Today we’d like to introduce you to Ernie Garcia.
Hi Ernie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Ernie Garcia, and I am a graduate of Rise Up Industries and now it’s Machine Shop
Manager.
What, I’ve come to understand is, that I don’t simply manage a machine shop.
I manage opportunities.
I went to prison at 17 years old and came home at 46. I spent 28 years incarcerated.
For most of my life, prison was what I knew. Coming home meant more than being released—it meant
figuring out who I was going to become.
My Christian faith became an important part of that transformation. My faith gave me direction and guided my future and reinforced my belief that my life still had purpose, and that what I had been through could be
used to serve others.
Then, in 2018, I was given an opportunity when I entered Rise Up Industries.
I came there expecting to learn CNC machining. What I found was much bigger. I found people willing
to challenge me, hold me accountable, believe in me, and give me a place to belong while I built a
different life. It wasn’t easy readjusting to society after 28 years of incarceration and 18 of those years in solitary confinement. I had to learn to think differently, speak differently and to make a decision of who I really was, as a person, as a human being. Was I going to be satisfied with working and getting by in life – which isn’t a bad thing – or was I going to be of service to others and give back to the society that at one time I took from? I chose the latter.
Machining taught me precision, patience, discipline, and accountability. In our industry, a few
thousandths of an inch can be the difference between a good part and scrap.
But machining taught me something even more important:
I could create something valuable.
Eventually, I realized that wasn’t only true about the parts I was making.
It was true about my life.
Today, I manage for the same program where I once stood as a program member. I’m responsible for
production, quality, safety, and developing our people—but my greatest responsibility isn’t
machines.
My purpose is people.
When new members walk into our shop, they may not yet recognize their own potential. Part of my
role is to see that possibility before they can see it themselves.
I hold them accountable because someone held me accountable. I challenge them because someone
challenged me. And I create opportunities for them because someone created an opportunity for me.
I want our members to be able to look at me and say, “He stood where I’m standing. If
transformation was possible for him, maybe it’s possible for me too.”
I spent 28 years incarcerated. Today, I lead the machine shop that helped give me a second chance.
For me, that’s more than a career.
That’s purpose.
God gave my life purpose, Rise Up gave me an opportunity, and now my responsibility is to make sure
that opportunity continues for the people coming behind me.
Because at Rise Up Industries:
We don’t just manufacture parts. We manufacture possibilities.
And I am living proof of what can happen when someone is given one. The possibilities are endless.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
For me the struggles lied in technology. I had no idea how to use a cell phone I didn’t know how to use a debit card, had no idea that sinks in public restrooms functioned with sensors and lastly, just finding employment. If it wasn’t from a temp agency or working construction, it was very difficult to find a job because of my record.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As I mentioned, I’m the Machine Shop Manager at Rise Up Industries, but what I do goes far beyond managing machines and production. I specialize in creating structure and accountability while teaching people the skills they need to become successful CNC machinists. I’m known for having high expectations, paying attention to the details, and holding people accountable—but also for taking the time to teach them why those things matter. For me, the goal isn’t just to produce good parts. It’s to develop people who take pride in themselves and in the work they do.
What I’m most proud of is being able to use what I’ve learned, including my own life experiences, to create opportunities for other people. At Rise Up, I get to watch members come into the shop unsure of themselves and then begin to realize what they’re capable of. Seeing someone learn a trade, gain confidence, become accountable, and eventually leave us with a real career means more to me than any part we could ever manufacture. I think what sets me apart is that I understand both sides of what we’re doing. I understand the responsibility of running a real manufacturing business where quality, deadlines, and customers matter, but I also understand the person standing in front of that machine.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
None of what I have accomplished belongs to me alone. There are people who stood beside me, believed in me, corrected me, taught me, and sometimes saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself.
It starts with my family, especially my mother and father. Their continued love, support, and faith in me reminded me that I could do better and, more importantly, that I could be better. They believed in me during the times when I struggled to believe in myself. Then there is my wife, Mary. She has been part of my life since we were in high school, and somehow, through all the years and all the storms, she is still here. She has seen me at my lowest. She has lived through some of the consequences of my choices, and yet she never stopped believing there was more in me. I know there were times when she deserved better from me, which makes me even more grateful that she continued to choose me. Whatever success I have today, God, my FAITH, Mary and my family are at the root of it.
Then there is my Rise Up family. When I came home from incarceration, I needed more than a job. I needed an opportunity to rebuild my life and to discover who I could become. Joe Gilbreath, the founder of Rise Up Industries, helped create that opportunity. He built a place where people like me could invest in ourselves, learn something new, and begin imagining a life bigger than the one we thought we were limited to.
Dustin Greeves was the Machine Shop Manager when I entered the program. Dustin wasn’t afraid to hold me accountable, but he also had patience with me. There is a difference between correcting someone because you are frustrated with them and correcting someone because you see their potential. Dustin helped me understand my value before I completely understood it myself.
And then there is Darren Stotts. Darren taught me how to use my first set of calipers and micrometers. He taught me that machining wasn’t simply a job—it was an art. Darren never needed a lot of words. He is one of those people whose actions said everything that needed to be said. What he taught me at those machines became part of the foundation of the machinist and leader I am today.
Nieves Arlettaz, who taught me how to create my first email, was also part of that Rise Up family during those early days, when I was learning how to live a completely different life after incarceration. All of these people were there during a time when my life could have gone in many different directions. They gave me support, accountability, patience, knowledge, and most importantly, opportunity.
Sometimes I think about where my life would be if you removed even one of these people from my story. I truly believe it would be different. I may have done the work, but I didn’t do it alone. They helped lay the foundation that I stand on today. And maybe one of the best ways I can honor what they gave me is to do the same for the people coming behind me—to believe in them when they have trouble believing in themselves, to hold them accountable because they matter, and to give them the same thing that changed my life: **an opportunity. **
Contact Info:
- Website: https://riseupindustries.org
- Instagram: riseupindustries
- Facebook: riseupindustries
- LinkedIn: riseupindustries
- Other: e.garcia@riseupindustries.org
