Speaking & Workshops
JC Almanza is a member of the National Speakers Association and a reentry coach, mentor, and former member of multiple correctional jurisdictions in the United States and Mexico. He speaks from a place most speakers do not have access to — the inside, including more than seventeen years across twenty-five facilities.
How JC speaks
JC does not deliver polished motivation. He delivers truth with receipts. Every talk is built from lived experience, with the names of real places, real consequences, and real seasons of reconstruction. Audiences do not get a highlight reel. They get the middle — the part where the work actually happens.
The style is plain-spoken, calm, direct, and unsentimental. There is room for humor because survival has humor in it. There is room for silence because grief has silence in it.
There is no performance for its own sake.
Booking lead time: 30 to 90 days for keynote engagements. 60 to 120 days for half-day workshops. Expedited booking available for correctional and crisis-response audiences — please identify in the initial inquiry.
CREDENTIALS
Member, National Speakers Association. Certified fitness and strength coach. Founder, Wrong to Strong Foundation. Founder, Wrong to Strong Publishing LLC.
LIVED EXPERIENCE
More than 17 years across 25+ correctional facilities in the United States and Mexico. Federal, state, county, and international incarceration. Mexican federal custody. Released 2017.
OPERATING FOOTPRINT
Arizona-based. Available for domestic travel. Virtual delivery available for keynote and workshop formats. Bilingual keynote available with advance notice.
AUTHOR
Author of The Walk Home, a memoir (Wrong to Strong Publishing, 2026). Companion audiobook produced in author's cloned voice.
Signature Keynotes:
The Walk Home
60 TO 75 MINUTES · KEYNOTE · NO Q&A OR LIMITED Q&A
The full memoir arc in a single sitting. From a Chicago childhood that taught fear before it taught language, through gangs, cartel ties, addiction, arrest in Mexico, federal time, and the long rebuild on the other side of the gate. Audience leaves with a working framework for honesty under pressure, sustained discipline without punishment, and the difference between regret and repentance.
Best for: Universities, faith-based conferences, criminal-justice reform summits, large corporations doing second-chance hiring work, correctional leadership retreats.
The Gate Behind the Gate
45 TO 60 MINUTES · KEYNOTE · Q&A INCLUDED
The talk built for people who will never set foot inside a prison but whose decisions shape what happens there. Policy, public safety, prosecutorial discretion, sentencing, employment after release, victim-offender dialogue, family impact. This is the talk that translates lived experience into actionable civic language without softening the human cost.
Best for: Policymakers, district attorneys' offices, public defender offices, faith-and-justice coalitions, reform non-profits, university criminal-justice programs.
Wrong to Strong
30 TO 45 MINUTES · KEYNOTE OR OPENER · STRONG AS OPENER
The short, sharp version. The single question that runs through every story in the book: what does it actually take to change, all the way down? Built for moments where the audience has a short runway — leadership summits, employee all-hands, faith services, athletic-team chapel talks, and community town halls where you need one message to land in under an hour.
Best for: Corporate culture events, athletic programs, faith services, community leadership summits, second-chance employer convenings
The Mothers and Grandmothers
45 TO 60 MINUTES · KEYNOTE · BUILT AROUND THE FAMILY AUDIENCE
The voices the system rarely centers. The women who held households together through arrest, trial, incarceration, and release. The women whose grief was measured, whose anger was valid, and whose long work of rebuilding never gets a stage. JC reads the chapter "The House Teaches First" live and then sits with the room in conversation.
Best for: Family-support non-profits, faith communities, women-in-criminal-justice conferences, social-work programs, Family Day programs at correctional facilities.
Workshops by JC
The Repair Workshop
Half-Day / Full-Day
For men returning home, in custody, or in early reentry. Built around the question: what does the inner work look like when nobody is forcing it?
• The difference between regret and repentance — and why the wrong one keeps men returning.
• Identity under pressure: how to lead a household, a workspace, and a community when your old self keeps showing up.
• Discipline as construction, not punishment.
• Reading as a daily practice for men who were never readers.
• The role of faith, sponsor, and accountability partners — including how to choose the right ones.
• Writing the next chapter without disappearing from the room.
Best for: Reentry programs, residential recovery houses, faith-based men's ministries, correctional chaplaincy programs, second-chance employer cohorts.
Format: Half-day (3 hours, 25–40 participants) or full-day (6 hours, 25–60 participants).
The Family Workshop
Half-Day
For the families on the outside of reentry. Wives, mothers, grandmothers, adult children, siblings, chosen family. The people who will either steady the season or be flattened by it.
• How to prepare a household — operationally, not emotionally — for the homecoming.
• Hard conversations to have before day one, including the ones most families avoid.
• Money, transportation, employment, and parole compliance as family systems, not solo projects.
• How to hold accountability without becoming punitive.
• How to protect children from the worst of the story without erasing the truth.
Best for: Faith communities, social-service non-profits, family court programs, reentry coalitions.
Format: Half-day (3 hours, 25–80 participants), can be paired with a one-hour evening town-hall Q&A.
The Faith & Justice Workshop
Half-Day
For pastors, ministry leaders, chaplains, and faith communities working at the seam between faith and reentry. Where theology meets parole and where the church is not yet ready.
• The theology of return: what scripture actually says about restoration after consequence.
• The pastoral gap: how to walk with returning members without becoming the reentry program.
• Building volunteer mentorship capacity inside a congregation without burning out the congregation.
• Partnering with local reentry infrastructure — knowing what is already on the ground.
Best for: Pastoral staffs, diocesan leadership, prison ministry networks, seminary courses, parachurch ministries.
Format: Half-day (3 hours, 25–60 participants)
TO BOOK JC FOR A KEYNOTE OR WORKSHOP
Send the date, the hosting organization, the audience, the format, and the city. We will respond within two business days with availability and a proposal.
Fees depend on format, length, audience size, travel, and the hosting organization. We are a foundation, not a booking agency. Fees support the Wrong to Strong Foundation mission, and a portion of every engagement is reserved for sliding-scale scholarships to reentry programs with limited budgets.
We will always tell a hosting organization honestly whether the budget makes the engagement workable, and we will work with you to find a format that fits
SPEAKING INQUIRIES: JC@WRONGTOSTRONGFOUNDATION.ORG
Press, podcast, and panel inquiries use the same address.
Please include outlet, format, and target date in the subject line.
