In this episode, we welcome Ron and Catherine Tijerina, the visionary founders of The RIDGE Project. As co-executive directors, they lead a national nonprofit organization and the international TYRO curricula, both dedicated to supporting families affected by incarceration. The Ridge Project offers a range of services, including direct support, family day events, youth programs, case management, and professional development.
Ron and Catherine, along with Brandon Tijerina, are also the authors of the inspiring book High Five: Love Never Fails, a book that serves as both a captivating story and a practical guide for building strong, resilient families. Through their personal journey and the five principles they share, they provide invaluable insights into overcoming adversity and fostering family success.
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Listen to the podcast here
The Ridge Project: Ron And Catherine Tijerina’s Journey To Build A Resilient Support Program For Incarcerated Individuals And Their Families
I’m here with Cathy and Ron Tijerina, who are the Founders and Executive Directors of The Ridge Project, whose world headquarters are in Northwest Ohio. We’re going to learn about their journey from incarceration and poverty to creating pathways to helping people dream again. They’ve created a nonprofit that serves incarcerated individuals and their families as well as youth with their worldwide programs.
Involvement In The Connecting For Justice Conference
I want to welcome Cathy and Ron. I had the pleasure of interviewing both of you years ago at the International Prisoners Family Conference, which we now know as the Connecting for Justice Conference. You’ve been participating and presenting at the conference over the years. Could you tell us how you got involved as sponsors in this conference?
It was Cathy’s idea to connect a university with the Director of Connecting for Justice. It was a synergy that needed to come together.
We had a conference call with Jim from Ashland University. The next day, we had a call with Kayla. I’ve talked to Kayla, “You guys need to be connected. Let me connect with you. We would love to be a sponsor.”
Kayla is the Director and Chair of the Connecting for Justice Conference.
It seemed natural and a great fit. As we talked to Kayla, we said, “We’d be happy to come alongside you and help co-host it in Ohio and get some of the groundwork going.” She loved the idea. She said, “Let me take it back to my committee and board and see what they think.” The rest is history. We are having the conference. Kayla is having the Connecting for Justice International Conference here in Ohio. We are beyond thrilled. It is going to be amazing.
It’s amazing that from coming from incarceration ourselves, me being imprisoned physically and Cathy being imprisoned, possibly emotionally, outside, while I was doing time on the inside, she was doing time on the outside. From poverty to now, making these connections, connecting these great, wonderful people who are changing the world and bringing them together in a platform where we take what you’re doing, combine together, and make something bigger and better.
From poverty to making connections that change the world. Let's unite to create something bigger and better. Share on XI am on the board of Connecting for Justice, and when we heard about it, we were excited. We have the conference and collaboration with The Ridge Project and Ashland University, and we are bringing everybody together in person because, in the last couple of years, we haven’t been able to meet in person. It’s such a community. What are some of the highlights that you can tell people about the conference? What are you expecting this year?
The things I love are the networking opportunities. The opportunity to come and hear best practices, research, and hear from actual families and their experiences. It’s this whole broad array of experiences, programs, and initiatives across the world that everybody, in their own way, is addressing prison and the horrificness of the impact on families. Having the opportunity to not only talk in workshops but also network outside is what I’m most excited about. It’s having that opportunity to sit down and say, “Let’s have coffee. Let me learn more about what you’re doing and see how I can help.”
Another thing that is alongside this is when we come to conferences like that, we’re always looking to hear the success stories. We’re going to have the people doing the work get to meet from all the other agencies, especially in Ohio, people who have that lived experience, have gone through a program, and have now come on the other side. They’re going to be speaking and sharing what it took for them to have that type of resiliency and tenacity to fight through the stigmas and all the barriers they have to face.
At this conference, we’re going to go to prison, and 20 or 25 of the people who attend are going to go inside a prison while they’re here and meet our clients, what we call Tyros. They will go through a briefing, question and answer time, and see what’s happening inside the prison. That’s going to be exciting to have them come and take a tour.
I signed up for that. I’m excited about seeing more of your work and what you all are doing. There’s another prison that we’re going to be visiting. It’s where they film The Shawshank Redemption.
As you go in, you walk through that institution and think about that this housed men and women in these horrific conditions. It’s sobering. They use it now as a houseman. Now, they even use it as a haunted house experience because it’s creepy. You walk in there, and you think these seem to be inhumane conditions.
If any of your readers remember the cartoon called He-Man and Castle Grayskull, that’s what we call that prison. Google Mansfield Correctional Institution, the old Mansfield, the reformatory, and you’ll see what it is. It’s an amazing complex. It’s a scary place.
It will be profound. It’s an incredible opportunity for people involved or want to get involved in justice reforms and in helping people come and see that sometimes we feel like we’re struggling, beating against a rock, and nothing is changing. You visit the reformatory and think, “Advocacy does bring change.” They closed that facility because it was not fit and it was dilapidated. It takes a whole community, corrections, faith-based, community-based, families, and all of us working together to push forward and see change happen. That would be a sobering reminder of what can happen.
To see positive change, you have to be part of a culture where we’re bringing change and where we’re not going to let the status quo be the way it is. While I was incarcerated at one time, Cathy would call home. The phone companies were charging the families of the inmates $1 a minute because they were fifteen-minute phone calls. It’s costing you $3 to accept the charge and $1 a minute for the rest. That changed to where now it’s $0.10 or $0.20 a call because they’re calling in Ohio. They get to call home from their tablets. It saves a lot of stress for the family. A lot of changes are happening in Ohio. Ohio is one of those cutting-edge states where people come, gleam, learn, and see what Ohio is doing. Can we take this to our state? Can we take this to our corrections?
That’s such good information because a lot of people who are reading don’t know what to do. There are organizations in their areas. You brought out some good points about the conference and how it brings everybody together. We need to understand what law enforcement is going through. What are the attorneys, legislators, families, formerly incarcerated people, or returning citizens going through now?
It creates such a compassionate environment because we get to learn and hear from each other about things that maybe we didn’t know. We don’t think about what somebody else is going through. A lot of times, we think about what we’ve been going through. What are you, the conference and other groups out there doing, like a Prison Families Alliance, providing support for families? There are many great programs out there that are helping people. I’m looking forward to learning.
One of the things that I loved about the conference was the connections. For Prison Families Alliance, that’s how it was born. I met Barbara Allen, who had another group when we joined together to create more support for people across the nation. There have been other connections. You both come to the conference, meet Kayla, be a part of it, and bring it together with the university. Think of all those students out there who gave good information about when they get out there when they’re social workers, attorneys, police officers, judges, or whatever they’re going to be doing out there, that they’re going to have all of this knowledge and this compassion when they do their jobs.
One of the things that is going to be beneficial for the people who are attending the conference, the practitioners, and the ones who are doing the work is the time to reflect and to see that you’re not alone. Sometimes you work in a silo. You forget that you might be playing football, but there are multiple team players on your team. You might not see them. We are not to fix it all. The conference is going to help bring that out to other people to see who is doing what and where they’re doing it.
One of the things that I’m hoping for when the messages get across in the conference is self-care. You’re always giving out. The people that we serve are a heavy lift at times. We have to make sure that we remind the practitioners, “Make sure you take time for yourself, or you’re not going to have anything left to give for your family out to everybody else’s family.”
Self-care is important, especially when we’re doing this work because it isn’t always easy. We see how people are struggling. We know that we’ve gone through our struggles, and people have supported us. We’re doing the work so that we’re supporting other people. We’re going to talk about your programs in a minute. I want to let everybody know that the Connecting for Justice conference will be in Ashland, Ohio, from September 18th through 20th, 2024. There might be people reading this interview a year from now. They can look forward to the next time if they can it to this one.
Overview Of The Tyro Program
We’d love to see everybody at this conference. I look forward to hearing your presentation, going on the tour, and seeing your work. The last time we spoke was quite a few years ago. It’s when I first started this show. This show sounds a lot better. I know you’ve accomplished a lot since then. Could you tell us about your program and what you’re doing about Tyro? What did you start, and how did you get to where you are? Share all the great things you’re doing and the people you’re helping.
When the vision of Tyro started, we didn’t even know what it was going to be. Cathy and I are in a prison visiting room with our two sons. We’re struggling to keep our own sanity and relationship strong. How do you keep our family together? We did not know. We have never foreseen that from that prison visit room in Mansfield Correctional. We would take our experience and take it to where it is now, empowering thousands upon thousands of other individuals and families on how there is life after penitentiary. There is life after trauma. There is life after the drama you experience.
We have three major divisions. Some of them overlap. We have a youth division, which is our prevention. Primarily, we work with young people to help them avoid making poor choices and to recognize when they’re in bad situations, what to do, and how to get out of those situations. As part of our youth department, we work with kids who have already been impacted by the justice system. They’re incarcerated, on probation, on parole, or have an incarcerated parent.
In our adult division, which we call intervention, we work with incarcerated people and their families. We help them put together a legacy-type reentry plan that says, “I’m creating a brand new legacy. My legacy includes the impact I have on my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and what I want that to look like.” We help them identify some of those challenges and barriers and make those connections in the community to other organizations that could help them.
We don’t do any legal services. They say, “I need legal services.” We say, “Let me connect you to the public defender’s office.” They say, “I need help with child support.” We say, “We can help you navigate through that and connect with child support.” We’re a conduit in addition to providing programming that helps them address trauma, build resiliency and self-regulation, and put together a goal achievement plan so that they know what it is that they’re trying to achieve and help them overcome those.
The last thing that we do is redirection. That’s a lot of workforce development. We do job skills and re-skill training. We help people get employment. We help them overcome any barriers to getting and keeping the employment. We started doing transitional housing. We’re excited about this new project to help people get their feet under them. We’ve got some people that are going to be coming in through for workforce development. It’d be short-term. Maybe they’re there for 3 to 6 weeks, where they get skills credential training, and they go back to their county or the city where they’re going to live permanently.
We can help place them in a job where they can make a living wage. They’ve got some credentials, they’ve got the support they need. Other people might live there for up to a year and a half. They don’t have a family, and they need that assistance to rebuild their lives from zero. They’re going to get the credentialing to get a job. They’re going to help with budgeting.
The word Tyro is the name of our curriculum. It’s a Latin word that means apprentice, novice, someone learning something new, or a warrior. What we get to do is attack the culture of entitlement by way of fatherhood, healthy relationships, and workforce development. When we say, we attack the culture of the entitlement mentality, where people may wake up in the morning and believe somebody owes them something. We attack that mentality to where we teach people how to dream again by putting the work into it, by showing effort, by manifesting what you want to achieve, where you have to get in the mix to get it done.
Having somebody that was incarcerated myself and all the people that I’ve spoken to know that there’s hope and there are programs like this out here. You spoke about the youth who don’t have interaction and have an incarcerated family member are twice as likely to offend. Getting the youth is important. Having programs for the families and for people that are incarcerated and keeping that communication going and giving them hope, but also teaching them skills. It’s not work skills. It’s life skills.
Ron, you know better than me when you are incarcerated. You can become institutionalized. It’s almost like when you are released, you have to relearn your skills because you’ve been living one way, and now you’re back with Cathy and your family. To fill that role, how do you do that? That’s what your program is doing. It’s helping people. They can move forward and can be contributing and successful citizens.
One of the things with the transitional housing that we’re learning is that when we put men together who had been incarcerated for quite some time.
He was independent. The interdependence that you want to foster in families is to say, “We’re going to function together as a unit. We’re all going to work together and help each other.” It’s a hard reentry point for Ron and for most people.
We have our first dinner. We’re all done eating. I tell Cathy, “I’ll take care of this.” She says, “Great.” I pick up my dishes, go to the kitchen, wash them, and I’m done. We’re teaching the men that this is a community here. There’s one broomstick and one dustpan, but everybody’s name is on this.
We laughed at what you said, but it’s true. It’s a reality that people need to be aware of when their loved one is released and does come home.
It’s because you’re used to functioning a certain way, and it becomes a habit. Ron didn’t mean to say, “Cathy, I’ll get mine. You get everybody else.” This is what he has been doing for several years. He’s cleaning his own dishes, washing his own stuff, and picking up after himself. As we’ve talked to many other families, that’s common in learning to share closet space, that learning to share space and chores. It’s learning to play together, not be strict in the lines, and say, “It’s okay to color outside the lines. It’s okay to laugh.” It’s okay to be like, “Bedtime is 9:00, but we’re going to stay up and finish watching this movie until 10:00 because we can.”
All those things were struggles as Ron first came home because of the extraordinary structure that he was used to living in. The structure is great, but if you live only by structure, you miss out on so much in a family because we know family is structured chaos. There has to be a little room for the chaos. Our hope is, as we work with our incarcerated men and women that we’re helping them be prepared to manage and thrive in the midst of the chaos and to help build a structure around it so that they can be successful. The worst thing ever is to think somebody can come home and they’re going to figure it out on their own. That’s unfair.
Cathy and I were married several years prior to me going to prison. We have been married for 38 years in 2024. I’ve been home for eighteen years this coming September 2024. Has it been easy? It’s been tough work. It’s been a wonderful journey. It’s a wonderful mountaintop experience, along with great value experiences.
How do we figure this out?
The Five Rs Model Of Change
When we teach Tyro, we teach the Tyro model of change, where we practice what we call the five Rs. This is how we are personified. What did we do? How do we get here? Let’s take what happened to us, look at it, and see what it looks like on paper. Let’s see if we can scale this. Let’s see if we can help others.
The first of the five Rs is Recognize. We had to recognize our own dilemmas and situations. There’s more to it, but I’m going to give them to you quickly.
Renew the way you think about your opportunities, yourself, and others. Recognize first your own power and that other people may have done things that hurt you or done things that are wrong. You can’t control that, but you can recognize that you can control yourself. Renew the way you think. After that, you’re rebuilding.
You’re rebuilding the relationships you broke. You’re rebuilding your way of thinking. You’re rebuilding a new self-image and lifestyle. This is powerful because now we’re all architects.
The fourth R is Reinvent. You’ve reinvented yourself to live up to your potential. You’ve recognized what those barriers are. You’ve renewed the way you think, and you’ve rebuilt. Now, you’ve reinvented.
The last one is Reinvest. You get to reinvest not only into your family and those closest to you and your sphere of influence but also into your community.
Those are the founding principles of what we teach.
It’s informational for anybody who’s reading because people have loved ones who have served long sentences and are coming home. It’s telling that if their loved one does something like their own dishes or one thing because they’re used to doing it, somebody who’s reading and has a loved one who’s returned understands it better by reading this. If nothing else, people are getting information about how they can better understand their loved ones.
We do a reentry workshop for the families. What you guys are doing is important, preparing people as they get out and teaching them how to follow these five Rs. We need to provide the families on the outside information on how to understand different things that somebody is experiencing or how they act. Ron, how long did it take you to follow these five Rs? You guys put it together on your own experience, but if you think back, it’s been several years.
You’re learning and growing, but sometimes, you’re not even conscious of the principles being activated. As I was practicing these five Rs inside prison, I didn’t even know I was practicing these five Rs. I knew things were happening and changing. I’m growing up. I went to a transitional place. I didn’t come home for a year to live with Cathy. We got to build our relationship slowly and gradually.
We were frustrated and angry at the time because we were like, “Come home. Let him come home.” When we look back, we’re like, “That was wise.” We have two teenage sons because they were two and four when Ron went to prison. Now, they’re teenagers. We’re navigating through the chaos of life, work, sports, and everything else. It was a lot for Ron. Looking back, that was good.
Another important thing is that those five Rs are continuously improved across a lifetime. We recognize that I have to work on procrastination, or I recognize I need to not take everything personally. I need to understand that there’s such a thing as observations that are not value statements. I’m going to work on that. When I get back to reinvest and I’m teaching other people, I’m going to recognize something else I have to work on.
Continuous improvement is a lifelong journey. Recognize, renew, rebuild, reinvent, and reinvest in yourself and your community. Share on XThese are triggers that we have. Part of the five Rs is what we call the continuous improvement plan. When do we stop? We don’t stop until you’re in the grave. That’s when it ends. I don’t have a moment when they recognized it, but until we sat down and said, “How are we doing this? What does this look like?” Somebody challenged us and said, “Put it on paper. You guys are doing this. What did you go through?”
For a solid six months, Ron was finding his feet from the time that he was released to the time that he felt comfortable going to the kids’ events and not feeling out of place, anxious, or constantly looking for the exits because it was overwhelming. He could go to the grocery store, not be overwhelmed, and not be like, “I got to go.”
Here’s the story. Cathy took me to the grocery store for the first time and taught me how to use a debit card. She’s going through it. She’s giving me the code, the letters I have a push, or the numbers. She’s explaining it to me out loud. We’re talking. When the lady took the card and she took the money, she said, “Would you like some cash back?”
Ron’s eyes light up. I say, “No, we don’t.”
Can you remember the first time they said that to you? Would you like some cash back? I’m like, “What?” Cathy said, “No, he wouldn’t.” The lady says, “She talks for you too.”
She had no idea.
In those conscious moments of appreciation of learning and growing, I could have easily felt little and have easily been belittling myself for having a mind battle. People are watching me. I love learning and growing in those moments, even though everybody else around me understands this, and they take it for granted.
That also goes back to the thing that you teach at that don’t take it personally because somebody from the outside has no idea that Ron has been in prison for several years, has come home, re-getting his driver’s license, and is learning all of these things. They could be experiencing that and be like, “What is wrong with them? Why is she telling him how to drive?” We have to come to an agreement to understand our own personal experience. We navigate through that together and say, “The rest of the world may not get it, but we get it. We’re getting to a place where we’re strong and thriving.”
That’s important with the couples we work with, the people coming back to be a couple, be in a relationship, and be dad and mom. They have to understand. You quit worrying about what people see because what’s more important is what you two see.
What are you building?
What are you doing here? The world out there won’t understand what you’re building because they don’t understand where you’re starting from.
That goes back to being non-judgmental. Everybody is going through something. We have our bad days sometimes. Learning to be non-judgmental, especially after going through something like this, you become more compassionate and non-judgmental and give them grace for what they’re going through because we don’t know. Because of what we’ve been through, we realize we don’t know what other people have been going through.
Transitional Housing And Reentry Support
Now that you’re going to have transitional housing, and you had mentioned that at first, you were like, “Bring him home. That’s what we want.” That transition time goes from daily being told what to do all the time and being institutionalized that you have this transitional housing to being back to your family or wherever you’re going, but you two understand it.
Having this transitional house, however, it grows. You’ve been there. If anybody says, “I don’t need to be here. Why am I here? What is this?” You lived it. You can tell them why it’s good. It would be more accepting. We say that reentry starts on day one. It sounds like you were planning for it even before you were released, Ron. You could prepare, and who knew that this organization would become worldwide and help many people.
Reentry starts at day one. Preparing individuals and families for a successful transition back into the community. Share on XWe had no idea.
Challenges Of Family Reentry
That’s beautiful because it’s grassroots. It comes from the heart. When you’re doing it from the heart, people know that, and they know that you’re doing it for the right reasons. You said that your boys were young. I’m always curious because I’ve heard many different ways that people tell their kids. How did you let your children know what was going on at that time? When did you tell them?
When Ron went to prison, it was unexpected because I didn’t think he was going to get convicted. In spite of the crazy life we were living, Ron went to prison for something he didn’t do.
It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have been there.
I go home in complete and utter shock, not even thinking about Blake and Brandon. I walk in. They’re all excited to see me, but what do they always do? They’re looking behind me for Dad to come in, and Dad doesn’t come. They can sense I’m upset. They’re not quite three. A young one was almost three, and the other one was four.
They start, “Where’s daddy?” My older one is getting more upset. I sat down and said, “Daddy is in jail. We’re going to get it figured out.” He had no concept of jail. He is four. He never heard that word before. He had no idea what jail was. He’s like, “I don’t understand, “What’s jail? Where is Daddy? When is he going to come home?” I say, “Jail is a big people timeout. They put you in big people timeout.” He says, “Daddy will be home in five minutes.” I’m like, “No.” That was our journey towards understanding what the impact and what it meant.
I remember the first time we went to visit Ron. He was in the county jail. We had to visit through the glasses on the phones. When we walked in, they were excited when I said, “We’re going to see Daddy.” We go in, and there’s this window. My older son is four and a half. He stops dead in his tracks and stares. He starts shutting down like, “This is not what seeing Daddy is. I can’t touch him. He’s on the other side of his glass.” He didn’t want to talk on the phone. He kept going to the door. He’s like, “I want to go home.”
Until you go through it, you don’t realize how ultra-traumatic that experience is for kids. On the whole, there is a lack of empathy towards the experience that kids were having at that time. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way. There was no consideration of what the experience was for kids. I’m grateful that things are changing. People are starting to recognize that this is a significant traumatic event in the lives of kids. We need to actively do things to make visits less traumatic so that they can prepare the visiting room, the guards, and the correction officers. They’re not adding to that trauma but letting a little bit of that pressure off. At that time, there was none of that.
Jails still don’t have contact. I could feel it, and other people I’ve spoken to who have youth are going through that difficult. Somehow, you’ve managed to raise two wonderful men.
We have three children. In 2001, I walked out of prison in my prison blues. A total no probation, no parole. I was free. Several months later, Cathy is three months pregnant. The courts have appealed and overturned my release, giving me a week to turn myself back in.
Ron served another four years before he finally came home.
The governor made a deal and got me out.
That’s how we got our daughter. Several years before, Ron came home for the first time. They were teenagers.
I did a total of fifteen years. I met my baby girl in a prison visiting room. I watched her become the woman that she is now. She’s getting married. She’s marrying a strong man of honor and good character.
Both of our sons are engaged in a world-changing profession. They both work. One works at title support services. He trains other organizations to develop programs to reach youth and incarcerated people. He goes to prisons across the country, trains peer groups to do peer-facilitated classes, and prepares people to transition home into the communities and workforces. He’s passionate. He’s a father of four and married. Driven is the word for Brandon. Blake grew up and became mayor of our small town. He developed a lot of infrastructure in the town. He’s thinking about strengthening families. How can we bring more things to the community that strengthen families and help kids?
He’s one of the strong leaders who helps oversee all the programs and projects that are going on at The Ridge Project.
He makes sure that we’re meeting our benchmarks. He’s brilliant
Our daughter works in the youth department, where she teaches at juvenile detention centers and helps youth overcome their adversities. We did not hire them. We didn’t ask them to apply, but they decided, “One day, we’re coming to work at The Ridge Project.” They got hired.
Other staff and leaders hired them.
To see what our family has gone through, but to teach others that if our family can experience such tragedy and historical trauma, we’re talking about from my upbringing and my generations and the Hispanic world, and the migrant workers and to realize we live in America and this is the greatest country in the world. This country loves an underdog. If you have a vision, cast it forth, and articulate it in a way that people can understand, you’re passion to define who you are, but it will qualify you for your future if you let it, own it, and recognize it. Begin those five Rs in your life and watch what happens.
You all have to come out to Nevada sometime. We’ll have to figure that out. How do people get in touch with you?
The best way is Info@TheRidgeProject.com or Info@Tyro365.com. One of those is the best way. You can also call our office at 419-278-0092. Email is the quickest way to reach us and get connected to whatever resources or help you need. I do a blog. It’s Tyro.blog. It’s to help families that are navigating through having a loved one in prison.
I also do a Tyro Minute Motto. My YouTube is Ron Tijerina. I have Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
All of that will be in the blog that accompanies this interview. Do you guys have a website?
Yes, we do. It’s TheRidgeProject.com and Tyro365.com.
Programs And Services Offered By The Ridge Project
It’s important what you’re doing. Thank you for sharing it. I can’t wait to see you at the conference. I hope everybody can join the conference. It’s connecting for justice. We hope you all can make it to the conference. That website is PrisonersFamilyConference.org. I look forward to seeing you again. It would be great to see you here in Nevada. My last question is, are your programs for people? I know that you’re worldwide. If you’re not in Ohio, what services are offered to people outside of Ohio?
We have a couple of different ways to serve people outside of Ohio and/or outside of the country. One is that we’ve trained other nonprofit organizations, community-based, or faith-based organizations in the program delivery model. They’ve incorporated it into their own programs. Another way is we also have on-demand programs. You can go on demand. It’s a learning management system. You can take Tyro. You can also take our core and couple communication programs either digitally or by being connected to a local resource of somebody who’s teaching the same programs.
Are your programs on the tablets that are in the prisons?
They are, yes.
It’s great information for everybody who’s reading. Cathy and Ron, thank you for sharing. Thank you for all the work that you’re doing, and have a wonderful day. Keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll stay in touch. Thank you.
Thank you.
Be safe.
Important Links
- The Ridge Project
- Info@TheRidgeProject.com
- Info@Tyro365.com
- http://www.tyro.blog
- Facebook – Ron Tijerina
- YouTube – Tyro
- Instagram – Ron Tijerina
- http://www.tyro365.com
- https://prisonthehiddensentence.com/helpful-information/ridge-project-helping-families-and-reducing-recidivism
- https://PrisonFamiliesAlliance.org
About Ron and Catherine Tijerina
Ron and Catherine Tijerina are the founders and executive directors of The RIDGE Project, Inc. Together, they have created the award-winning TYRO suite of curriculum which attacks the culture of entitlement, incarceration, and cycles of generational poverty that fragment families and destroy legacies.
Their work in the Ohio prison system and across the nation has strengthened thousands of families impacted by incarceration and has garnered national attention. Currently Ron and Catherine speak in venues across the United States and abroad to spread their vision of permanent transformation for families using evidenced based programming that champions healthy marriage, effective reentry, involved fatherhood, workforce empowerment, and intentional leadership. They are blessed with three adult children and six grandchildren.
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