In the summer of 2020, while much of the country grappled with pandemic closures, Houston’s Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale quietly made a bet on a different kind of recovery. The furniture magnate, already a local icon for his over-the-top commercials and philanthropic gambles, cleared out 15,000 square feet of showroom space at his Gallery Furniture North Freeway store. It wasn’t to display another line of recliners or dining tables—it was to build a trade school.

That decision seeded what may be one of the most compelling workforce development experiments in the country. WorkTexas, the nonprofit that took root in McIngvale’s showroom, has since pieced together an intricate lattice of more than 50 funding sources and 200 employer partnerships to offer free vocational training to Houstonians. In a city where economic opportunity can feel as stratified as the skyline, the early results are striking: 88 percent of adult students finish their training, and those who stay employed for a year or more average $23 an hour.

Mike Feinberg’s second act

The venture’s other co-founder, Mike Feinberg, brings with him a storied—and sometimes scrutinized—career in education reform. As one of the architects of the KIPP charter school network, Feinberg spent years chasing a singular metric: college graduation. When KIPP Houston’s alumni began graduating at a rate of roughly 50 percent—a number five times higher than in many underserved communities—it seemed like a triumph. But to Feinberg, the data also posed a hard question: What about the other half?

“College prep should be in all schools,” he says, “but college prep does not need to mean college for all.” His research showed a split reality. Many of KIPP’s non-college graduates were thriving—in the trades, in the military, as entrepreneurs. Others, with college diplomas in hand, were saddled with debt and underemployment.

WorkTexas is Feinberg’s answer to that paradox: a program built to serve what he calls “the other 50 percent.” The emphasis is not on certificates collected or credits earned, but on tangible job outcomes. Graduates are tracked for five years, not just to record whether they’re working, but to measure how far—and how steadily—they advance.

The funding patchwork

Underpinning the program is a financial structure that looks less like a school budget and more like a complex investment portfolio. Federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act dollars cover some costs; the Texas Workforce Commission chips in with state-level funds. Local workforce boards offer targeted grants. Harris County’s juvenile justice system funds programming for youth. Houston Community College lends instructors and curriculum.

Then there are the private partners—corporations, foundations, and individual donors—who fill in the rest. The result is that most students pay nothing at all. Adults often discover they qualify for government programs they’d never heard of, the vocational equivalent of a Pell Grant. Navigating those channels can be a bureaucratic maze, but WorkTexas staff guide each applicant through it, matching funding streams to personal circumstances.

This diversification creates a rare kind of resilience: when one source falters, others can step in. It also ensures multiple lines of accountability—government agencies want workforce placement numbers, employers demand job-ready hires, and philanthropists expect community impact.

From grocery aisles to the major leagues

For Jacob Martinez, the transformation came quickly. After graduating high school in 2018, he stocked shelves at a grocery store, unsure of what came next. A short stint at Best Buy ended with pandemic layoffs. “I finally thought I needed a skilled trade—something permanent,” he says.

In 2022, Martinez enrolled in WorkTexas’s 12-week HVAC course, funded entirely by federal dollars. By the time he completed it, he’d logged experience with multiple contractors. Soon after, he landed a job as an HVAC technician for the Houston Astros at Daikin Park. Today, at 25, he earns $60,000 a year with benefits and is thinking about buying a home—a horizon that once felt impossibly distant.

He’s far from an outlier. One female graduate from the construction track went from entry-level to regional manager in just 18 months, crossing into six-figure earnings. Another alumnus in building maintenance won Camden Living’s national excellence award.

These successes are no accident. WorkTexas courses are co-designed with employers who have urgent staffing needs. TRIO Electric president Beau Pollock was among the first to partner, sharing his company’s training materials and providing instructors. “He’s embraced the employer’s perspective but also has the education perspective,” Pollock says of Feinberg’s method.

A model in motion

The template is already spreading. In 2024, Austin launched its own apartment-maintenance technician program, with Camden spearheading the effort. ResponsiveEd, which operates Premier High School on the Gallery Furniture campus, is exploring ways to replicate the model across its network of more than 100 schools in Texas and Arkansas.

Whether the WorkTexas approach can scale nationally remains to be seen. McIngvale’s celebrity status and relentless marketing—radio ads, billboards, TV spots—give Houston’s program a visibility that’s hard to duplicate. But Feinberg believes the essential ingredients exist everywhere. “Every community has someone like Mack,” he says, “a connector or local celebrity who could play that role if the community so chose.”

In the meantime, the hum of power tools and the clank of construction equipment echo through the unlikely hallways of a furniture store, a reminder that the path to economic mobility can be built in unexpected places—and that sometimes, a recliner showroom can be a launchpad for the American Dream.

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