Hector Guadalupe

About Hector

• I grew up in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York.
• I started selling drugs at age 13 and was eventually indicted for drug distribution when I was 23 years old.
• Once in prison, my primary goal was to get healthy—I started working at the gym and working out myself.
• I felt a sort of rebirth through working out—I enrolled in a correspondence program, became a certified personal trainer, and started training others in prison.
• When I was finally released from prison, I struggled for several months to find a job—eventually, the New York Sports Club in Manhattan’s Union Square gave me a chance and hired me.
• I started helping all of the men I was connected with in prison by buying their gym gear and training materials and bringing them to the gym I was working at.
• That led to me going to federal institutions and halfway houses to try and help more and more formerly incarcerated people.
• After a couple of years, I founded A Second U Foundation, which helps formerly incarcerated men and women receive career training and find employment as personal trainers.