by Guayo
On Thursday, the 25th of October, something absolutely amazing happened on a galactic level. Leland Thompson and Quan DeMarco from Thompson and DeMarco Leadership Consulting came to our offices in downtown to share some knowledge and insight. Leland Thompson grew up in East Oakland and lived in Oakland for most of his life. He made it to college but chose not to complete school. He then went on to work in retail at Mervyns for many years. He then went on to Gap to work in Human Resources for many years. He then got a job at apple and worked his way up to opening a store in Emeryville and all four stores in the Bay Area. However, he said even though he chose not to attend college, he never lost his drive to educate himself. I don’t just speak for myself when I say that stuck with me. Leland has done so much and he now desires to share the wisdom he’s gained through the years with youth and others. That is a beautiful thing, no doubt. We would love for him to come in again and discuss with us. He brought himself to our level and sat at our table to talk to us personally which touched all of us.

by Kasandra

When Quan and Leland came into our business meeting, they appeared to be very educated. When Quan started to talk about his background I noticed he was very humble but gave information that is about everday life skills. The great thing that caught my attention, when we asked him about his educational history, he mentioned that he did not attend college, but that did not get in the way of him educating himself. He shared that he studied Shaolin Kung Fu, which is an art form. He shared some great philosophy about how life was. He said that life is like a garden. There are a lot of activities in that garden. You have plants which need water sunlight and soil. There will be pests and weeds. Weeds are not necessarily bad things, they can be like different things. And it is up to you to let the weeds get in the way or work around the weeds and push forward to get a good harvest.