Briana: Before we start, a quick content note: My alumni guest in this episode is Jonathan Spencer, class of 1979. Jonathan is President and Founder of New Horizon’s House, which provides aftercare to girls who have survived human trafficking and sexual abuse. In our interview, he discusses his motivation for this work, including descriptions of young girls’ experiences of trafficking. Nothing we say is explicit, but it may be difficult for some listeners.


Hello, and welcome to Gators on Purpose, where we talk with Allegheny College alumni who show us the power of combining what you love with what challenges you. At Allegheny College, being a Gator on purpose means shaping your own extraordinary path, and those unusual combinations lead to extraordinary outcomes -- meaningful careers, and lives built on purpose. I'm Briana Lewis, Associate Professor of French and Faculty Liaison to the Center for Career and Professional Development, and I'm talking today with Jonathan Spencer, Allegheny College class of 1979. Jonathan is President and Founder of New Horizon's House, a Colorado-based nonprofit which provides holistic restoration to girls who have survived human trafficking and sexual abuse, and he received Allegheny's Gold Citation for alumni in 2022. 


Jonathan Spencer, welcome back virtually to Allegheny, and thank you for joining us for Gators on Purpose.


Jonathan: Thank you, Briana. Great to be here.


Briana: You have an incredible story to tell us today. And I'd like to begin at the very beginning of that story, at the beginning of your adult professional life, which is your time here at Allegheny. Do you recall, first of all, why you chose Allegheny? What brought you to this campus?


Jonathan: Yeah, a friend and I were looking at colleges and our senior year in high school and he was actually keen on Allegheny and I was looking at another school and we went on a road trip and it just happened to be a beautiful day in Meadville which later I found out is not always the case.


Briana: Not always!


Jonathan: But I just loved the campus. I loved the tour that I took then and so I ended up at Allegheny.


Briana: And so tell me about your time here as a student. What stands out to you, especially thinking in hindsight, as impactful or important about your time here on campus? 


Jonathan: Obviously, first and foremost, I thought the academic program was just really amazing. The senior comp project was pretty unique. It was a great opportunity to explore something that I was interested in. And then secondarily, I have to say in my time at the fraternity that I was a part of was really meaningful. There's still nine or 10 of us that get together every year and go do some adventure somewhere. But that was an important part of my time at Allegheny as well.


Briana: And which fraternity were you a part of?


Jonathan: Phi Delta Theta.


Briana: And so remind us -- tell me what you studied here?


Jonathan: So I was a mathematics major and a biology minor, and I had no idea what to do with a mathematics major when I left Allegheny.


Briana: And so why did you choose a math major?


Jonathan: Because I was good at it.


Briana: It's important, when you know you can do well at something. What then drew you to the biology minor? Was that a similar, just you enjoyed it, you were good at it? Was there something else about it?


Jonathan: So, I did have, I did have an interest in looking at careers in either environmental science or environmental engineering. And that is of course where I ended up, and so kind of the combination of mathematics and biology seemed to be a good fit for my undergraduate degree there at Allegheny.


Briana: And so you graduated in 1979. What came next?


Jonathan: I went on to graduate school at Clemson University and I got a master's degree in environmental systems engineering in 1981. And then went out into the work world after that. I had graduated of course from Clemson in South Carolina and I got an offer from the state there and eventually moved into their hazardous waste division, and I actually really enjoyed that. I subsequently got a job offer from a small consulting firm in St. Louis and moved out to St. Louis as their vice president of operations out there, was there for quite a while, and then in 1996 I started my own environmental consulting firm and moved to Colorado which is where I'd kind of always wanted to live.


Briana: Yeah. Yeah. And what kind of work was that, like in terms of the day-to-day? What sorts of things were you doing?


Jonathan: A lot of my work, especially in my own company, we were focused on transportation projects that the state was trying to implement. And so, as part of the planning and implementation of those projects, there were a number of environmental issues that they would encounter, either old contaminated sites, or they needed to to look at biological surveys. We got to be their consultant of choice on a lot of those projects and would end up, you know, working sometimes on multi-year projects for them.


Briana: And so, your graduate work in engineering was important to prepare you for that. How closely related would you say that was to what you studied at Allegheny?


Jonathan: Yeah, so, my time at Clemson also prepared me to get a Professional Engineer license, which was really important for the type of work that I was doing. The biology courses that I took at Allegheny were fairly relevant. The mathematics courses were a little less so, but the thing that was important about that was the problem-solving skills I felt like I had developed at Allegheny through majoring in mathematics. And then another important course that I took at Allegheny was writing. I took several writing classes and they ended up being particularly important in my field as far as being able to communicate accurately the results or studies that we had to perform and being able to communicate those to clients and to regulatory agencies. And so, I didn't realize it at the time, but in retrospect, those particular skills were really important.


Briana: And so then in 2012, everything changed for you. Tell me about that change.


Jonathan: In 2012, I decided to take a leave of absence from my business, and went over to work as Chief Operating Officer for a nonprofit in Denver that was focused on delivering clean water to underserved communities, especially in Latin America. And I met another gentleman who was involved with a nonprofit that was involved with rescuing girls from human trafficking. And we got to be friends and eventually he asked me to be on his board. And so before I committed to that, I told him I'd like to travel with him and see the work he did. So we went to India in 2012 and was involved in an undercover rescue operation for a 12-year-old girl. And that was really transformative for me. We were able to successfully rescue her, but the thing that came out of that was there was no plan for her after she was rescued. And so in most cases, girls that are rescued would go right back to the sex trade in that case because they had no other options or no other skills. And so when I came back I elected not to join his organization, but to found New Horizon's House, which is focused on providing holistic aftercare for girls after they're taken out of sex trafficking.


Briana: Right. What struck me about your story is -- human trafficking, it's an enormous problem. I think a lot of people might say, "But, what can I do about this?" And just feel paralyzed by the enormity of the challenge. And I wondered if you could walk me through how you chose to take this on. What sort of made you say, “I'm going to be the one to do something about this need that I see”?


Jonathan: Yeah, that's a great question and it was kind of a surprise to me actually. Because of my background in the environmental field, I had expected that I would end up maybe working in the clean water field. I would sell my business and go work for the clean water field, which is why I decided to take that three-year position as a chief operating officer. But then just by circumstance I became introduced to this problem and as soon as I went over there and saw that girl… I had taken my daughter to India when she was 12, and the girl that we rescued was 12 and so you obviously can't see that and not think about your own daughter. And so to me that-- it just really resonated, and I knew right then that that's really what I wanted to do. And so I would say to students that are maybe even unsure about what they want to do or where they-- is, start doing something, and I feel like then your path will be directed as you go. Don't wait to figure everything out first. And that was an important lesson I feel like I had to learn personally.


Briana: Yeah. I do think, when we talk, especially about folks doing the kind of work that you're doing now, and even the way you described seeing this girl and saying “I've got to do something,” and that feeling in your gut. I think folks think they have to have that before they start, that you need to have a sort of one singular mission in your life. And what you speak to here is, it's not like the work that you were doing before you made the switch, before 2012, it's not like that work wasn't important or meaningful.


Jonathan: And I would just add to that, that my time spent at the nonprofit ended up being really valuable to me when I formed my own nonprofit. I had spent three years running a nonprofit organization. I learned a lot about that. So every step along the journey will help prepare you for what you eventually decide to end up doing.


Briana: Right. And you bring whatever skills you've gained along. And this was true even when you talked to your Allegheny education, and then moving into a field that wasn't directly related to your major, but there were skills that you drew from that that you applied here and then skills that you drew from the next thing that you applied to the next thing and so on and so forth. So that when that moment does come, when you say, “this is it, this is my calling,” that you have the skills in place to act on that.


Jonathan: Yes.


Briana: I imagine, though, that it wasn't always easy.


Jonathan: Yeah, for sure. And I will say, wherever you end up or whatever you want to do, you know, don't be afraid to take your time and do the research necessary. I took, really, two years. I traveled to India several times. I visited a number of aftercare facilities. There weren't many of them, but I tried to visit them. I visited one or two facilities here in the US and tried to learn all I could about aftercare, about what's required. I had some really generous people that were really willing to share their experiences and the lessons they'd learned so we didn't have to repeat their mistakes that they had made. And so, I really founded the 501c3 in 2013, but then we really didn't end up starting to raise funds and start construction until really the end of 2014. So it was a good year and a half.


Briana: Yeah. Tell me a little bit more in detail about the work that New Horizon's House does.


Jonathan: So, if I can go back just for a minute to the day when we were doing that undercover work. So, we went into a dance bar in Mumbai which was where these girls were reportedly at, and there's a lot of lights and music and just like you might expect and they have tables where you can get a drink and eat dinner. But then after a couple hours the lights went down and they brought all these girls out on this stage at the front and they all had numbers around their neck. And you could order these girls just like you ordered a drink or food. And they had rooms in the back where you could take them and you could either rent them for the evening or buy them. And these girls were anywhere from 8 years old up to 21. You can't unsee that. And you know, you can't do everything but you can do something, and that's really the decision that I made. I didn't really have the full picture that evening, but I knew I was wanting to be involved and do something. So when we started New Horizon's House in 2013, did a lot of research and we found that there were really four or five basic elements to the program that successful programs had all had in common. And those included basically medical care, trauma counseling, educational opportunities, vocational training, and then community. And so those five elements were the key elements that we decided to incorporate into our program. And one of the questions I get asked a lot is, well, why India, right? Why did you focus your work on India? And the answer for me at that point was that India was the place where there were more girls being trafficked than any other country. And I also had some connections in India from some previous work I had done that I knew I could collaborate with. But our work is really focused on aftercare. So once a girl is rescued, either by another NGO or the government, then we become their caregivers. We become their legal guardians. And a lot of times that's anywhere's age 11, 12, 13, 14, and most of the girls are with us for a number of years as they go through the program.


Briana: Yeah. And so, tell me a little bit about the impacts of that that you've seen. 


Jonathan: There are actually a lot of stories. You know, being able to interact with these girls and meet them and hear their stories and then see them succeed later is just a real privilege. But one story in particular that I like to share is, early on we got a girl who, her parents had trafficked her, which was not uncommon among low-income households there. A lot of times the grandmother or the mother had been trafficked, and so it was just a generational thing that was expected of daughters. Anyways, she was rescued, she came to us and spent several years at our program and she graduated. But after she was rescued she couldn't go back to her village because, even though it wasn't her fault, a lot of times victims are blamed for the circumstances they find themselves in. And so the village would not take her back. After she got out of our program though, she went back anyways and with the skills she had acquired at New Horizon, she started a small sewing business, and she got married, and it became so successful that her and her husband are now in the process of opening a second small business which is going to be a restaurant. But what I found compelling was when our staff went back recently, all the village elders came out and they were clapping and cheering for this girl. And so it was really a transformation for the girl, but also for the village itself, the village where she came from. There was such a change in perspective. And that's one of the secondary benefits that we hope to achieve with our program is helping, especially villages in rural India, see the value of women and how they're such an asset to the communities where they live. Our first goal is obviously to focus on the aftercare for the girls themselves, but in our mission statement, our secondary goal is to also help raise awareness, obviously in this case raising awareness of the value of an individual girl. But our staff also goes around to schools and talks to younger girls to try to prevent that same cycle, raise awareness there in India about the problem, and we've talked to thousands of younger girls and their parents because oftentimes it's the parents, who have no education, that are, they're, fall victim to some of the schemes by the traffickers to lure their girls in. As part of our research, I went with another NGO into this huge slum area just outside of Mumbai. And I mean the poverty there is just crushing. And the traffickers will go in and offer the parents $20, $30 if they give them their girls, and they tell them that they'll take them to give them an education and a job and then the girls will be able to send money back to the parents. And so the parents are so desperate for some improvement in their situation that they'll give their girls away for 20 or 30 dollars, and obviously they're never heard from again and the girls aren't sending money back to them. So the traffickers really are praying upon the vulnerability of you know people that are stuck in poverty there.


Briana: Right. Ugh. So, to bring this kind of full circle, this conversation. This work is fairly distant from where you started at Allegheny, I don't think that there's a particularly robust math major pipeline to this. So, how do you -- how do you see your time at Allegheny having participated in preparing you for where you are today and the work that you're doing now?


Jonathan: Yeah, I think fundamentally, the the ability to problem solve, which I think was one of the key skills that I learned at Allegheny and that skill is applicable no matter where you end up, any company, any nonprofit any-- really any human endeavor, you're going to face setbacks or difficulties and to be able to problem solve and be resilient I think is a key skill and I certainly credit Allegheny with with helping me to develop that.


Briana: Yeah. If you think back to the Allegheny student that you were, what do you think that kid would think about this? If the “you” in college could see into the future and could see this work that you're doing. What do you think he would have thought of that?


Jonathan: I think he'd be very surprised that that's where he ended up 50 years later! But that, I think, is really the adventure of life, right? We all have a path, and who knows where it's going to go? But, you know, being able to network, to build relationships, to collaborate, to meet and work with interesting people, to kind of take advantage of opportunities that come up and problem solve. I think that's true no matter where you are or what you're studying. And I would say just, you know, the ability to be open to things as they come along and, you know, you never know where you're going to be. And I think too, you know, there were a number of people that said at the time, oh, this isn't a good time to start a nonprofit. You know, back in 2011, 2012, we were still kind of recovering from the downturn. And there's never going to be a perfect time to do what you feel called to do. And I think one of the questions that I had asked myself at the time, which I think was particularly relevant, was, well, how would I feel down the road if I didn't try to do this? 


Briana: Right. When it comes to something like this, something that is a positive thing that is motivated by making the world better. It's pretty rare that you hear people regret trying something like that. Well, since we're being a little philosophical, I have another big question for you.


Jonathan: Sure.


Briana: We're talking about careers, we're talking about career paths, but we're also talking, I think, about something bigger than that, right? We're talking about a meaningful life. How do you see the relationship between work, or career, and a meaningful life?


Jonathan: I think I'll preface what I'm going to say by saying that I did enjoy my career. It's not-- I didn't necessarily feel like it was my life's mission or purpose, but I did enjoy my career and I-- you know, I've talked to a lot of younger folks over the years, and if people are just unhappy where they're at, I would say try something different, you know, try something different. Life is too short to spend your working career doing something you don't necessarily enjoy. And you can do your research, you can be smart about it, but I think your career is important. And I think-- I just believe that each of us has something that we were really called out to do and you don't know the path that will lead you to whatever that is. So, I feel like my life was meaningful prior to that. I was involved in a lot of good activities including the clean water programs that we did when I was at the other nonprofit. But I think doing something that you love will make your life more meaningful in every area.


Briana: And you get to define what that means, right? “Doing something that you love” -- that can mean a lot of things, and it can look a lot of different ways.


Jonathan: Absolutely. Not everybody needs to start a nonprofit or go around the world to do something, but each of us has an opportunity to make an impact somewhere. And there's so many opportunities. There's a quote that I love by Albert Schweitzer and he said, "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know, the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve." And I just love that quote. It just reflects the fact that each of us has something important to do and that involves serving in some way, whatever way that is for you. And I also think, another really important thing is to at least sometime in your life travel a little, and see, go to other places and see-- It'll put the challenges you have here into perspective when you've traveled especially to a third world country, right?


Briana: Yeah. What advice do you have for current or future Allegheny students who hope to build successful lives of meaning and purpose?


Jonathan: Number one, don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and do something different. And it sounds like a cliche, but it's really true that if you fail, if things don't work out the way that you thought they were, you'll have learned a lot and that will help you in the next thing that you try. And you'll regret more the things that you didn't try to do than things that you did do and fail at. But I have confidence if they're at Allegheny, and they're graduating from Allegheny that they've got a great foundation to be able to pursue whatever it is that they want to do and they'll be surprised along the way just like all of us are.


Briana: Yeah. 


Jonathan: Let me add one other thing -- I wouldn't be doing my job, which is part of spreading awareness, if I didn't include our web address for the organization so people can learn more about trafficking and about things they can do, and that's -- 


Briana: This is Briana, interrupting from post-production: there was an error at this point in our conversation, and we want to be sure you have the correct web address for Jonathan's organization. You can find that at newhorizonshouse.org, and we'll put that in our show notes as well. Ok, back to the end of our episode.


Briana: Well, Jonathan Spencer, it has been wonderful to talk to you today. Thank you again for the conversation.


Jonathan: Yeah, thank you too. Really enjoyed it.


Briana: I'd also like to thank all the members of the Allegheny community who help make Gators on purpose possible, including members of our alumni engagement and marketing and communications teams. Our Digital Humanities Librarian, Andrew Miller, provides technical support for our recordings. Our music was composed by Dominic Juliana, Allegheny class of 2026, under the mentorship of Professor Michael Dolan, and was performed by piano instructor Wendy Plyer. Editing and mixing are done by me, your host, Briana Lewis. From campus to career, every Gator has a story that's uniquely their own -- stories of curiosity and unusual combinations of interests fueled by creativity and a supportive community. These stories remind us that Allegheny College doesn't just prepare you for a job, it prepares you for a life lived on purpose.