Gene Walker knows the road to success has many stops and starts. Consider his path to become executive director of Cafe Momentum Pittsburgh, the soon-to-open nonprofit restaurant and professional training facility in Downtown that gives juvenile offenders a second chance.

The East Liberty native graduated from Peabody High School and studied accounting at Bloomsburg University. For a decade after earning his degree in 1998, he made his living in northeastern Pennsylvania in finance and marketing. It wasn’t until he boomeranged home in 2009 to take a job with The Pittsburgh Promise that the Brighton Heights resident was ready to trade “chasing money” for a more fulfilling life of service. 

“If I help enough people get where they should go,” he remembers thinking, “I’ll get where I should go.”

Read more: https://www.post-gazette.com/life/dining/2023/02/09/cafe-momentum-gene-walker-youth-life-skills/stories/202302070092