You are currently viewing Steve Mariotti, Whose Trauma Led Him to Help Youths at Risk, Dies at 71

After he was mugged, he took a therapist’s advice to work with “difficult students at a difficult school.” They ignored him until the lessons turned to business.

Steve Mariotti, a teacher in some of New York’s roughest schools who discovered that his bored, disrespectful students suddenly tuned in when he talked about running a business, inspiring him to create an organization that has taught business skills to more than 1 million at-risk youths in the U.S. and abroad, died on Oct. 20 in Union City, N.J. He was 71.

His death, at the home of a friend with whom he was living, was caused by a heart attack, according to the nonprofit organization that Mr. Mariotti founded in 1987, the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, or NFTE.

Mr. Mariotti believed that imparting business basics to poor, mostly minority students who saw no connection between school and the quality of their lives could help them

Keep reading this article on The New York Times Small Business.

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