Who We Are

Emily Thompson

Emily Thompson is co-founder of PIVOT, a reentry pro­gram that breaks the cycle of incar­cer­a­tion for women and their fam­il­ies. The recip­i­ent of many awards, she has been recog­nized for her work bring­ing women togeth­er across racial and socio-eco­nom­ic divides to sup­port one anoth­er and bring about life-change and heal­ing through com­munity. Pri­or to co-found­ing PIVOT, Emily was the dir­ect­or of a women’s job read­i­ness pro­gram in Bal­timore City. She is sur­roun­ded by a stel­lar team and a net­work of women in reentry whose lived exper­i­ences are the driv­ing force behind the PIVOT pro­gram. Emily cur­rent serves as Grants and Fin­ance Man­ager for PIVOT. 

Joe Jones, Jr.

Joe Jones, Jr. is the Founder, Pres­id­ent and CEO of the Cen­ter for Urb­an Fam­il­ies (CFUF)a Bal­timore, Mary­land non­profit ser­vice organ­iz­a­tion estab­lished to empower low-income fam­il­ies by enhan­cing both the abil­ity of women and men to con­trib­ute to their fam­il­ies as wage earners and of men to ful­fill their roles as fath­ers. Mr. Jones is a nation­al lead­er in work­force devel­op­ment, fath­er­hood and fam­ily ser­vices pro­gram­ming, and through his pro­fes­sion­al and civic involve­ment influ­ences policy dir­ec­tion nationwide.

Mr. Jones’ civic engage­ments include ser­vice on the boards of the Open Soci­ety Insti­tute-Bal­timore, Bal­timore Work­force Devel­op­ment Board, and My Brother’s Keep­er- Bal­timore. Mr. Jones has received numer­ous awards and hon­ors for his lead­er­ship and pro­gram­ming includ­ing the Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity Lead­er­ship Devel­op­ment Program’s Dis­tin­guished
Lead­er­ship Award, an hon­or­ary Doc­tor­ate in Pub­lic Ser­vice from Mor­gan State Uni­ver­sity, the Wal­ter Sond­heim Pub­lic Ser­vice Award, a 2013CNN Hero, and the White House Cham­pi­on of Change Award.

John Huff­ing­ton

John Huff­ing­ton spent 32 years in the Mary­land pris­on sys­tem, 10 of which were on death row. Always main­tain­ing his inno­cence, he ulti­mately secured his release from pris­on in 2013 through a Writ of Actu­al Inno­cence after it was revealed that hair samples found at the scene of the crime were not Mr. Huffington’s.

Mr. Huff­ing­ton cur­rently serves as Dir­ect­or of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment for Kin­et­ic Cap­it­al, LLC., a private fin­an­cing firm spe­cial­iz­ing in small busi­ness fin­an­cing options and solu­tions. He is also Vice Pres­id­ent and COO of the Kin­et­ic Cap­it­al Com­munity Found­a­tion. He pre­vi­ously served as Dir­ect­or of Work­force Devel­op­ment for the Liv­ing Classrooms Foundation/​Job Train­ing efforts for the ReEntry Prog­arm, Pro­ject SERVE and the Tar­get Invest­ment Zone in East Bal­timore. He serves on sev­er­al boards of organ­iz­a­tions that serve the interests of return­ing cit­izens includ­ing Sharp Dressed Man, the Great­er Bal­timore Committee’s Coali­tion for a Second Chance, the Bal­timore City Police Depart­ment Col­lab­or­at­ive Re-Entry Advis­ory Board, among sev­er­al others.

Donte Small

Donte Small, Gouch­er Class of ​’18, is the first gradu­ate of Gouch­er Pris­on Edu­ca­tion Part­ner­ship (GPEP) pro­gram. Enrolled with Gouch­er Col­lege through GPEP, Mr. Small star­ted col­lege behind bars in the spring of 2012 and earned his degree on Goucher’s main cam­pus. GPEP is privately fun­ded pro­gram that gives incar­cer­ated men and women the oppor­tun­ity to pur­sue and obtain a bach­el­or’s degree while still in pris­on. Mr. Small holds a B.A in Com­puter Sci­ence with a minor in Soci­ology. He is act­ive in the Bal­timore com­munity and has partnered with GPEP and Pris­on-to-Pro­fes­sion­als (P2P) to change the pris­on reform polit­ic­al land­scape by advoc­at­ing, edu­cat­ing, and enga­ging in com­munity dis­cus­sions about rights for formerly incar­cer­ated indi­vidu­als. Mr. Small often speaks pub­licly on issues of edu­ca­tion, crim­in­al justice, and felony dis­en­fran­chise­ment. He cur­rently works as a Tech­nic­al Sup­port Engin­eer at a tech­no­logy firm loc­ated in Hunt Val­ley, Maryland. 

Ram­ieka Robinson-Peoples

Ram­ieka Robin­son-Peoples-cur­rently serves as the Coordin­at­or, Plan­ning and Spe­cial Pro­jects with the Gouch­er Pris­on Edu­ca­tion Part­ner­ship (GPEP), a divi­sion of Gouch­er Col­lege, which provides stu­dents at two Mary­land state pris­ons with access and oppor­tun­ity to pur­sue an excel­lent col­lege education.

In her spare time, she proudly works in con­junc­tion with Out for Justice, Inc. (OFJ) led by indi­vidu­als affected by the crim­in­al justice sys­tem. OFJ’s primary mis­sion is to engage, empower, and edu­cate formerly incar­cer­ated indi­vidu­als, fam­il­ies, friends and com­munity mem­bers about the sys­tems, policies, and prac­tices that cur­rently have an impact on our com­munit­ies, and vari­ous ways to nav­ig­ate the legis­lat­ive pro­cess for reform.

As a return­ing cit­izen who served 14 ½ years at the Mary­land Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion for Women (MCIW), she pos­sesses firsthand exper­i­ence regard­ing the obstacles many face when return­ing home and is whole­heartedly devoted to assist­ing oth­ers through her expert­ise and lived experience.

Melvin Wilson

Melvin Wilson cur­rently serves as Co-Dir­ect­or of Turn­around Tues­day, which pre­pares return­ing, unem­ployed and under-employed cit­izens to reenter the work­force and take an act­ive role in trans­form­ing their com­munit­ies. Mr. Wilson is a life-long res­id­ent of Bal­timore City. He spent 14 years with the Bal­timore City Police Depart­ment. Mr. Wilson also worked for Good­will Indus­tries of the Ches­apeake for 12 years in vari­ous pos­i­tions includ­ing Human Resource Gen­er­al­ist, Employ­ee Engage­ment Coordin­at­or and Assist­ant to the Pres­id­ent. Pri­or to assum­ing his cur­rent role as Turn­around Tues­day’s Co-Dir­ect­or, Mr. Wilson served as Chief Oper­at­ing Officer of Zion Baptist Church where he cur­rently serves on the Dea­con Board.

Veron­ica Jackson

Veron­ica Jack­son is the new exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or of Baltimore’s PIVOT pro­gram. An eight week women’s re- entry work­force devel­op­ment pro­gram. Its core value aims to help women who are justice impacted, reclaim and rebuild their lives. Veron­ica is a Bal­timore nat­ive com­mit­ted to the enhance­ment, expos­ure and expan­sion of Bal­timore com­munit­ies and fam­il­ies. She is tre­mend­ously ded­ic­ated to the com­munity and dis­mant­ling all neg­at­ive stigma asso­ci­ated with Bal­timore. She believes that Bal­timore is a beau­ti­ful, unique place filled with amaz­ing people. Veron­ica is con­vinced that the key to a strong com­munity are abol­ish­ing sys­tem­ic found­a­tions, trans­par­ent com­mu­nic­a­tion, imple­ment­ing grass­root com­munity life­styles. Exper­i­enced in work­ing with fam­il­ies and mem­bers of the com­munity in vari­ous sec­tors of Bal­timore. Her career expos­ure includes years as a Cor­rec­tion­al Officer in Bal­timore City Cent­ral Book­ing (WDC), The Judith P Hoy­er Fam­ily and Early Learn­ing Cen­ter Bal­timore City Pub­lic Schools, Chan­ging Lives at Home, Inc as well as Women Accept­ing Respons­ib­il­ity (WAR). These career exper­i­ences have estab­lished her know­ledge, resources, and lead­er­ship skills. This aids her in assist­ing women return­ing suc­cess­fully to soci­ety. She is con­fid­ent that every woman in Bal­timore City has the oppor­tun­ity to build and/​or rebuild and craft the life she desires.

Ant­oin Quarles

Ant­oin Quarles is the founder of Bal­timore-based Help­ing Oppressed People Excel (HOPE), which was foun­ded to give men and women hope as they nav­ig­ate the many bar­ri­ers to a suc­cess­ful reentry after incar­cer­a­tion. HOPE com­bines ment­or­ship, ser­vice con­nec­tion (job train­ing, trans­port­a­tion, hous­ing sup­port) and insists on cli­ent account­ab­il­ity. Its ulti­mate goal is for par­ti­cipants to become advoc­ates for those com­ing after them who need the same kind of assist­ance and support. 

Ant­oin was a part of the Pub­lic Safety Com­pact (PSC) — a pub­lic-private part­ner­ship that con­nec­ted those incar­cer­ated with resources pri­or to and imme­di­ately after their release. He recently cel­eb­rated 10 years out of incar­cer­a­tion — the longest time since his first charge at 12 years old. In addi­tion to lead­ing HOPE, Ant­oin works as the sex­ton at Emmanuel Epis­copal Church where HOPE holds its Tues­day night meet­ings. He has spoken nation­ally on asset map­ping, lead­er­ship, social change, and how to work with return­ing cit­izens in the com­munity. He reg­u­larly advoc­ates for return­ing cit­izens in Anna­pol­is and worked on the Value my Vote Cam­paign (HB0222) by cre­at­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing video pub­lic ser­vice announce­ments about vot­ing while await­ing tri­al. Ant­oin is the proud win­ner of Bal­timore Corp’s Elev­a­tion Award in 2017. 

Ant­oin inspires many because of his abil­ity to lead by example and his per­son­al exper­i­ence of over­com­ing bar­ri­ers asso­ci­ated with trans­ition­ing from incar­cer­a­tion to community.