Gary Job Corps brings 'good man' back to work after four year retirement

His is a face known to so many in the community and now, a new group of staff and young people will have the opportunity to learn what others over the decades have had the chance to learn: he will change their lives.

Randolph Goodman is back in a role he knows well with a title that is just a bit larger: business engagement liaison & apprenticeship coordinator for the Gary Job Corps Center.

He said the position is one that allows him to work with individuals and the community one on one, in a way that is so familiar to his smile, his style and his empathy for those he commits to working with at the center.

And it only took him a brief moment to consider his return, he said. Pretty much the blink of an eye.

His coming back to the center at the personal request of current management mirrors changes going on there as well. As of April 1, a new contractor, Equus Workforce Solutions, was operating the facility and programs at the center, located at 2800 Airport Highway 21 at what was once the Gary Air Force Base. The Jobs Corps is a U.S. Department of Labor Equal Opportunity Employer Program.

In April 10, 1965–58 years ago–President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated the then new Gary Job Corps Training Center, Goodman said. The establishment of the center was made possible by the passage of the Federal Economic Opportunity Act in August 1964. During his administration, Johnson historically set into motion a series of antipoverty programs that to do this day continue to impact the lives of Americans. The Job Corps was one of these programs.

It was in December 1964 that the Texas Education Foundation, a private nonprofit, corporation awarded the first contract that established the San Marcos-area job center.

On the day he stopped by for an interview, Goodman took out of his wallet a new business card–new only in that he had carried one like it before and then retired it. On his lapel were pins, one a cloth-draped cross for the Easter season and one, a circular medallion stating, U.S. Navy retired, with a rank of chief.

Well, about retirement, that all depends on which aspect of this Austin native’s life he is talking about these days. Officially, he retired from the center in May 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic would turn the world’s economic cart upside down.

“I came back to Gary Job Corps, just couldn’t leave the job I loved doing,” he said. “I’m an old school guy.”

In the four-year span he was gone, the center was impacted by the pandemic and changes in contractors. Goodman said he is ready to handle these changes and whatever comes his way.

Often profiled in this newspaper for so many of his professional and personal accomplishments, and especially community service, one gleans a fuller history of this man. Goodman served valiantly in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. Starting and stopping his post-high school education, initially with the goal of becoming a teacher, he eventually got a degree in history and political science.

Goodman joined and served with the U.S. Navy in 1968 at age 19, heading to Vietnam after boot camp in San Diego. His ship was the LCM, USS Washburn, and he saw duty on the beaches. Later, he was in Da Nang at the U.S. Navy support facility there. For his service, he was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.

Through his military service, he literally traveled around the world, to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Cuba and just about any port of call in between. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he requested his duty be changed and he left the U.S. to take up arms with his comrades in the Gulf.

But somehow, Central Texas, called him back, a place where he made more than a large mark before, and the place where, suit on and cards in that wallet, he is starting a new phase in his career.

His first tour with the Gary Job Corps came in December 1992 when he accepted a position as a placement specialist after officials had seen what he was accomplishing with the Capital City Trade and Technical school with student career development.

When Goodman reflects on his purpose and mission today, he said it is almost always about the young people he has met along the decades-long path he and wife Eva have forged together. He said when he engages with the newest generation of Gary program members, he hopes his knowledge and skills will help to set them moving in a direction that will have life-changing career consequences.

He said his mentor from his Austin school years was Dr. Charles Akins, who reinforced his love for history and set him an agenda that he has lived up to since. He graduated in 1968 from Albert Sydney Johnston High School and his bachelor of arts is from the University of Texas at Arlington (with several other schools along the way).

When an individual applies and is accepted into the training at the center, they are immersed in outreach, career preparation development, social and personal management, undertaking the creation of a personal career development plan with the assistance of Job Corps staff. Eventually, the goal is to help graduates transition into a successful first job. The demographic for those at the center is from 16 to 24 years of age and they must be income eligible, for example, meet certain income conditions among which are receiving public assistance, earn a poverty-level income, be homeless, are a foster child or qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Applicants must also be a U.S. citizen, a legal U.S. resident of a resident of a U.S. territory and/or is authorized to work in the United States. The program is completely voluntary and those who are enrolled may exit at any time.