Second Chance Employer Profile
Breaking Free Industries
Breaking Free Industries, a specialty T-shirt printing company in Santa Ana, Calif., gives those leaving prison a second chance. Founder Josh Nowack established the business because he needed a second chance himself.
With a felony conviction for embezzlement, he couldn’t return to the type of role he formerly held in the corporate world, so he decided to create employment for himself and others in reentry. After studying the types of enterprises Homeboy Industries operates, Nowack decided that an apparel business might be an appropriate enterprise.
He purchased his first press with a $400 gift received from a member of his synagogue in 2020. And Nowack and Breaking Free Industries have been making custom T-shirts ever since. Breaking Free Industries specializes in low volume runs that many other screen printers don’t want to handle. Customers include individuals, corporations and causes.
The company currently has three employees and has employed about 18 people in reentry over the course of its history.
The main qualification to work at Breaking Free Industries is a good work ethic. “I need somebody who’s going to show up on time and be a team player, and work the whole day and show up the next day,” Nowack says. “I joke that we traffic cotton. But there are transferable skills from selling weed and other stuff.”
Most of his employees are in their late 20s, 30s and even older. They begin printing T-shirts, so they understand the process but may later go into sales. The sales side of the business involves cold calling and attending networking events.
Second chance hiring practices
All employees at Breaking Free Industries are second chance employees. And for almost all of them, it’s their first job out of prison.
Nowack finds them through local nonprofit Project Kinship, Orange County agencies and other places he’s developed relationships with.
He trains each new employee one-on-one by using a set of comprehensive policies and procedures concerning how to operate the equipment. A good attitude is crucial for success.
“When you have the right attitude, the training part is the easy part. You can teach people how to do tasks, but you can’t teach an attitude,” he says. It takes about two months before people can work independently. And if they go into sales, it takes a bit longer.
Nowack finds that the hiring he did in the corporate world was more challenging than what he’s doing now. “Maybe it’s because they know that I’m a felon and they’re a felon. I’m very mindful of what reentry is like.”
He tells his employees, “’I’m going to make sure you’re supported the way nobody else would support you.’ But that’s not a challenge for me. There’s honesty among thieves. We’re all felons. My expectation is that you do what you’re supposed to do, and we’ll get along just fine. I’m giving you a second chance, but I may not give you a third chance. If you don’t show up, I’ll give the job to someone else who wants a job. I set very clear expectations. If this works for you, I’ll be a very big fan.”
And he goes way beyond what most people would do to support his employees. For example, he attends hearings, as well as gatherings like AA meetings, with them.
In the future, Nowack would like to have other types of businesses under the Breaking Free umbrella, but he doesn’t know what those will be yet.
As far as advice to others considering second chance hiring, Nowack says, “You have to understand the unique challenges and opportunities. Recognize that you too could have done things that, in the wrong circumstances, could have resulted in incarceration. Find a way to hire the person. Don’t find a way to not hire them. Try to make it work. You’re part of the solution.
Pay for the person to go to an AA meeting on the clock. Or have the AA meeting onsite. There are so many things you can do. Who leaves an employer who is so invested in their success that they will go with them to their hearing or AA meeting?”
Although Nowack made his share of mistakes as an entrepreneur, there’s not a single thing he regrets about second chance hiring.
“The opportunity for me to give someone hope is an opportunity I would never in a million years trade,” he says.