Poor Choices – The Alex Harper Story

In August of 2005, Alex Harper began making a series of poor choices that would ultimately change the trajectory of his life, both personally and professionally. These choices landed him in prison for the majority of his adult life. “I spent my entire 20’s in prison, going from a scholar, to college student (never getting in any trouble), to inmate ‘30209-160’ in less than a week.” “Looking back,” Alex says, as he reflects on his time of incarceration, “this was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me.”

“It was a terrible experience, and most nights, I would literally cry myself to sleep, but this forced me to ask myself, ‘is this really where you want to spend the rest of your life? The last few years of my sentence, I made a conscious effort to better myself each day and to find positivity in every situation.” 

Since his release (4 years ago), Alex has amassed an impressive resume of impactful community service, as well as achieved tremendous professional advancement. Some of his accomplishments include: Graduating from Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Emerging Leadership Program and the Turner School of Construction; Becoming the presenter for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Career Chat series and TRU 2U mentorship program. 

Alex has sat on the advisory board for the City of East Cleveland, has obtained a Procore Project Management certification, and is a certified consultant at both the state and federal level for EMA, a disaster recovery agency. 

Another noteworthy involvement has been the successful coordination of a community diaper drive that collected over 1000 packages of diapers for new and single mothers in the city of Cleveland. He has solely been responsible for the execution and logistics of gas giveaways, in conjunction with Peacemakers.

Alliance and the Faith Movement. Alex also is the current board chairman of ‘It’s Not a Moment, It’s a Movement,’ a non-profit organization that provides afterschool programming for at-risk youth in the Akron City School district.

Alex admits that he is most proud of his work and impact on the reentry community, which is largely achieved through his role as a Cuyahoga County reentry mentor and his full-time employment as a Job Developer for the Center for Employment Opportunities.

Year to date, he has directly connected nearly 70 justice-involved individuals with full-time employment opportunities. “It’s a difficult time for most Americans in general, but the sad truth is that there are few resources and even less sympathy for ex-offenders, and because I have walked a similar path, it’s important for me to help those that have been justice-involved. It warms my heart to see someone truly appreciate that first paycheck back to work and to see the hope in the eyes of men and women who once felt that all was lost,” Alex exclaims.

In the fall of 2021, Alex attempted to run for the Richmond Heights city council, and according to him, that experience taught him a sobering lesson. “That experience showed me that there are people that never want to see you rise beyond a certain level in society once you have been to prison.” He shrugged, then continued, “but I can still serve people without a formal title, maybe even better.”

In June of 2020, Alex started his first business, Spartan Global Research specializing in process improvements and strategic planning for small to midsize businesses. The origins of Spartan Global came directly from his role as a Contract Compliance Officer for a minority-owned construction management firm. 

In this previous role, he acted as the owner’s representative on multiple capital construction projects in Northeast Ohio, working directly with minority-owned/small businesses to successfully match them with larger firms and contracts.

“I had the honor to meet and collaborate with great people on both ends of the contracting process. From owners to prime contractors, project engineers, to the small mom & pop operations looking for their first contract.” 

The ability to work intimately with companies on all levels of a project gave him the opportunity to identify deficiencies in the contracting and outreach process. 

Ultimately, this is what motivated Alex to start his own company and to help to fill those holes for small businesses. “Honestly, when I started my business, it was with the understanding that I didn’t know everything,” Alex states, “so I reached out to other entrepreneurs in the business development space, like Sheena Fain of Guided Growth Consulting LLC, Tony Bishop, and Angel Jacobs to ensure I had the proper structure for upward mobility.”

Spartan Global started as a research firm, and then Alex broadened the scope of the company to adapt to the needs of contemporary entrepreneurs. “We live in the information age and there are so many administrative services online that I didn’t feel that we were really helping people. What I found early on was that most small and/ or minority businesses lacked the internal processes to truly upscale. 

This turns into a hamster wheel of chasing small project after small project, beginning a never-ending cycle. By combining modern project management methodologies with data-driven decision-making, the outputs grow by leaps and bounds.

I quickly discovered that it’s not the number of resources you have but what you do with the resources you have, and in this economy, organizations must optimize the usage of their resources in order to be competitive and cost-effective.” In the passionate words of Alex, “Spartan Global wasn’t merely created to change the way an organization does day-to-day business, but when you use facts to make decisions, you can feel more at ease knowing your choices are based on data and meant to maximize business impact.” 

Alex is continuing his trailblazing work to enhance and reform minority business processes and will continue his groundbreaking efforts in the lives of Justice-Involved individuals and the communities that are impacted.

spartanglobalresearch.com

Contact info:

alex@spartanglobalresearch.com

votealexharper@gmail.com

Direct – 216-268-9329