Since January 2024, the master plan for our resale department has been to expand our resale and wholesale revenue by investing in people and technology. Thanks to our passionate team, we’re well on our way to achieve our goals.
In January, we had one online resale channel — today, we have five! What’s more, in the last six months we’ve not only doubled sales of affordable technology, but the department has also invested in education, training, and infrastructure to scale operations. These investments build production capacity to serve more customers and support digital equity for people in need of affordable tech while also creating more quality jobs with transferable skills.
Read on to meet the team behind all this progress — Homeboy Electronics’ resale department!
Meet Jonathan Moon
Jonathan has worked with our resale team for two and a half years and heads up our audio-visual resale. In the last two months, he has more than doubled our sales of equipment! Jonathan is certified with A+, WISE, Creston, and Dante. These credentials make him qualified to test and repair computing devices, mobile devices, and audio-visual equipment. Most recently, he started listing refurbished AV equipment on our Reverb channel.
In addition to working with us full time, Jonathan is studying Computer Science with the goal of transferring to USC. He and his wife have two beautiful children aged three and 10 months.
Meet Jennifer Rivera
With seven years under her belt working in various departments, Jennifer is a veteran at Homeboy. She has been with the resale team for five of those years and is WISE certified.
In any given month, the resale and triage team tests thousands of laptops and tablets. In August, Jennifer was our top tester! Testing involves functionality and cosmetic grading, secure data destruction/wiping, and evaluating memory and hard drive capacity. Jennifer’s newest skill is listing our refurbished tech to our omni-channel resale platforms. Her goal is to build upon her technology certifications. She has four beautiful children.
Meet Laura Banuelos
Laura has been working on the resale team for three and a half years. She takes great pride in testing and repairing resale devices, giving a second life to technology and keeping it out of the landfill.
Her daily activities involve testing, installing operations systems, data wiping, reporting in ERP, manifesting wholesale items for sale, and supporting our ecommerce team to reconcile sales. While she works full time with us at Homeboy, Laura’s passion is education. Her goal is to continually educate herself and earn advanced education. Laura has four beautiful children aged 15, 13, 12 and 11.
Meet James Campbell
James joined the test and repair team more than two years ago, but he has more than 20 years of experience in technical support and IT repair.
James takes tremendous pride in ensuring the highest level of quality assurance. He is the last line of defense before a refurbished device is sold on our many ecommerce platforms. Among his test and repair responsibilities are key functionality, cosmetic grading, and installing OS systems and drives. Last, but not least, prior to packing and shipping a device, he makes sure to inject licensing for a proper registration experience for our customers.
Meet Shant Loussararian
Shant is celebrating his one year anniversary with Homeboy Recycling as our Resale Manager/Trainer! He was recruited to build out the department, including growing our wholesale buyers, building our omni-channel platforms, procuring devices for refurbishment, and setting up our new depot services.
Shant has a great passion for training and education, which is one of our core values and helps give our staff opportunities for pathways with transferable skills.
Meet Kristian Vasques
A valuable member of the resale team, Kristian has been with Homeboy Recycling for more than five years, bringing a wealth of passion and experience in technology and repair to the job. His certifications include A+ and WISE, and he’s our resident expert in Apple devices.
Kristian is fondly known as our “Mac of Macs” host on many Monday morning team huddles.
Meet Cesar Pineda
Cesar is another veteran on the resale team, having been with us for more than five years. He specializes in testing, repairing, and installing RAM and Operating Systems so devices can be resold. Testing involves functionality and cosmetic grading against the guidelines of our R2v3 certification so devices can be listed on our omni-channel platforms.
Meet Franky Valdez
Franky not only brings passion to work every day, he wears it like a badge of honor with a smile that expresses pure joy.
While in college, he learned about Homeboy Industries after he watched a documentary in a class called G Dog, which tells the incredible story of Father Greg and his mission of kinship. Months later, Franky saw a job posting for an IT position at Homeboy Electronics Recycling, applied, and was hired. That was 3 years ago.
Today, Franky has been promoted to Test and Resale Supervisor. Data Security is his team’s number one goal. Daily, his team does device wiping so laptops, tablets, and mobile devices can be resold with warranties at affordable prices. Franky says his goal is to support and help his team be the best at their jobs so they can ensure our mission and purpose.
Meet Josue Tejeda
Josue has been on the ITAD team for three years, coming to us with a Computer Science education background. He didn’t know about Homeboy Industries until he was hired at Homeboy Recycling. He’s keenly interested in continuing his education in Cybersecurity, the fastest-growing segment in IT asset disposition.
Daily, Josue tests hundreds of laptops, desktops, tablets, and mobile devices to ensure data is wiped so that resale of these devices can optimize revenues for the company. His goal is to work in Cybersecurity within the next few years.
Meet Jeanette Felix
Jeanette is a veteran of the Homeboy family. She is a graduate of the Homeboy Industries trainee program and has been employed with Homeboy Recycling for more than five years. She is currently a technician in our test and repair department.
Jeanette also serves as a mentor to trainees in the Homeboy Industries program and regularly travels with Father Greg on speaking engagements. Her daily duties include testing and repairing monitors, laptops, desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Data Security is her speciality, ensuring that data wiping and destruction happens within the scope of our R2v3 certification. She is a mother to three wonderful children aged 14, 16, and 25, and a proud grandmother of a two year old.
Meet Our Ecommerce Team… Sergio Cleto and Nathan Preston
Nothing gives us more pride than training people into new skill sets. Sergio and Nathan had never worked in ecommerce before, and are now learning many new digital skills that will enable them to expand their future employment opportunities. Their duties include writing content, taking pictures of devices, listing them on our various resale platforms, providing customer service, performing inventory controls, reconciling sales, and packing and shipping orders to customers. As you can imagine, it’s a big job with tremendous responsibility. Way to go, Sergio and Nathan!
In addition to our excellent team members, our partners and customers have played a huge part in helping us reach our goals. We could not accomplish our environmental and social impact goals without the corporate partnerships and customers that choose Homeboy Electronics Recycling for their IT asset disposition!
Together, we are meeting our goals and, best of all, are keeping technology out of landfills and giving technology a “refurbished” second life. Shop our online store today — and tell your friends!