About

Our Mission:

“Transitioning and retired US Armed Forces members and their spouses and dependents, senior workforce professionals in declining industries, unemployed persons with non-current workforce skills, and other qualified beneficiaries experience a continually improving standard of living, stability, a sense of community, self-esteem and self-actualization. These Ends will be achieved in a sustainable manner that represents value for the resources invested.”

In short, “Our beneficiaries have the jobs that they want.”

Our Vision:

….back in the fall/winter of 2011, a group of us gathered together in Suzette’s living room to study together for Athens’ PMP certification.  Facilitating the study session was Alan Yue, who at the time was the President of the local PMI chapter, and had been teaching PMP Exam Prep for 8 years.  Suzette had just earned her PMP a few months beforehand and was full of excitement and vigor around sharing her experience, knowledge, and study tips to the entire project management community.  Athens had completed her Masters in Project Management the year prior, but found that the job market was requiring a PMP after her name, despite the MPM she had.  Along with a few other colleagues in the room, was our dear friend and colleague Rich Otto.  Rich was an experienced project manager, who had taught in the university system, and was an airforce veteran.

While Athens was focusing on the content to prepare to pass her own PMP certification, Suzette and the rest of the group were learning how to teach PMP Exam Prep.  We became a tight team, and those 5 study sessions of 7 hours each have become legend in our circle, and the foundation for XLUR8.   Through those study sessions we learned that we all shared a passion for sharing knowledge, for our profession, and for removing roadblocks to each other’s success.

Fast forward six months…. Alan, Athens and Suzette are all teaching PMP Exam Prep professionally and helping project managers pass their certification exams.  At the same time, they came to the realization that so many of our veterans are returning home to find they are obstructed from jobs they are qualified for…. just because they don’t hold the right certification.  And so many employers are having a hard time finding qualified candidates with the proper certifications to fill those positions.    With that realization, a bit of research and the introduction to a few honorable vets, Ed and Jarom, the trio knew what they had to do.  XLUR8 Educational and Research Foundation, Inc. was born!

By sharing our knowledge, tips and strategies with returning armed forces, by supporting them with linkages to Transition services, by carrying them through the process into job placement, XLUR8 is the glue that connects our honorable heros with the stable and successful future that they fought for all of us to have.

They will have the jobs that they want!