Lafondia Crutchfield had been working in a warehouse for a year when she stumbled across a video of robots moving cargo. “It looked like they were doing the job of four or five people,” says Lafondia, who lives in New Orleans. Automation was soon going to make her type of work obsolete, she realized, and immediately started reimagining her life and career.
While scrolling online, she saw an ad for Verizon Skill Forward, a free virtual training program that upskills and re-skills people for a variety of tech careers. Lafondia thought the 12-week Junior Web Developer boot camp might help make her employable in a new, growing industry. While she learned coding skills such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript, Lafondia says the soft skills were just as valuable to learn.
“Verizon Skill Forward taught mindset skills, communication, and how to work in teams, as all the tech jobs are team-based,” she says. “This gave us a more realistic view of what to expect.”
The staff, including passionate and available instructors, as well as a career and life coach, were a big plus for Lafondia. “I was very surprised about the life coach,” she says. “I’ve never been in a program that offered that.”
A mom of three, Lafondia learns code, then brings along her son
While immersed in the program, Lafondia thought of her youngest son, 24-year-old Damon Crutchfield, an avid gamer and natural techie, and suggested he join Verizon Skill Forward, too. While the Junior Full Stack Developer program piqued Damon’s interest, he was skeptical, as he already knew how to code. “I thought I already had enough to go out and get a job,” Damon says.
