Jacob Kinsel, 31

Jacob Kinsel was working in maintenance and saw himself living a blue-collar life when, one day, an accounting professor pulled him aside after class at community college. 

“I was showing up on my lunch break to go to classes, paint stains all over my uniform, bleach stains from working on pools,” Kinsel says, recalling his days attending Tallahassee Community College while working as a maintenance manager in student housing apartments. 

Photo by Mark Wemple

“I’ll never forget the professor,” Kinsel says. “She was like, ‘This isn't easy for everyone, and you're doing really well with it. Consider this as something you might do with your future.’ And from then on out — with a little bit of belief from my professor — I pursued an accounting degree.”

Now Kinsel is a manager at Mauldin & Jenkins LLC in Bradenton, after earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida. He is a first-generation college graduate inspired in part by his wife, who graduated from Florida State University with a master's degree in education and worked as a teacher.

His wife’s uncle, who worked for Lockheed Martin, also played a role in his professional development. The uncle worked with him on his resume and interview skills "to try and help me bridge that gap of this blue-collar lifestyle into this white-collar lifestyle," Kinsel says.

His mother, another mentor, did not graduate high school and used her work ethic to excel in careers from architectural design to co-owning a remodeling business to real estate.

“You didn't have to have a higher education or be someone special to work hard,” Kinsel says he learned from his mother. “That's always really stuck with me, to just be my best in whatever I was doing. So whether I was working in student housing as a maintenance manager, I just sought to be my best. And typically, that's always led me to promotions. It's led me toward recognition.”

Kinsel credits his mother, his professor and his wife’s uncle with helping him access his future, and it motivates him to help others.

“I really don't feel like I could have succeeded without [that], and I think I've been really blessed in that regard,” Kinsel says. “And I just want to do it for other people. So I'm up at University of South Florida every semester with a mentee.”

He also has a mentee at Manatee High School through the nonprofit Take Stock in Children Manatee, which helps low-income youth escape the cycle of poverty. The student he is working with is looking to make the transition from high school to college. Kinsel also participates in the mentorship program at Mauldin & Jenkins too.

“At the end of the day, I need to do my day job; I need to pay the bills,” Kinsel says. “But while I'm doing that work, I give back to people. Where can I make a difference?"