Marketing Education Retail Alliance is an organization in Louisiana. Its teachers educate high school-aged students in retail, entrepreneurship, workforce skills and other related fields. But how do the teachers stay informed and current on what to teach their students?
That’s where Paul Grethel comes in. Since retiring as a schoolteacher in 2006, Grethel has been working in customer service education. He uses the NRF Foundation RISE Up program to train teachers in retail education. Grethel has over 1,300 contacts across various school districts, and he works with them to ensure that Louisiana’s retail education is as good as it can be. Here’s how he utilizes RISE Up to do so.
Grethel walks teachers through every part of the RISE Up curriculum to ensure full understanding. “We go through every single page in the book, we use the PowerPoint that RISE Up provides and we find YouTube videos to supplement,” he says.
His goal is to properly prepare teachers to give their students the best retail education possible, and RISE Up helps him do that. Grethel gives teachers plans so they can adapt the course to factors like class period length. He also helps teachers decide which activities from the book will best suit their classroom. “We show RISE Up to the teachers so that they have all of its materials,” he says.
I don’t care what you’re doing in business; whether you’re the CEO or not. You need to know what customer service is.
Paul Grethel
RISE Up offers a Customer Service & Sales course, and Grethel says the credential really benefits students. “When you go out into the world and you go to any business, there’s got to be some kind of customer service,” he says. “I don’t care what you’re doing in business; whether you’re the CEO or not. You need to know what customer service is.”
Grethel says having a credential like RISE Up on a resume brings great value in the hiring process. “I run a small business, and if I came across somebody with the credential, I would hire them and pay them more,” he says. He says that the education and importance of customer service is the main reason for this. “One of the most important things to have in a business is someone who can handle customers.”
A RISE Up credential serves many benefits for students. Grethel says one student needed a job to help her mother pay bills. This student took the Customer Service & Sales course, passed the exam and earned her credential. Soon after, this student applied for four jobs, with her applications now including her well-earned NRF credential. Three of those four jobs reached out to her; the one MERA she accepted offered a higher pay rate than their standard rate for employees. She believes having the RISE Up credential on her resume really made a difference in securing her the job and higher pay rate.
Grethel says RISE Up gives students knowledge that other retail employees frequently learn over years of experience. Talking about a friend who became a successful entrepreneur after almost dropping out of high school, Grethel says, “My friend knows all of this stuff, but he knows it from years of trial and error. The students get to learn it from books. This education allows them to get a head start on their own business or working in retail and not have to go through the stumbling blocks that people who haven’t had that advantage would go through.”
Tell us how your school or program is using RISE Up for the chance to be selected as the 2026 RISE UP Partner of the Year.
RISE Up is the NRF Foundation training and credentialing program that provides foundational employability skills to help people land jobs and get promoted in retail and beyond.
Our curriculum and exams are industry-recognized and were developed in collaboration with more than 20 retailers, including Walmart, Macy’s, The Home Depot, Burlington Stores, BJs Wholesale Club and Nordstrom. And we’re proud to partner with more than 3,000 training partners across the country.
