This Owner of a Steel Company Succeeds by Giving Addicts a Second Chance

Guideposts Video: Inspiring True Stories

Hi Guideposts. My name is George Vorel from Envirosafe, Incorporated, here in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. We’ve been in business for 25 years, and we provide industrial coating services to customers located throughout the world. 

Our youngest daughter became a heroin addict at 18 and remained an active heroin addict for the next eight years. During those eight years, I witnessed how difficult it was, not only to recover but just as importantly, to find gainful employment. 

For my wife and I to observe our daughter not being given a second chance…she was a second-class citizen. She could not find employment. The employment she did find was usually very poor pay [with] limited hours,  and it struck me that these folks need a second chance. 

I made the effort with my managers to state a position of giving second chances. We were rather immediately rewarded for our effort by our observation of the success that these folks were realizing, even in the face of addiction. To have an understanding and compassionate employer enabled them to step up to the plate and fight more strongly against their addiction.

We have been compassionate, understanding employers, and the secret to our success is that patience, is that understanding, is that compassion for their problem to the extent that we understand that they’re going to have to take time off to go to outpatient rehabs.

I feel that we’ve been doing God’s work, and it is very rewarding we have a young man who has started here and is still employed by us two years later and is talking about he and his wife buying a home, finally being able to buy a home.

Part of my enthusiasm for the program is borne out by how my Lord has been patient with me and my shortcomings and is repeatedly given me that second chance, that third chance, that fourth chance to find Him and adhere to His will for me. And when we give these gentlemen the opportunity, I know that our Lord is smiling.