Our Founder

José M. deOlivares is a former marginalized youth who grew up in the South Bronx in New York City and became a high-ranking government official responsible for managing a quarter of a billion dollars in federal youth employment and training funds. He has a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience about marginalized youth that comes, not only from having been one himself, but from having worked in law enforcement, drug treatment and prevention, education and workforce development for over 40 years.

When Mr. deOlivares retired from the United States Department of Labor’s Office of Job Corps in March of 2005, he was the agency’s Senior Regional Director and Contracting Officer with procurement and program oversight responsibility for 24 Job Corps Centers in 11 states serving 15,000 economically disadvantaged youth a year between the ages of 16 and 24 and an annual budget of $250,000,000 .

Mr. deOlivares is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, Bring Them Back Alive: Helping Teens Get Out and Stay Out of Trouble (Taylor 2004.) Famed civil rights leader, the Rev. Benjamin L. Hooks, Executive Director Emeritus of the NAACP, says of Bring Them Back Alive, “It is excellent in terms of helping to understand why teenagers get into trouble. It gives a message of faith and optimism that should give us new resolve in the never-ending community-building obligations that we all share.”

Mr. deOlivares founded the Institute for the Mainstreaming of Marginalized Youth (IMMY) in the spring of 2005 to carry on his life’s work and currently serves as its Executive Director.