From Division I Athlete to IT Instructor with Art Green III

Episode Information

Show Notes

Sometimes the career you’re meant for finds you through the most unexpected path.

Art Green III, Senior IT Workforce Programs Instructor at Tech Impact, joins Career Downloads to share his journey from college athlete to tech instructor helping disadvantaged students launch IT careers. His story is a masterclass in resilience, adaptability, and finding fulfillment through service.

Guest Background:
Art Green III spent his early years as a Division I athlete with dreams of professional sports. When a career-ending injury shattered that identity, he moved to Las Vegas searching for a fresh start. What began as a random job at a travel agency became the unexpected gateway to a 20+ year technology career.

Today, Art leads Tech Impact’s IT Works programs in Las Vegas, teaching students from challenging backgrounds the technical and professional skills needed to launch successful IT careers. He also supports instructors across Tech Impact’s locations in Philadelphia, Delaware, and Nashville while developing cutting-edge curriculum including AI training programs.

Episode Highlights:
Identity Loss and Rebuilding
Art opens up about the devastating experience of losing his athlete identity after a career-ending injury. Sports had been his entire life since childhood — there was no Plan B. The transition forced him to confront who he was beyond the field and find new purpose.

Accidental Entry Into Tech
Needing work after moving to Las Vegas, Art took a job as a travel agent. During downtime between calls, his natural curiosity led him to explore the computer systems. He discovered a backend coding interface and taught himself to completely redesign the booking process. That curiosity opened the door to his tech career.

The Power of Being the Worst
When Art started at Dell technical support, he was the worst performer out of 300 technicians. Rather than quitting, he committed to learning. This experience taught him that being the worst in the room is often the best position for growth — a lesson he now shares with his students.

Finding Purpose Through Teaching
Art’s first taste of teaching came when he trained new Dell hires while traveling the country. He discovered he loved teaching as much as troubleshooting. That seed planted years ago led him to his current role transforming lives through education.

Nonprofit vs. For-Profit Education
Working in for-profit education admissions left Art conflicted. He could spot students who weren’t ready for $80,000 programs but was told to enroll them anyway. The ethical struggle drove him to seek nonprofit education where mission aligned with impact.

Tech Impact’s Mission
Tech Impact’s mission, leveraging technology to create social impact, resonated deeply with Art. The organization serves dislocated, disenfranchised youth, many from difficult circumstances including homelessness. Watching students go from shelters to IT engineering roles at major resorts makes every day meaningful.

Student Success Stories
Art shares powerful examples of transformation: students who started the program homeless now working as IT engineers at Las Vegas resorts. The mentorship component brings industry professionals into students’ lives, creating relationships and opportunities that extend far beyond technical training.

Authentic Recruiting Philosophy
Art’s approach to student recruiting shifted from begging people to enroll to presenting genuine opportunities. He shares his background and knowledge without selling — creating space for students to make informed decisions about their futures.

Key Takeaways:
– Your painful experiences often prepare you to help others facing similar challenges
– Being the worst performer is an opportunity for accelerated learning
– Financial compensation alone won’t sustain you without meaningful work
– Transferable skills from past roles apply in unexpected ways
– Finding work that creates social impact changes everything

About Tech Impact:
Tech Impact is a national nonprofit that leverages technology to create social impact. Their IT Works programs provide free training, certification preparation, and job placement support to individuals from underserved communities. The program operates across multiple cities, combining technical training with soft skills development and professional mentorship.

Connect with Art Green III:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/art-green-iii/

Continue the Conversation:
Have questions about career transitions, teaching in tech, or nonprofit education? Connect with Manuel Martinez on LinkedIn or visit careerdownloads.com to share your thoughts and suggest future guests.

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TranscriptionManuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. Where each episode, I basically hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences, to share that with you so that you can gain valuable insights into how they manage their career and what worked or didn’t work for them so that you can can apply or not apply or not apply as you’re managing your own career. I’m excited for this conversation. It’s with Art Green III and he and I have kind of crossed paths through mutual contacts, got to know a got to know a little bit more about his career and I think there’s a lot of valuable information that he’s going to be able to provide and also talk a little bit more about what he’s doing now. he’s doing now. So with that, I’ll introduce Art.

Art Green: Hi Manny, thank you for having me here today.

Manuel Martinez: I appreciate you coming on and being open to kind of sharing your experiences and talking a little bit more about kind of what led you to where you’re at now and why. So I know you and I have talked about why this type of work really brings you fulfillment, right? A lot of times people get into the tech industry because they hear something that sounds cool or because of, you know, they hear high salaries but yes, it’s nice to make money and be able to pay your bills but a lot of times we try to find something outside of that that kind of fulfills us which is why I’m excited to learn more about, you know, what you’re doing.

Art Green: Absolutely. Well Well again, thank you for having me. for having me. It’s It’s an honor to be here. As far as my current role, I’m the senior IT I’m the senior IT workforce programs instructor instructor with with Tech Impact, specifically their IT works programs which is kind of all-inclusive like a pathway to middle skills for up-and-coming IT minds, so to speak. speak. I know you’d I know you’d met with one of my former students Paola before so I’m not sure how much she told you about that. As far as what I As far as what I kind of do in the organization, obviously I lead the Las Vegas classes, those cohorts, but I also help with some of our other instructors who are some of them across the country. We have sites in Philadelphia, we have Delaware, we just brought on Nashville. So I really help to try to guide them to help them with their instructional delivery, come up with curriculum development as, you know, new things come about. Obviously AI is a big thing now so that’s kind of the project I’m working on now is putting together a new AI curriculum for our students. Outside of that, just really just just really just managing day-to-day around the office, around the office that kind of thing, and helping the students in their careers.

Manuel Martinez: Just talking a little bit more about you know that clock, that cross-collaboration, you know you’re all working for the common good, but you know having different, you know, being spread across the U.S. and then also being able to kind of share experiences from each one of you because it’s not just you kind of helping guide working for the them, but I’m sure they’re also providing feedback, you know, and kind of working together and really developing something that is going to be beneficial for you know, in this case the end customer, which is really your students.

Art Green: Absolutely, and I’m real big on that, you know, I’m pretty candid with my fellow instructors and my team and stuff and like, you know, if that slideshow I made is terrible, just tell me it’s terrible, you know, and I’ll go back to the drawing board. You know, I don’t want to force feed anything and I want it to be a collaborative effort because that’s the way that it’s going to end up being most successful because everyone has different tastes, different likings, and specifically with the students, different learning styles and things like that. So I’m always open, I love collaboration with everyone, even with the students, you know, I tell them all the time, like you know if that was bad just let me know, and that’s kind of one of the reasons why I’m working on the new AI curriculum because they they weren’t really feeling it so

Manuel Martinez: So then now tell me about where you grew up and then eventually kind of where you thought your