The ‘Bad Kid’ Who Turned Away From Gangs

And A Limited Future

By Kendra Bobowick

Kevin Suckow, 37, got kicked out of high school in New Jersey before he would have graduated in 1988.

“I didn’t show up to class and didn’t care,” said Mr Suckow, now 31 and a resident of Newtown.

Without a tremor of regret or embarrassment he recalls, “I failed every class.”

Mr Suckow’s memories of his high school years turn immediately to his friends and the consequences of their lifestyles. By the time he turned 24, he said, five friends were already dead. Four had been murdered in a drug war in 1993. A fifth friend died more slowly.

“One [friend] drank himself to death,” he said. The young man was 27 years old.

Again with a matter-of-fact tone, he explained, “We started drinking at 14.”

He imagines what other friends would think of him now. “The kids I grew up with would assume I was dead or in jail…”

In fact, he is a father and husband, a corporate account executive at Microsoft, and a resident who contributes both personally and professionally to the schools.

Most recently he worked with eighth grade students at Newtown Middle School who were able to use one of his company’s video games to apply physics concepts and enhance their lessons.

Looking back at his teens, Mr Suckow said, “I was a bad kid and ran with gangs — five percenters, drug dealers. A majority of friends living are still in and out of prison,” he said. “Only two of us never went to jail.”

He struggled for a change.

“I did the inner-city thing and went from being a street kid to college to Microsoft,” leaving far behind the atmosphere where guns and drugs were easily within reach.

Despite the accomplishment, Mr Suckow said, “I wasn’t so smart, I left [high school] early.”

He did create distance between himself and a lifestyle that had begun to deteriorate his friends’ lives. Mr Suckow also added one critical element to his life since leaving high school: He earned his GED (General Education Diploma) by 1986, two years before he would have graduated from high school.

Noticing the contrast between where he had been and what he had achieved, he said, “Around the time I got my GED people were starting to get arrested,” he said. Soon after came his friends’ deaths.

Where He Is Now

By getting kicked out of high school, Mr Suckow managed to earn his GED two years earlier than he would have donned a cap and gown. Then he moved on to a college education.

Laughing, he said, “I went to community college and my father had to drive me to college because I didn’t drive yet.” Mr Suckow was 16 years old when he began college. He received his degree in 1992. He eventually began work for Microsoft, “and have been there ever since,” he said. He has lived in Newtown since 2001.

What changed his mind from a teen who didn’t care about school and ran with gangs to someone who earned an early high school diploma?

“My father made me shovel rocks,” he said. “It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I am still traumatized by yard work to this day.”

 His father’s influence, friendship and lessons made a significant difference in Mr Suckow’s decisions, and he still repeats today the wisdom his father expressed.

“My father taught me the concept that if you can’t make a living with your brain you will have to do it with your hands. He taught me that if I don’t get an education [my hands] are all that is left to me.” He realized that without education, he would have to work with his hands or not work at all.

“I had to figure out how to use my head and got the GED,” he said. His father had also been a software engineer.

Mr Suckow’s father had a strong influence on his decisions at that time, he said.

“My father and I were very close and I saw him as a role model,” said Mr Suckow, “I wanted to be a lot of things he was.” He also admits that his friends did not have close relationships with their fathers.

 

The Drawbacks Of Success

Mr Suckow needed time to adjust to his new personality after he had graduated from college.

“I was successful but I still felt more like those guys that died,” he said. “I felt like an imposter pretending to be successful.”

Fears that had partly propelled him away from his old neighborhood lingered. “I was afraid I would end up in jail or dead…I left town a few years later.”

Considering his feelings further, he explained, “I felt like an imposter, like the person I [had been] was real and the person who had graduated was like a fake person I created.” At the time of his friends’ murders his conflicting feelings became more intense.

“I felt pulled back and felt guilty for the different person that I was,” he said.

Making what he believed was a life-saving decision, Mr Suckow moved away.

“I moved with $200 and a U-Haul. That’s how I resolved it,” he said. “I left. It was survival.” He transferred to a Connecticut branch of the job he had, “and never looked back,” he said.

Newtown has none of the elements that furnished his youth.

“Kids here talk about which college to go to. I had to decide to live, or to take another path,” Mr Suckow said. He recounts a time he spent several years ago speaking with gang members about getting out of that lifestyle.

He told them, “You’re either dead or in jail if you stay in and your life expectancy is about 28, tops.” He tried to help them understand “there is an end to the path they’re on,” he said.

In Newtown, he sees something different in some of the youth that concerns him. He actively works with students in the middle and high schools and uses his technology background to enhance their lessons.

“I see a disconnection with academics and that’s when you can get into trouble,” he said. “If you are disconnected from your school you are connecting to something.”

He hopes to offer an avenue of interest for students. He will be donating software and will help build an Internet magazine that will be an internal project at Reed Intermediate School, he said.