"I want to change, I don't want to come back to prison, I want a life."
Adam said these words having no idea where they would take him.
He did not know he would become a father raising his children, building a career in sales, or helping to create jobs for people coming home from prison.
At the time, he only knew one thing: He wanted something different.
Looking for a place to belong
Adam was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Growing up, stability was hard to find.
Both of his parents struggled with substance use. His father was mostly absent. His mother moved in and out of recovery. While Adam and his siblings moved from apartment to apartment and sometimes stayed with relatives when their mother went to treatment.
For a few years, life seemed to settle down after the family moved to Arizona. Then, when Adam was in seventh grade, everything changed again.
His mother disappeared from the home. His grandmother arrived and told the children they were leaving Arizona and would be split up. Adam returned to Minnesota and spent time in family foster care.
He remembers feeling confused, hurt, and out of place.
When he came back to Arizona as a teenager, those feelings followed him.
Adam dropped out of school. He drank, used drugs, stole cars, and broke into homes. At the center of much of it was something he had wanted for years, belonging.
After one night of stealing and selling what they had taken, Adam remembers people welcoming him.
"That was the first time I ever felt wanted," he said. "That was the first time I ever felt like I belonged to something."
That feeling kept pulling him back.
His contact with the justice system grew from arrests and short stays in county jail to years spent cycling through incarceration. At 23, Adam went to prison for the first time.
When he eventually came home, he thought serving his sentence would be enough.
It wasn't.
He had no real plan for what came next. Within weeks, he was drinking again. The same cycle continued for years.
A different choice
During another period of incarceration, Adam received news that changed him.
His mother had died by suicide.
Adam was in jail when his brother told him over the phone.
His daughter was born while he was in county jail. His children were growing up while he was incarcerated. Their mother was struggling with substance use, and Adam could see the instability surrounding his children.
Still, even that pain did not create an immediate change.
While back in prison, Adam continued using drugs. Then one day, a man named Josh sat on his bed and suggested something Adam thought sounded almost impossible.
They should get sober.
Adam had spent most of his life using substances. At first, the idea seemed unrealistic.
But little by little, he started attending AA meetings.
Then another opportunity appeared.
Taking a chance
Adam approached Sergeant Collins about joining a wildland firefighting crew inside the Arizona prison system. Collins asked Adam if he was high.
Adam said yes.
Collins told him to finish his class, get sober, and come back.
For Adam, that challenge became a goal.
"It was like life changing," he said. "That was the first time in my life, in a long time, that I felt like I had a goal to achieve."
He got sober seven days before joining the crew.
The work was exhausting. The days were hot. The expectations were high. Adam was surrounded by people who carried themselves differently than the people he had spent much of his life around.
He decided to learn from them.
Every day, Adam reminded himself why he was showing up.
"I owe this to the community, I owe this to myself, I owe this to my children."
Slowly, things changed.
He started waking up early, took pride in his appearance, and changed the way he spoke and the people he spent time around. Eventually, he became a squad boss.
He also kept attending programs, even when he did not want to.
"I knew if I kept going and kept returning that something inside me would change," he said.
Starting again
Adam was released from prison on February 24, 2021, his son's birthday.
He wanted nothing more than to see his children.
That night he spent hours waiting at a gas station with birthday presents, but never got to see his son. It was then he found out that for the first few months after his release, Adam would not be allowed to see his children.
He had about $700, bought clothes at Goodwill, and wore the same shoes he had been released from prison in. Friends helped him find a safe place to live.
But even simple tasks felt overwhelming.
A few more days after his release, Adam sat at a kitchen table trying to complete paperwork for health coverage. The questions confused him. He became frustrated and embarrassed.
He was almost 40 years old, and he did not know how to do many of the things other adults seemed to take for granted.
Renting a home. Buying a car. Getting insurance. Building credit.
"I was sitting here in the kitchen crying because I can't fill out my paperwork," he remembered. "A middle aged man lost."
Instead of walking away, Adam asked for help.
That became part of his new life, too.
Building something new
Soon after his release, a friend encouraged Adam to try door to door sales.
He almost said no.
Adam did not have a car of his own. A friend loaned him a PT Cruiser with no air conditioning and paid the insurance. Adam dug ditches to earn gas money.
Then he knocked on doors.
Again and again.
The work began to pay off. Adam earned enough to hire an attorney and work toward rebuilding his relationship with his children.
Within months, his children were living with him.
Fatherhood brought a whole new set of challenges. Adam had never enrolled a child in school. He did not know how children's clothing sizes worked. He needed help learning the everyday parts of being a parent. So, he kept learning.
Today, Adam has full custody of his children. He talks proudly about their grades, their sports, their routines, and the stability they have built together.
For Adam, success is not about erasing what happened before.
It is about what he does today.
"The consistency that I show in their life today, the way I show up, is probably the biggest impact that I can have on them," he said.
Sending the opportunity back
Adam's career also grew.
As he found success in sales, he began reaching back to people he knew from prison. He recruited people who were coming home and looking for a chance to build something different.
His teams grew. So did his vision.
Adam later helped build a team of more than 100 people at ProWest and started Redemption Blueprint, a YouTube channel that shares stories of life after incarceration.
Then, he helped take the idea even further.
Working with Hustle 2.0 and others, Adam helped develop a roofing sales curriculum that could be offered to people while they were still incarcerated. The idea was simple: give people practical skills before they come home and help them see that another future is possible.
For Adam, that work matters more than the money or recognition that has come with his career.
"What I care about is helping people," he said. "I care about giving people the same opportunity that was given to me."
He also understands how much a criminal record can shape the way someone sees their own future. Adam remembers believing that his record meant doors would always be closed. He remembers thinking his choices had already decided the rest of his life.
Today, he sees it differently.
He believes people should be held responsible for the harm they cause. He also believes people who do the work to change deserve the chance to move forward.
That is what a second chance means to him.
Build through community
Adam is also quick to say he did not build his new life alone.
"It took an army," he said.
Friends helped him. People in recovery helped him. Correctional staff challenged him. Coworkers believed in him. Others gave him transportation, housing, advice, work, and opportunities.
Now Adam wants to be one of those people for someone else.
His message to people who feel trapped by their past is the same one he had to learn himself.
Change does not happen all at once. You show up, you ask for help, and you do the hard thing again tomorrow. Little by little, a different life begins to take shape.
Adam cannot rewrite what happened before, but he can decide what happens next.
"I can only change the future."
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This story is part of our #1in3 campaign, a project to end the stigma and raise awareness of how common it is to have a criminal record.
1 in 3 Americans has a criminal record, which is a lot more common than people think. No one expects to be involved in the justice system, but it can happen to anyone. People of all ages, backgrounds, genders, and income-levels are involved in the justice system. Their pathways vary, but the barriers of a record affect them all. Our hope is that by sharing their portraits and telling their stories, we can change the way people think about people with records and appreciate them for all they have overcome.