Wil Quintero: From Firelines to Lifelines
Wil Quintero, ’25 MBA, and his son Matthew at the launch event for the SJSU chapter of Project Rebound in March. Photo by Robert C. Bain.
This is the first in a series of Countdown to Commencement stories celebrating the Class of 2025. Join us in celebrating the hard work, dedication and achievements of graduating Spartans.
In November 2018, Wil Quintero, ’25 MBA, was among the hundreds of firefighters deployed to Paradise, California, to fight the Camp Fire, one of the deadliest fires in state history. The fire lasted 17 days, burned more than 150,000 acres and killed 85 people. For his work facing this monumental disaster, Quintero received approximately $1 a day as an inmate firefighter employed through the Conservation (Fire) Camps Program through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“We took college courses [in prison] to get a certificate,” he recalls. “It’s really hard training. When we were working the fire, we were on the mountain 24 hours a day. Now, I hear that there are some exceptions for folks who are formerly incarcerated who want to work as firefighters [after prison], but when I got out of prison, even with all that training and my certificate, I wasn’t allowed to work as a firefighter.”
Quintero shared his story at the Project Rebound launch event in March. Photo: Robert C. Bain.
A San José native, Quintero was originally incarcerated for a nonviolent offense when he was 18. He served a year, and was later incarcerated a second time.Sentenced to five years and four months, he ended up serving two years and nine months because of his service as a firefighter. While he was incarcerated, his son and former partner moved to New Mexico. He was released from prison in March 2019, and got a job at a moving company to support his young family.
Sadly, less than two months later, he was shot in San José and sustained serious injuries to his abdomen and arm, which made it impossible to work. Quintero decided to try his hand at something new: an oral communications class at Evergreen Valley College.
“I really liked the class because it gave me the motivation to do more,” he says. “I enrolled full-time at San José City College. I learned about FAFSA. I learned about work-study programs, disability programs, the EOP [Educational Opportunity Program].”
By learning how to apply for federal scholarships and grants through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and access to resources through EOP, which supports first-generation college students, Quintero was able to fully invest in his education.
Quintero worked for the transfer office at the city college during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and later transferred to UC Berkeley to study sociology and child development. Though he initially felt out of place at Cal, he found community through Underground Scholars, a program that supports formerly incarcerated students as they pursue their degrees.
“Through Underground Scholars, I met other people who had been incarcerated who were practicing law, working as social workers or trying to become professors,” he says. “I’d never been around formerly incarcerated people who were doing positive things. I always wanted to do something, but how can you, when everything around you is negative?”
Underground Scholars connected him to Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), a nonprofit that provides services for young people impacted by the criminal justice, immigration and foster care systems. Following his graduation from Cal in 2021, he worked as a life coach, youth mentor and policy advocate and enrolled in the MBA program at the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business.
In 2024, he learned of a job opportunity at San José State’s newly launched chapter of Project Rebound, a CSU-wide initiative that serves formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted students transitioning to life on college campuses.
As a Project Rebound counselor, Quintero reviews the transcripts for prospective Spartans, connects with formerly incarcerated transfer students who want to complete their undergraduate careers at SJSU and ensures they have access to programs like SJSU Cares, the Spartan Food Pantry, financial aid and more. He tells incoming students about the Record Clearance Project, an undergraduate law clinic led by Margaret (Peggy) Stevenson of the Justice Studies Department that provides free assistance for people interested in expunging their criminal records.
“I actually got my record cleared with the Record Clearance Project,” he adds. “They’re awesome.”
Next steps
Quintero and his son. Photo courtesy of Wil Quintero.
Quintero has enjoyed his MBA classes in large part because he loves working with people, but now that the finish line to his graduate work is in sight, his education is not done. This fall, he will start a master’s degree in social work (MSW) program at the New Mexico Highlands University Facundo Valdez School of Social Work in Farmington, NM, to live with his eight-year-old son Matthew. He is also still lobbying at the California capitol in Sacramento to end mass incarceration and the improved treatment of justice-impacted individuals, such as those risking their lives fighting fires.
It’s also important to him to involve Matthew in his professional and educational life as much as possible. Together they have visited many campuses — Evergreen Valley College, UC Berkeley, San José State and UC Santa Cruz.
“I’ve brought him to the dorms, I’ve brought him to work, I’ve brought him to the cafeteria,” he says. “I want to embed in his head that these are things we can do, these are places we can go. Sometimes he sees me working with people who have been to jail, and I explain to him that they aren’t all necessarily bad people. Maybe they’ve made bad choices, but they can go on to do good things.”
This spring, when Quintero crosses the stage in cap and gown, Matthew will be there to cheer him on.
“When I tell him I’m about to graduate, he tells me, ‘I’m proud of you,’” Quintero says. “Growing up, I never heard those words. It wasn’t until I was 30 years old that I heard my son say, ‘I’m proud of you.’ It wasn’t normal in my community to hear those words, so I am glad it is normal to him.”
SJSU commencement ceremonies take place May 21-23 at the Provident Credit Union Event Center. Graduates who have RSVPed are entitled to bring up to six guests for free; additional guest tickets are available for $20 each. Learn more about commencement.
