About
Hans E. Hageman
Hans Hageman is the CEO and Founder of Hans Hageman and Associates, LLC. Hans Hageman and Associates trains, coaches and consults Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits and individuals in the areas of communication, leadership, and diversity.
Hans grew up in East Harlem, raised at Exodus House – his home and a residential treatment center for drug addicts, established and run by his parents. The importance of community, service and education was learned here and from them as pioneering examples who committed their lives in service of others. Determined to pursue a career that would impact and change the lives of children and their families Mr. Hageman has spent his life in service of others at home in the United States and in countries like Sudan, India, Ghana, Senegal and Nicaragua.
His strong focus, determination, persistence and the importance his parents placed on education led Mr. Hageman to graduate with honors from Collegiate School for Boys, receive his B.A. from Princeton University and his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. Mr. Hageman has a vast amount of experience in the private as well as public sector. His law experience included stints at two of New York’s finest firms. He served as assistant district attorney in the Office of Special Narcotics Prosecution for New York, Chief Counsel for the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and as the Minority Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the United States Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution. He is also a former consultant with the national Police Corps where he provided NLP and tactical communication training.
During his legal career, Mr. Hageman realized that educating children was his life’s mission. So in 1992 he co-founded The East Harlem School at Exodus House, where he served as Executive Director. This unique private middle school for children of East Harlem provides students and their parents an affordable model of rigorous and progressive private education for those who normally would not be able to afford it.
In 2002, Mr. Hageman founded the Sulaxmi School for Girls in Lucknow, India. During his visit to Lucknow in 2000, Mr. Hageman met hundreds of children, most of them little girls of school age and witnessed the abject poverty (families with earnings of less than $1 per day) of the families. In spite of the enormity of the problem, he exhibited the determination that has been with him since Exodus House. He and his wife, Bernadette, committed their savings and built a tuition – free school for girls in Lucknow, India. They knew they could not continue to do this alone, so they created the Salus Foundation. The Salus Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that provides financial and technical support to the Sulaxmi School for Girls.
From 2002 through 2009, Mr. Hageman was the Executive Director of Boys and Girls Harbor, Inc., a $14.5 million organization serving 2,500 children in New York City. In 2005, under the umbrella of Boys and Girls Harbor, Mr. Hageman founded the Emily N. Carey School (ENCS), an independent private high school for students who had not met with success in New York City’s public and parochial schools. ENCS was established to provide a curriculum and program that prepares students for college, the world of work and life. ENCS provides students with a depth and breadth of education, which would normally be far beyond the reach of their lower-income parents to provide. Hans said, “we teach these young men and women the importance of, and the skills required for, active participation in our democracy. The motto of the school: “To Know,” “To Care,” “To Act” represents ENCS’ mission to develop its students into lifelong learners with a strong moral and ethical set of values.”
Mr. Hageman also provides training to the Baltimore Police Department. There he has worked with everyone from rookies to veteran homicide detectives in areas that include interviewing and interrogation and community relations.
Mr. Hageman has been honored with a 2001 Essence Award, the Hero Award from the Robin Hood Foundation, and numerous community service awards from Columbia BALSA, New York Law School, the New York City Council, Princeton Alumni, and the Boy Scouts of America among others.
He has also been featured on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, WNEW and New York 1 among others. He has been featured in the New York Times, the Daily News, Essence Magazine, New York Magazine, People Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor and numerous other publications.
Mr. Hageman is Chair of the Board of the Salus Foundation, Inc., and Trustee of the Harlem Academy. He is a former officer in the US Army Reserve and also a former Treasurer of the Board of the Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement. He is currently assisting on a school start-up in Guinea-Bissau and he is a volunteer football and strength coach for JFK High School in the Bronx.
Yaromil Fong-Olivares
Yaromil Fong-Olivares immigrated to New York from the Dominican Republic at the age of ten. After a brief stay in the outer boroughs, she and her family settled in Washington Heights, a predominant Dominican neighborhood.
From an early age Yaromil had an interest in Human Rights and justice for all people. While attending Martin Luther King, Jr. High School she became aware of sweatshop conditions affecting children in Haiti and began to raise awareness about this issue among her peers. This began her community work at the school.
While attending Barnard College, she experienced the differences in resources between the students in her High School and her peers at Barnard. With the assistance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. High School’s guidance counselor, she began an awareness program for high school seniors to introduce them to college life and to help them with their transition.
Being at Barnard Ms. Fong-Olivares realized the worldly scope of oppression and much of her political views were formed and cemented at this stage. She co-led The Latina Group, organized against race issues, class and homophobia and joined the Chiapas Delegation, (an international human right observation organization) enabling her to observe repression first hand. Yaromil would later travel to Oventic, an indigenous community in Chiapas, Mexico where she observed the paramilitary repression affecting indigenous people.
Ms. Fong-Olivares wrote her senior thesis about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender youth of color. She organized against gentrification in the East Village and spent many hours volunteering at FIERCE! (an organizing project for LGBT youth of color). During her senior thesis, she discovered that most of the youth were from New York City’s low-income neighborhoods, (i.e. Washington Heights), abusive homes and were also homeless. Ms. Fong-Olivares wrote a 70-page thesis, which received Thesis Distinction and an invitation to present her findings at the American Sociological Association Conference in Atlanta.
Through her experiences at FIERCE! Yaromil discovered that her true passion and strength was working to develop youth leadership. After graduation from Barnard, she moved to San Francisco to work with Latino youth at Washington High School. While in San Francisco she also volunteered as a Rape Crisis Counselor and a trainer for SOUL, the School of Unity and Liberation.
With SOUL she facilitated workshops around racism, classism, homophobia, gender identity and other issues surrounding inequality. Yaromil was torn between her work with the mostly Mexican and South American youth population and her dream of working with the youth within her own community. She returned to New York City in 2005 and immediately began working to develop and implement leadership development with youth in foster care, including youth sex offenders.
In 2007, Ms. Fong-Olivares was offered the opportunity to participate in the start-up process of the Emily N. Carey School at Boys & Girls Harbor, an independent High School serving youth that have not been successful in other New York City schools. Her work as Program Development Officer included administrative, fundraising and youth leadership development. This position led to her former appointment as Development Director of Boys & Girls Harbor.
In her free time, Ms. Fong-Olivares explores her passion for filmmaking. Over the past few years she has worked on the set of a music video and several short films. She has written and directed two short films. Currently, she is writing her first feature screenplay and working on a documentary about one man’s struggle to eliminate education inequality.
Bernadette A. Hageman
Bernadette Hageman is an associate with Hans Hageman and Associates. Hans Hageman and Associates provides training, coaching, consulting and keynote speaking to Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and individuals.
Ms. Hageman is also the co-founder and Executive Director of the Salus Foundation. She assisted in the establishment of the Sulaxmi School for Girls in 2003 which is solely funded by the Salus Foundation.
As the Salus Foundation’s Executive Director, Ms. Hageman, is responsible for all day to day operations. Being the administrator as well, she immediately acquired their nonprofit status in order to begin fund raising activities which would benefit the Sulaxmi School for Girls. The school’s annual operating budget is handled by Ms. Hageman and has always drawn upon her creativity to supply the girl’s needs. She was also instrumental in developing the concepts and design ideas for the brochure, newsletter, and web site.
Ms. Hageman said “one of my most important responsibilities is to bring awareness to the affects of poverty and illiteracy among girls.” It is a strong statement when the foundation’s mission is deeply rooted in the meaning of its name (salus-safety, well-being and health). Thanks to our community of supporters, the foundation is working to educate and improve the safety, well-being and health of the students at the Sulaxmi School for Girls.
Ms. Hageman is a former high school teacher and college counselor.
Ms. Hageman graduated with honors from the City College of New York.
Jonas R. Akerman, President & CEO of BTS USA, Inc., heads up our Board of Advisors.
