Joe Roberts, Skid Row CEO
Joe Roberts, also known as the “Skidrow CEO”, is planning to push a shopping cart across Canada in 2013. As a warm-up, he is pushing a cart from Calgary to Vancouver this summer. He left Calgary July 1 and expects to finish his trek in Vancouver on August 25.
The idea is for communities and individuals to help Roberts push the cart, generating funds and getting people involved in programs which help homeless youth and/or keep them from becoming homeless in the first place. After becoming a drug addict at a young age, Roberts spent seven years on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.
With the help of the Salvation Army, he got into rehab and went on to complete a business marketing program in Ontario. He made the dean’s list and graduated in 1995 with a 3.94 GPA. In 1997 he accepted the position of CEO at Mindware Designs Communications in Vancouver and managed to grow the company’s sales 800 per cent.
Roberts is now a successful businessman, motivational speaker, and author. He developed the idea for Push for Change along with his business partner Dr. Sean Richardson, a sport psychologist. The Salvation Army is partnering with Roberts by providing venues along the way where Roberts can share his story of transformation.