Our Mission To help people discover their life’s purpose by providing the best and most inspiring career training available. Our Philosophy We are all here for a reason. Our only job is to figure out why. The way we do that is by defining our gifts: Our natural strengths, abilities, skills and talents; our values; our interests and our passions. We are then called to use our gifts to serve humanity. By serving others we will do two things: We will discover our purpose in life and we will make the world a better place.

Our Story

In December of 2000 after months of considering how she would help her special needs son find a job when he graduated from high school, co-founder of STRIVE For Students, Katreena Hayes-Wood met with a friend and former business associate from a local private college, Mary James. Hayes-Wood shared her ideas with James about volunteering to help the special needs students at her son’s high school find rewarding and fulfilling career paths. James, a business administrator and educator herself suggested Hayes-Wood develop and design a career development program to help those students. They agreed they would make an excellent team with the business and educational background of James and the employment industry background of Hayes-Wood. Both had worked successfully in their fields for over 15 years and felt they had reached a point in their careers when it was time to give back.

Shortly afterwards they met with friend and colleague, Marcia Maish who had taught in one of the top Arizona school districts, as a high school English teacher for 18 years. Maish offered her expertise in developing a high school student appropriate program based on the expertise Hayes-Wood possessed from her 16+ years in helping adults with their careers and teaching career development and planning classes for adults.

The team of three began their market research by hosting focus group meetings with students; parents, educators and the business community to determine what type of career development program would best meet the needs of their audience: Juniors and Seniors in high school, as well as college Freshman.

The STRIVE For Students team piloted their career assessment, development, exploration and planning program at the T.J. Pappas High School in downtown Phoenix. After nine weeks of presenting the program format to homeless high school students the STRIVE For Students team believed they needed a more scientific assessment in which to help students choose career paths.

After deciding on a viable and reputable assessment the STRIVE For Students team positioned themselves to package their final product: Discovery Career Camp. DCC officially launched in March 2002, offering students five modules including:

· Career Assessment
· Career Development I: Job Search Skills
· Career Development II: Employability Skills
· Career Exploration
· CareerMapping©

In January of 2003, STRIVE For Students launched their new program Dream Circles that perfectly blended the skills taught in CareerMapping© with the skills needed to be successful in life. From their reputation, the STRIVE For Students team began to get requests from local area schools, agencies and organizations to develop custom programs to meet their specific needs.

STRIVE For Students continues to develop programs that teach students how to enjoy life success through classes that involve them in the action of doing and experiencing what they will need to be successful. They embrace the adage, “If you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime!” Some of the programs they are best known for include: “Finding your career passion zone,” “What’s your TIP style?” and their DreamBuilder Workshop.

Katreena Hayes-Wood, Owner and Founder of STRIVE For Students has authored three books:" Help! I Need A Job" (Ranked the #4 book on interviewing by Barnes and Noble, September 2002); The Phoenix Metropolitan Career Resource Directory and "Dream Circles, How to Make Your Dreams Come True Through the Power of Sharing".

To have someone from STRIVE For Students call or visit your campus please email us.