Joel Nitzberg

About Joel

• Grew up in a poor area of New York with a “dysfunctional” family; his parents separated four times when he was young.
• Says that emotional pain can be a positive thing; he thinks that experiencing hardships as a child helped him build resiliency.
• He majored in geology in college, then switched over to art and communications; he says cameras were his life.
• His first job was at a workshop for developmentally disabled adults; that inspired him to go back to school and get his Master of Social Work degree at Hunter College.
• Years later, after he’d tried many different things, he got into community education and the passion hit him like a “lightning bolt.”
• Now he works at NECAT, where he helps to train Boston’s inner-city community members in the culinary arts.
• He’s never stayed at the same job for more than seven years at a time, which he says has given him the opportunity to explore different paths.
• Says it’s a lifelong process to “figure one’s self out,” but he feels like he’s just about reached that point.