President's Blog: I've Never Met a CEO Before

Jahlil B.'29, with his great-grandmother, Almeta White, at Alaska Airlines

Recently, CRJS freshman Jahlil came back to campus from Alaska Airlines, wide-eyed and smiling. He had just met Joe Sprague, the recently retired CEO of Hawaiian Airlines. Jahlil summed up the experience in one simple statement: “I’ve never met a CEO before.”

Jahlil’s observation captures the magic of Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle. 

Jahlil’s great-grandmother, Almeta White, was one of the first African-Americans to work on 747s at Boeing, part of a generation of heroic women who helped build the aerospace legacy of our region. Inspired by his great-grandmother, Jahlil dreams of becoming a pilot. Thanks to Joe, when Jahlil and Almeta climbed into a 747 cockpit together, Jahlil’s dream felt a lot more achievable. Not because someone had promised him a job or a shortcut, but because a CEO named Joe took him seriously. Joe listened to and encouraged Jahlil, modeling what leadership and vocation look like.

This is the power of the Cristo Rey work-study model.

Jahlil talks with Joe Sprague, retired Hawaiian Airlines CEO

Through their professional work placements, our students don’t just learn how to show up on time, answer emails, and dress professionally, though those things matter. They learn that boardrooms, labs, hospitals, courtrooms, nonprofits, and corporate offices are places where they belong. They learn that pioneering leadership has many faces and many paths. And that they, too, are pioneers, as students at our new school.

Over the past year and a half, our students have met founders and CEOs of some of Seattle’s most iconic companies, including Microsoft, Costco, and Starbucks. They have worked alongside leaders at emerging AI startups and innovative small businesses, learned from executives at nonprofits like St. Vincent de Paul and Catholic Community Services. They have been visited by college presidents and mayors, discovering that higher education and public service are not abstract ideas, but the next steps they are expected to take at a Jesuit, Cristo Rey school.

For many of our students, these encounters are firsts. First time in a downtown office. First time shaking hands with a CEO. First time being asked, “What would you be if you could do any job in the world?” 

The Jesuit author Father James Martin, SJ, writes in his new memoir, Work in Progress, about the importance of developing a strong work ethic early in life and the transformative role of mentors in discerning one’s vocation. Work, Fr. Martin reminds us, is not just about productivity or a paycheck; it is one of the primary ways we discover who we are, what we’re good at (or not!), and how we are called to serve others. Father Jim says that being asked that crucial question—“What would you be if you could do any job in the world?”—sent him on a journey of discovering his true calling… what God wants him to be, which is also what the world needs him to be.

At Cristo Rey, our students are “works in progress”—as all of us are. Our students are learning, right now, how to work with integrity, curiosity, humility, and confidence. They are learning from mentors who see their potential before they do. They are discovering that their stories, and their families’ stories, belong in the rooms where decisions are made.

When Jahlil says, “I’ve never met a CEO before,” what he is really saying is: a new world just opened up for me. That is exactly what the Cristo Rey model is designed to do: one student, one workplace, one transformative encounter at a time.