Joliet Attorney to Job Corps Grads: 'Don't Let This Be Your Last Graduation'

Joliet attorney Vincent Cornelius told the February graduating class at Joliet Job Corps that he didn’t start in a high place with his first job. “But I thought high,” he said. “Think high.”

Cornelius will be the 2016 president of the Illinois State Bar Association.

“I will be the 140th president, the first African American president, the first president from Joliet – and the first president from the East Side of Joliet,” he told graduates at the Mills Road facility on Feb. 28.

Cornelius worked for four years at the McDonald’s on Cass Street and told the stories of other successful people who started near the bottom – people like Madonna (a clerk at a doughnut shop) or Tommy Hilfiger, who graduated from a school much like a Job Corps in the 1970s.  Hilfiger cut and sewed old jeans to create new styles when he started – and went on to sell his corporation for $1.6 billion.

Cornelius joked that whether you graduate “Cum Laude or Thank you Lawd, you graduated,” he urged graduates to build on this day. 

“Don’t let this be your last graduation,” he said. He challenged students to become a person that Joliet Job Corps would invite to speak at a future commencement.

It’s been a busy month for the Joliet native – he said it was the eighth time in the last six weeks he had been a featured speaker at an event – starting with the Jan. 18 jazz lunch sponsored by Unity CDC as part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday celebration.

Not all of the 55 students at Joliet Job Corps eligible to graduate were able to attend this commencement, one of two annually. Many had already started working or advancing to further training at other Job Corps sites. Not all left the Center on graduation day as some are working on another trade or transitioning to employment or college. The Joliet site, rated No. 2 in the nation out of 125 for measured student outcomes, enrolls new students and sends off completers nearly every week. Job Corps is celebrating its 50th anniversary and the Joliet Center offers certified online high school courses to complete a diploma, GED classes and training in seven areas: Certified Nursing Assistant, Pharmacy Tech, Office Administration, Security/MILCAP, Cement Masonry, Facilities Maintenance and Tile Setting to about 300 young people between the ages of 16 and 24. Most live on campus.

While the average stay is nine months, the Valedictorian Alexis Romero, 17, of Chicago has been in Joliet for a year and four months. She earned her online high school diploma and certifications in Microsoft in Office Administration, besides completing Certified Nurse Assistant training. She now attends Joliet Junior College, where she is transported with a half dozen other JJC students living at Joliet Job Corps.

Salutatorian Michael Ayers, 20, of Oak Creek, Wis., came in with his high school diploma just over a year ago and completed his Security/MILCAP certifications. He will soon leave to be trained as a solar thermal installer at Advanced Training in Gainesville, Fla.