Team Member Highlight: Luke Keller

Luke Keller has spent the last decade learning and leveraging business to make an impact in the world.

Raised just outside of Atlanta, in Lilburn, near well-know Stone Mountain Park, his family shaped his early views of the world. His dad, a doctor, took Luke on multiple mission trips as a child, giving him exposure to a range of cultures. This early influence planted within him an insatiable desire to help those in the margins of society.

After graduating high school, Luke attended Samford University, in Alabama, and played football for the Bulldogs. It was during this time that Luke began to take business classes and first learned about the idea of “social entrepreneurship”– starting companies aimed at creating solutions to social and environmental issues.

When a back injury during his junior year put him on the bench, Luke re-focused his energy on using his newfound business knowledge to start a pressure-washing and staining company. His passion and quick wit quickly earned him several contracts including Samford U, and other high-end homes in the area.

As the business grew, Luke began to incorporate this idea of social entrepreneurship into his company. Strong in Spanish, he intentionally hired many hard-working individuals from Mexico and Peru, granting them the opportunity to earn income and care for their families. Despite his great success, Luke sold the business to explore new opportunities.

Luke married the love of his life, Mallory, and the couple moved to Texas where he was offered a position to work with an EPC contractor and structural engineering company. He developed a close relationship with the company owner and shared this idea of social entrepreneurship. Together, they worked together to develop a leadership development program and a company foundation that could fund global missions projects such as natural disaster clean up, and installing water filtration systems in third world countries.

The initiatives were an incredible success. But Luke, now ready to settle down, felt a strong pull back to Atlanta— back to his family. He began brainstorming a long-term project that would carry long-term benefits within the community. Luke was familiar with Clarkston, “the Ellis Island of the South”, just a few miles from where he grew up. He recognized the vast need for skilled labor that seemed to be missing completely from the job market, but also the shocking unemployment rates among the refugee community.  He immediately began developing a program that would close the gap between the two needs. He moved back to Atlanta and founded a trades training and mentorship program called “The Lantern Project”, in 2014.

Around this time Luke was connected to Chris Chancey, through their shared interests and connections within the Clarkston community. Chris had just gotten the ball rolling on a new business idea—Amplio Recruiting, a staffing agency connecting companies with the dependable “Refugee Workforce.” After a rough start, business began to slowly pick up and became too much for Chris alone so he approached Luke and the two began figuring out a partnership. In January 2017 Luke left The Lantern Project (now called Tekton Training) in capable hands, and joined the Amplio team.

Now, Luke serves as President of the thriving company. He laughs when asked what a “normal” day looks like for him, explaining, “Oh, there’s not really a normal. My job varies from working with clients to finding new recruits, getting them trained and equipped for a job, to driving up new business.”

If you ever get in a conversation with Luke, you’ll immediately sense the deep fulfillment he gains from his work. He rattles on, excitedly, as he shares about his most proud moment since starting with Amplio:

“I was pursuing a potential client for six months. We finally signed a contract with them and began staffing people. After a few months they told us they needed sixty individuals. I started pulling resources and placing people. One lady [that was placed] had lost her kids because she didn’t have a job. This position provided great money and a shift that was conducive to childcare. [Sometime later] she came into the office in tears, thanking us because her kids were able to come home.”

Luke loves most that his position is client-facing, giving him the opportunity to focus his passions on customer care that will lead to more jobs for their employees.

“Luke is a visionary and problem-solver,” CEO Chris Chancey shares, “He shows the same care and compassion for any of our employees as he does for the CEO of his largest client. His positive spirit keeps us moving in the right direction, even when we face hard problems and difficult challenges. But most of all, he has a grateful heart he brings to work every day. I often see him writing thank you notes to some of our partners and he consistently expresses his gratitude and appreciation for being able to serve the Refugee Community.”

Luke is just one of the incredible individuals that make up Amplio Recruiting, now located in four major U.S. cities including Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Raleigh-Durham. He and the team bring gratitude, excellence, consistency, and passion to the table each and every day as they strive to staff great companies with the Refugee Workforce.

We are committed to be your number one labor shortage solution by increasing your company’s efficiency while reducing turnover and expenses. Visit our website at www.ampliorecruiting.com to learn more about our services, and the benefits of hiring the Refugee Workforce.