Be a Hero, Save a Life: Michael Guglielmo at TEDxUMassAmherst

Michael Guglielmo started out on the wrong side of the law. But when his son faced a terminal illness, he found a mission that would turn his life around.

Michael Guglielmo and his son, Giovanni. Photo by Michael Blanchard

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“I didn’t have a regular job,” says Michael Guglielmo, “My job was beating, extorting, and robbing drug dealers, gang members, criminals, bookmakers. That’s what I did. I was a bad guy.”

Bad indeed. When he was 23, he was arrested and convicted of eight counts of attempted murder of a police officer. But bad guys can change. Today, Guglielmo—whose story is told by Chris Benguhe in our March/April 2014 issue—is one of the top recruiters for bone marrow donations in the U.S. and works with the nonprofit Delete Blood Cancer DKMS (deletebloodcancer.org), the largest bone marrow donor organization in the world.

How did he go from bad guy to model citizen? “The most amazing thing happened in my life: I had Giovanni, a beautiful baby boy,” Guglielmo says. “He changed my life.”

Click here to learn how to become a registered bone marrow donor at Delete Blood Cancer DKMS.

To read Michael’s story, “Breaking Good,” pick up the March/April 2014 issue of The Saturday Evening Post on newsstands, or purchase the digital edition for your iPad, Nook, or Android tablet:
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