Tim Albert, is director of the Student Life Team at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York. Born and raised in New Orleans, Albert graduated from the Louisiana School for the Deaf, earned an associate's degree from RIT, and then earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Gallaudet University. A member of the National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) for over 19 years, he was NBDA president from October 2015 to October 2017. Albert credits his mother with his ability to counsel and effectively mentor students, especially deaf students of color. Here he writes of the virtues his mother passed down to him, her generosity of spirit and her passion to help others that inspired him to pursue counseling, and advocating for students. Albert describes counseling as a creative act of offering to others what was offered to him as a child, and chronicles his career which he says has come full circle, and is now in a place where it is his turn to give back.