Darnell Epps

Workforce innovation & career pathways

Darnell Epps is turning overlooked talent into visible opportunity in the skilled trades.

About Darnell

Darnell is the founder and CEO of Thurgood Industries, a workforce platform built to help students in vocational and technical programs show employers what they can actually do. Instead of asking a résumé to carry the whole story, the platform lets emerging welders, machinists, and other tradespeople assemble portfolios of projects, photos, and video. It gives employers a clearer view of ability and gives students a stronger bridge from training to a career.

His path to this work is extraordinary. After leaving high school and spending years incarcerated, Darnell earned his GED, took college courses, graduated from Cornell University, and went on to Yale Law School. While at Yale, he also enrolled in a technical college’s manufacturing program. That firsthand experience showed him both the sophistication of skilled work and the gap between talented students and employers searching for them.

Darnell has brought this vision to national conversations about the future of work, including an in-depth discussion with Harvard Business School and a feature on NPR. His work insists that access to a durable career should depend on skill and potential, and that education must connect to real economic mobility.

At PipeDreamers Foundation, he brings that same conviction to technology education and workforce pathways for young people. His leadership connects classroom learning with the confidence, evidence of skill, and relationships people need to build a future on their own terms.

Selected conversations

NPR: Why a lawyer enrolled in trade school ↗

Harvard Business School: Darnell Epps on opening career pathways ↗