails. He recognized it was time to change, and took the bold step of writing to The Other Side Academy to ask for help.

Matthew began his stay at TOSA with great struggle as he refused to believe in the process. He continued behaving the only way he knew how before realizing the community would always, without fail, see right through him. Through his transformation, he has learned to use his influence and experience to help others. Among the many accomplishments of his stay at The Academy, Matthew helped build the #1 rated moving company in the state, an automotive / fleet care program, and a hair salon for men - all of which he now manages. Additionally, he operates graduate housing, post graduate activities and maintains a strong focus on interviewing potential students and mentoring them upon arrival. He is thrilled about his promotion to Staff and eager to use his many years of knowledge as a student to help others reach their full potential and give hope to the hopeless.

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Meet John Libutti

Program Staff

John Libutti was born in Provo, Utah. At an early age, he learned that he didn’t like doing hard things. It started with his newspaper route. He discovered that if he acted like he was going to deliver the papers, but really threw them away, he would still get paid for doing nothing. He found that lying and stealing were easy ways out of tough confrontations. He began stealing from his family and telling them what they wanted to hear to avoid conflict and accountability. In his senior year he started hanging around a rough crowd and smoking weed. He dropped out of high school, and the weed quickly led to other drugs. He would do pretty much any substance that he could get his hands on, but his drug of choice was heroin. He began committing crimes to support his lifestyle, which inevitably led to jail time. For the next 7 years or so, John was in and out of jail, burning bridges with his family, and pushing all who loved him away. He got married, but only ended up dragging his wife through the misery with him. He eventually ended up in prison, where he learned how to be a better criminal and how to continue this destructive lifestyle. For the next 3 years he bounced back and forth between prison, a halfway house, and short periods out on the streets. While this cycle continued, his sister told him about The Other Side Academy. It took some time and one more stay in prison, but he finally got there and was accepted in 2016.

At The Other Side Academy, John learned valuable lessons of integrity, accountability, and how to care for others. He learned to face problems and push through them, finally correcting the childhood behavior of taking the path of least resistance. He spent most of his time on the Moving Company and after 2 years was helping run it. Along with this, he was given a position in the house where he was in charge of a group of guys and their personal growth. He loved this and started to love who he was becoming. in 2019, after his 3rd year at The Other Side Academy, he was hired on as a full time staff member. He now gets the opportunity to give others hope and to help them become the best versions of themselves.

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Meet Tiffany Blair

Program Staff

Tiffany’s childhood was lacking in stability. She felt loved by her mother, but often did not feel safe as they moved from place to place. Tiffany had attended almost every elementary school in the Salt Lake Valley by the time she was in 4th grade, which was her last year of formal schooling. After that, she carried books in her backpack and tried to educate herself, for the adults in her life didn’t put much importance on education.

On a chilly Wednesday in October of 1991 - Tiffany remembers the day cleary; she was 12 years old - her mother took her to hop on a freight train to live a transient lifestyle. They were kicked off the train in Yuma, Arizona. For the next three years, they lived next to the Colorado river in a “hooch,” a makeshift dwelling formed from gathered materials. Tiffany recalls this as an invigorating experience, and she felt safer there by the river than she ever had before.

She started roaming the streets of Yuma, and got into a relationship with the boy who lived in a trailer behind the locksmith shop. He always looked after her and made sure she was fed and safe. Tiffany worked in the locksmith shop with him and they started doing meth.

When she was 17, she left Yuma to come find her father in Salt Lake. Her dad was her hero, and she was able to build a relationship with him. Things went well for awhile; she worked and was clean for about a year. Then she got into a relationship, started using again, and got pregnant. Tiffany had no idea how to take care of a child. She didn’t even know how to take care of herself.

As the years went by, she endured more abusive relationships, lost her children, and was in and out of jail. The charges gradually got more serious, until she was sentenced to prison for 3 years. Prison did not change her. She left as the same person who went in, so in time she went back to the same cycle of drugs and abusive relationships. She went from meth to heroin, and started compromising every value she’d ever had. The people in her new heroin crowd were unbelievably miserable, and she was terrified of ending up like them.

The next time she went to jail, she knew she wanted something new. After writing to The Other Side Academy, she got an interview with Lola Zagey. Lola told her that they were the same, that Lola had been just like her and had found a new way of life. Tiffany suddenly knew there was hope. She wanted what Lola had, and was willing to do whatever it took to get it.

Unlike prison, her time at The Other Side Academy changed her profoundly. After more than three years in the program, Tiffany has gained boundaries, accountability, and a sense of self worth. In 2019, she was hired on as a staff member, and now has the opportunity to help others the way she was helped.

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Meet Robert Davalos

Program Staff

Robert came to The Other Side Academy after an incredibly successful tenure at The Delancey Street Foundation where he ran the New York Facility for the last decade. Hailing from Delancey headquarters in San Francisco, he ran multiple departments before being entrusted to steer the New York "Castle" in the right direction. There, he was responsible for a wildly successful moving company, rapidly growing tree lots, an expanded retail sales division as well as food service, construction and intake/legal/finance. Additionally, Robert crafted robust relationships with the community - including multiple judges, prosecutors and community influencers. Under his leadership, the population of that facility and it's success rates flourished.

Prior to Delancey, few would have predicted Robert's success. Born into a family where criminal activity was the norm, he was a career criminal before his pre-teens and learned early on that his place in the world was behind bars or stuck in cycles of crime and drug use. He never imagined that he would be trusted with the well being of so many, or that he would go on to save more lives than he had ruined.

While Robert served as facilitator at Delancey Street New York, he developed close bonds with a myriad of successful graduates, many of which moved on to become staff members at The Academy. He is thrilled to join his former comrades and students in Salt Lake City, continuing his mission to save the lives of anyone willing to try something different.

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Meet Robyn Sims

Program Staff

When Robyn Paxton was released from jail in March of 2016, she began a journey that would change her life forever. She had just completed another stint in jail because of her addiction and she knew that if she went back to the same places and people, she would be back again soon. While she was in jail she had reached out to The Other Side Academy. She had been interviewed and accepted but was not able to go because she was serving a sentence. Now with the sentence completed she found herself at a crossroads. Was she going to go back to the same places and the people she had been getting high with, or was she going to do something different? Robyn started the 7 mile walk from Salt Lake County Jail to The Other Side Academy.

Robyn’s start at The Academy was scary and uncomfortable. She had been using drugs since 5th grade, had no integrity, and lost everything that was important to her including her role as a mother. She remembers herself as distant and had lost all self respect. Her first few months at The Academy was a terrifying process of coming to terms with who she had become. She maintained her strength by watching the staff and seeing qualities in them that she wanted in herself.

“The most valuable lesson I learned at The Academy is that vulnerability is strength, and that I can never give up. Trying isn’t enough, I have to do.” She also says that she had to learn to put things in her life that she needed above the things she wanted, and over time the things she needed became what she wanted. Robyn says that as a staff member she hopes to be that beacon of hope for those like her that are still lost. She wants to use her story to inspire others to action and promises that she will always be vigilant in keeping The Other Side Academy a safe place for broken people to heal.

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Meet Deigo Cortez

Program Staff

Since Diego was in elementary school, gangs and drugs were the norm. In his early teens he was jumped into a gang, where every day revolved around violence and drugs. Instead of the future envisioned by a typical teen, such as graduating high school, going to college, and embarking on a career, Diego’s plans were to drop out of high school, go to jail, and then go to prison. That was the life he saw modeled all around him, after all.

As was expected of him, Diego’s behavior was violent and disregarded the welfare of others. He was overly concerned with what people thought of him and with cultivating the right reputation for the streets. He was certified as an adult when he was 17 years old for a gun charge. From that time onward, he was in and out of jail. Finally, he found himself with a prison sentence of 10 years to life hanging over his head. He was ready to accept his fate - being with the homies in prison for life. Instead, a judge took mercy on him and gave him the opportunity to get some help in lieu of prison. Diego decided to take advantage of the opportunity and began looking into different treatment options. He knew he needed a tough program with structure and he knew it needed to be long. He ended up writing a letter to The Other Side Academy and was accepted.

As a student of The Other Side Academy, he began the process of transformation that would ultimately save his life. He learned that he had to shed reputation and build character instead, because reputation is merely who other people think you are, while character is who you truly are. Diego found a real purpose, helping people now instead of hurting them. After 5 years as a student, he was hired on as program staff. Diego’s new hood is The Other Side Academy.

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Meet Lola Zagey Strong

Managing Director, Co-Founder

As a young woman, Lola Zagey always dreamed of making a difference in the world. Her progress was completely derailed in 1998 when she was prescribed painkillers, which quickly developed into an all-consuming addiction to heroin. Lola began a downward spiral to a place where all drug-dependent people go… a series of rehabs, jails, then prisons. In 2008, she found herself in a place of hopeless desperation, on her way to her fourth prison sentence. She knew she had to try something different.

Sometime along the way, Lola had heard about Delancey Street Foundation. She now pleaded with the judge to give her a chance to try this program. Miraculously, the judge agreed. He said that if she could complete two years at Delancey Street, she would be forgiven of her five-year prison term.

She excelled at Delancey Street. She worked her way up to the finance department where she learned skills in accounting, auditing, and bookkeeping. After finishing her agreed-upon two years, Lola chose to stay an additional three years as a volunteer and helped manage the Los Angeles campus.

After graduating, Lola found work in the medical field as well as in property management. She lived an idyllic life in a beach-front home, surrounded by friends, reunited with family and earning a good income. But something was missing. She felt the pain of her past life gave her a special responsibility that she needed to find a way to fulfill.

In 2015 she gave up her comfortable life and moved to Salt Lake City to help start The Other Side Academy. Since then, she has:

Most important to Lola is the satisfaction and fulfillment doing what she set out to do four years ago: using her life story, her formidable skills and her selfless determination to give others a chance to change their lives. Her sole motivation is to continue this work until graduates of TOSA number in the thousands.

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Meet Steve Strong

Director

Steve dropped out of school at twelve years of age. Before long, he was using methamphetamine regularly. His first arrest was at fifteen years old. He went in and out of juvenile hall and jail and at twenty years of age caught his first prison term. Steve did three more prison terms by the time he was twenty-eight. Tired of going in and out of prison, Steve finally walked himself into the Delancey Street Foundation in Los Angeles for an interview. “I was tired and lost. I wanted to change. I just didn’t know how. But I knew Delancey Street was the place to figure it out.”

Steve spent five years at Delancey Street. It was the opportunity for change Steve was looking for. During his time at the Delancey Street, Steve got his G. E.D. He managed the warehouse. He served as a “Crew Boss” in charge of stewarding newer residents. Steve also worked in the Legal Department and ultimately was charged with heading Delancey’s satellite facility in Charleston South Carolina.

Steve graduated Delancey Street and was leading a successful life in the oilfields of North Dakota when he was contacted by The Other Side Academy. Steve was highly regarded and courted by the other The Other Side Academy faculty members who knew him from Delancey Street to help run the day-to-day operations and Steve is now an integral member of the The Other Side Academy team.

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Meet Justin Allen

Program Staff

Justin was born in Ogden, Utah. His mother was a drug addict, so he was raised by his abusive father in California. He started getting in trouble at a young age. In retrospect, Justin can see that he was desperate for his father’s attention, and negative attention was just as good as any. He started with lying and stealing, and by age 11 he was smoking pot. At 15 years old, he ran away from home. His frustrated father sent him back to Utah to live with his mother. With his mom still using, Justin had a lot of freedom, and things started to go downhill. Stealing turned to burglary and pot turned to hard drugs. He dropped out of high school. He had children and ended up choosing drugs over them. For the next 10 years, he was caught in a cycle of using drugs and going in and out of jail. He served his first prison term at age 28, and the incarceration cycle began again. It continued until he wrote a letter to The Other Side Academy and was accepted in 2015. His peers at Other Side Academy taught him so much about himself. What he thought were his main issues (using drugs, getting arrested) turned out not to be the real problem at all. Justin’s core issue was his lack of empathy and compassion. His peers gave him constant reminders about how he affected other people, and he gradually realized that though his intentions were good, his lack of empathy was interfering with his relationships and ability to connect. As he worked on that, he began to gain leadership skills. He became a leader among the students, serving as a tribe leader for two years. In 2019, Justin was hired by The Other Side Academy as an official staff member. He will be part of the team establishing The Other Side Academy’s second campus in Denver, Colorado.

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Meet Ashlee Uden

Program Staff

Ashlee Uden grew up with a loving family who instilled good morals and values in her. There was no real reason for her to go down the path she did, however in high school she got involved in the party scene and started hanging around the wrong crowd. She started skipping school and disobeying her parents. At age 17 she dropped out of school and started working full-time. A co-worker introduced her to cocaine and heroin for the first time. This was the beginning of a downward spiral that lasted over a decade. She got arrested and went to jail for the first time at age 18 and the cycle began, multiple rehabs, 25+ jail stays and 3 prison sentences later... By the age of 28 she had already spent over 5 years incarcerated.

She was accepted, and afforded by her Judge, the opportunity of a lifetime. Arriving at TOSA on June 12, 2017, she worked hard at re-learning the morals and values she had once known as a kid: honesty, integrity, accountability, selflessness, having compassion for others, and not running from things when they got hard or uncomfortable. She gained a special responsibility to mentor and teach the new women, this ignited her passion for helping others. Nearing the end of her initial 2-yr commitment she committed to stay longer, and was invited to be a part of the leadership team to help launch the Denver campus. After completing 4 years as a student Ashlee was hired as a staff member in June of 2021

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