Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Hines.
Michael, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Michael Hines, and I am originally from Washington, DC. I was raised by a strong single mother alongside my twin sister and younger sister. We moved to Rutherford County, North Carolina, when I was ten years old. I did not grow up with a relationship with my father, and I have only met him twice in my life. Because of that, much of who I became was shaped by my mother, by survival, by faith, and by the people God sent into my life.
After graduating from high school, I attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and later Isothermal Community College. I studied business management, psychology, and early childhood education. At one point, my dream was to become an engineer, but my career took a different path when I was hired by a major financial institution. I made the decision to leave school and focus on building a career.
For more than twelve years, and continuing today, I have worked in financial services across default management, loan origination, transformation work, operations, compliance, and leadership. That season taught me structure, systems, people leadership, and how important it is to solve problems with care and precision. Later in my career, those same skills became part of the foundation for what I am building now.
In 2026, I started iRecover Services, LLC. iRecover Services is a human led, AI powered workforce development and retention company that supports individuals in recovery and reentry as they move toward stable employment, stronger life skills, and long term independence. The business was born from my own story, my own recovery, and the burden God placed on my heart to help people who are often overlooked, misunderstood, or counted out.
Today, iRecover Services is powered by Pathforge™, a platform I created to help candidates, employers, coaches, partners, and staff communicate and make better decisions from one connected system. What began as a personal burden has grown into a larger vision that includes workforce development, recovery support, reentry, AI, consulting, ministry, and technology. I see my life now as proof that God can take broken pieces and build something useful, beautiful, and strong.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. Some parts of my story are painful to say out loud, but I believe testimony loses power when we polish it so much that people cannot see what God brought us from.
After moving to North Carolina, I experienced a great amount of hardship. I dealt with sexual, mental, and physical abuse, and I carried trauma, fear, confusion, emotional distress, and post-traumatic stress into my teenage years. I tried to cover it up. I tried to keep going. I tried to look normal. But inside, I was hurting.
While I was in college, I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. What began with marijuana and drinking eventually led to crystal meth and heroin. Addiction took me places I never thought I would go. I lost jobs, homes, cars, relationships, and pieces of myself. I spent seventeen years in active addiction and alcoholism, and my life became unmanageable.
There were times when I slept in the woods, begged for money on the side of the road, ate out of trash cans, and did things to survive that I never imagined I would do. I lived with shame, fear, emptiness, and loneliness. I felt forgotten. I felt like I had thrown my life away.
But God never forgot me. God is the reason I am alive. There is no other explanation. I did not rescue myself. Jesus Christ reached for me when I did not know how to reach back. He used recovery, ministry, people, correction, love, and grace to bring me back to life.
Even in addiction, I never completely lost the dream of becoming a business owner. Somewhere deep inside, there was still a vision. Today, I understand that the pain I walked through did not disqualify me. God used it to shape my compassion, sharpen my purpose, and teach me how to see people who are standing in the same dark places I once stood.
My story is not just about surviving addiction. It is about God restoring identity, dignity, rebuilding character, and helping me become the man He always knew I could become. I am not the best version of myself because life was easy. I am becoming the best version of myself because God kept me, corrected me, loved me, and gave me a reason to live beyond myself.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
During my years in active addiction, I spent time in correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and rehabilitation centers. It was during one of those seasons, while I was in a rehabilitation center, that I found God again. I had been raised in church. I was a church kid through and through, and I had even been called to preach as a teenager. I knew God needed to be at the center of my life, but during my years in addiction, I lost touch with Him.
One evening, while I was lying on a cot on the floor in a rehab facility, I started thinking about what happens to people after treatment, after prison, after a program, or after a major life crisis. Many people are released back into the world and expected to succeed, but they do not always have structure, accountability, readiness, employment support, communication, or a real system around them. There are organizations that help people find jobs, and I am grateful for that work, but I saw a need for a fuller support system.
That is how iRecover Services, LLC was born. We help individuals in recovery and reentry pursue stable employment, but our work goes beyond job placement. Our framework is called BDA, which stands for Before, During, and After. Before employment, we help with readiness, coaching, resumes, interview preparation, confidence, and job matching. During employment, we provide check ins, employer communication, support, accountability, and retention follow up. After employment, we continue helping people think about financial literacy, housing stability, personal growth, and long-term independence.
What makes iRecover Services different is that it is human led and AI powered. We do not use technology to replace people. We use technology to make support more consistent, more organized, and more responsive. Recovery is personal. Reentry is personal. Employment is personal. People need both compassion and structure.
Pathforge™ is the technology platform underneath iRecover Services. I describe it as a Recovery Workforce Intelligence Operating System. In simple terms, it helps everyone involved in a person’s employment journey stay connected. Candidates, employers, coaches, partners, and staff can see the right information, communicate better, track readiness, monitor follow up, and use analytics to improve retention and support. Pathforge™ helps turn scattered communication into one coordinated ecosystem centered on the person trying to build a stable life.
iRecover Consulting™ grew out of that same mission. Through consulting, we help employers, workforce programs, recovery organizations, community partners, churches, and ministries understand how to better support individuals in recovery and reentry. We also help organizations improve workflows, use AI responsibly, strengthen retention, and build better systems. I have discovered that I love problem solving. I love finding the gap, understanding the pain point, and building something practical that helps people move forward.
Another part of the vision is the iRecover AI Workforce Readiness Academy™. This is designed to help people and organizations build AI literacy, employment readiness, and workforce confidence. It includes founder-led professional development and certification readiness initiatives such as Certified AI Workforce Readiness Professional™ and other workforce, recovery, reentry, and AI readiness pathways. The goal is to help people who may feel left behind by technology learn how to use it as a tool for opportunity.
There are also other platforms and initiatives connected to the larger ecosystem. BridgeForge™ is being designed to support prison ministry, reentry coordination, communication, release planning, and resource connection. KingdomForge™ is a church revitalization and ministry collaboration platform designed to help churches, pastors, districts, church plants, facilities, rescue teams, and resources work together with greater clarity. GreenTax Insight360™ is a business analytics and workflow platform created to help a tax professional, and her clients better understand financial performance, budget versus actual numbers, and business health.
I also have future vision work underway through Sympli™ and BeaconOne™. I speak about those carefully because they are still being developed, but the heart behind them is consistent with everything else God has given me. Sympli™ is focused on reducing stress and mental load in everyday life, and BeaconOne™ is connected to future recovery focused stability and prevention work. iRecover Technologies, LLC is the future technology home for platforms like these as they continue to mature.
I know that sounds like a lot, but the heart is simple. Every business, platform, app, and idea is trying to answer the same question. Where are people struggling because the system is fragmented, confusing, disconnected, or missing care? Once I see that gap, I want to build a bridge.
At the core of all of this is my faith. God gave me this insight. God gave me this burden. God gave me another chance. My heart is still tied to ministry. I serve as a leader with Street Ministry Servants at Temple of Pentecost, where we reach out to people experiencing homelessness, living in shelters, walking through recovery, or simply needing love, prayer, encouragement, and a connection back to God. That is not separate from my business. It is the root of it. I love people, especially people who feel cast away, because that was me.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
To answer this, I have to go all the way back to May 20, 1978. My biggest cheerleader from the day I was born was my mother. She passed away in 2012, but her voice is still with me. I can still hear her saying, “Michael, just stay focused.”
She believed in me even when life was hard, and I carry that with me.
My beautiful wife, Meka, also deserves so much credit. In many ways, her support reminds me of my mother’s strength. She has supported me, prayed for me, challenged me, and stood beside me even when my ideas were big and the timing was not always perfect. She supported the vision God gave me in a way I had never experienced before. Her love and steadiness have meant more than I can explain.
My church family has also played a major role in my life. My pastor, Bryan Ballestero, Sister Ballestero, and the leaders at Temple of Pentecost have been a true support system. When I was at Healing Transitions, I began attending Temple of Pentecost and met Clavon Wiggins and his wonderful wife. I call him Pastor Wiggins. He leads GAP Ministry, which stands for Going to Another Place. That ministry supports individuals in recovery by helping them experience a spiritual awakening and reconnect with their first love, which is God.
There are many men and women who shaped my recovery and helped me become who I am today. First, my family. My mother used to say, Michael, you and your sisters are all you have. We still hold to that principle today.
There are others who poured into me in different ways, including Mr. and Mrs. Martin, Daniel Larmer, Randy Wright, Mr. and Mrs. Randolph, Mr. and Mrs. Goddard, Keith Chance, Mr. Doyle, Lashawn Green, Mr. and Mrs. Husband, Brian McLaughlin, William Dickens, Raeford, Chris Budnick, and many others. Some encouraged me. Some people corrected me. Some gave me tough love. Looking back, they were gifts from God.
Most of all, I have to honor my sponsor, Craig Robinson. I love this man. He taught me more than how to stay clean. He taught me how to be a decent human being, how to walk with character, how to live with integrity, how to stay grounded, and how to depend on God. His voice, his wisdom, and his consistency have been a major part of my recovery.
But above all, the credit belongs to Jesus Christ. There is no greater love, no greater supporter, and no greater rescuer. God did this for me. There would be no me without the love of God and without God sending the right people into my life at the right time. I am not standing here by myself. I am standing on the shoulders of people who prayed for me, loved me, corrected me, challenged me, and believed that God was not finished with me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://irecoverservices.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.m.hines
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/irecover-services-llc/
