Every few months, Terrill Smith stands in front of the latest class at the Construction Prep Center, where he stares into African-American faces like his and shares lessons on life, work and race.

The open invitation to address the classes is a sign of what he has achieved. A bullet lodged in the back of his neck is a reminder of where he came from.

A visit this summer to Construction Prep, in Wellston, brought a twist, though. Lloyd Abrams, 56, who made a fortune in real estate and securities, was along for the speech.

They were introduced as "the superstar" and "the millionaire."

Smith, 31, and Abrams met seven years ago at the program under unusual circumstances. They had come from two different worlds - a young black gang member trying to get past the hooks of hustling drugs, and a country club white man from Ladue whose method of helping is as peculiar as his personality.

Out of that odd pairing came a friendship, a mentor relationship and a successful custom building business for Smith. Their unlikely bond, they explained to the class, illustrates a path out of poverty that is based not on government hand-holding but on will - the willingness to help and the willingness to be helped.

"He gave me knowledge that you would not believe," Smith told the class of 16, all dressed in white T-shirts, khaki pants and work boots.

Abrams eased back in a chair when he spoke, dressed in sandals, worn-out jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.

He told the class that he could "condense to weeks all the sermons" he's given Smith, the main one being about working hard. Don't clock out when the whistle blows, he said, or you'll be "mediocre at best."

Abrams had seen potential returns in Smith and helped hoist him into a new life by investing time and effort, not to mention trust, in the man.

Along the way, Abrams, a man of many academic degrees, earned a good friend and got a course on race that isn't offered at the schools he attended.

"It wasn't a white guy helping a black guy out," Smith said earlier. "It was two human beings helping each other. What Lloyd had in me was sincere honesty. He had a legitimate friend."

To turn his life around, Smith needed more than new skills. He needed references to vouch for his character. He needed referrals to launch a career in the construction business. And he needed to stay out of prison.

‘LIKE A SORE THUMB'

On the morning of July 12, 1999, a few hundred activists, fed up with the lack of construction opportunities for minorities, rushed the lanes of Interstate 70 and temporarily shut down traffic.

The protest helped lead to the establishment of Construction Prep, a nonprofit group that primarily molds men with criminal histories and poor education into builders.

Vivian Martain is the boss, but she credits God for running the program. Standing 5-foot-1, she carries herself like a master sergeant, demanding 110 percent while she speaks in calm, well-placed words.

"We are not training them to be carpenters, we are training them to understand construction math, construction discipline, construction terminology, excellent work ethic," Martain said. " ‘Good enough' is not good enough."

Class starts at 7 a.m. sharp. The dress code is simple: no sagging, bagging, dragging, do-rags, jewelry or T-shirts with logos. Get three demerits, for anything from talking on a cell phone to not showing up on time, and you're gone.

In the past decade, 1,554 people have enrolled and 1,018 graduated. Ten percent of them are women, many of whom graduate near the top of the class. It costs taxpayers about $5,000 per student, primarily through the Federal Highway Administration and Missouri Department of Transportation.

Before the economic downturn, two-thirds of graduates got construction jobs within 90 days, Martain said. Today, it's fallen to about half. Graduates leave with a seal of approval, proving they have the chops to build and the integrity to be on time.

Back in 2002, Abrams saw a write-up on the program and was intrigued that he could get so much carpentry training essentially for free. Abrams won't pay more than $15 for a haircut - an odd trait for a man who once co-owned a jet.

He had already earned degrees in engineering, business and law, as well as securities licenses.

"I reached a point in my life that I realized I have a lot of education and not a lot of skills," he said.

But he met resistance from an admissions representative when he applied.

Abrams argued that it would be discriminatory if he wasn't accepted. "Secondly, I am a taxpayer," he recalled saying. It wouldn't be fair "because I am the one paying for it."

It worked. He ended up being one of the oldest students, and the only white one, in the class. Nobody knew about the spread in Ladue, the academic degrees, the kids at John Burroughs School.

"He stuck out like a sore thumb," said Parnell Davis, 36, a classmate.

It was in this setting that Abrams first crossed paths with Smith.

At the time, Smith was a young Construction Prep graduate who had distinguished himself as a carpenter's apprentice for a large builder. He'd come to the class a few times on rainy days to help teach and to give testimony about how graduating from the program helped him stop looking over his shoulder.

GUNSHOTS

As a boy, Smith was in and out of foster homes while his mother was in prison for fraud. He's still haunted by a memory from when he was a teenager, when his mom wrestled out of his arms and jumped from a third-story window. She survived the suicide attempt.

A week before his 15th birthday, Smith and his father went out after dark to look for his brother, Tyson, who had snuck out. Smith says he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when somebody drove by Compton and Laclede avenues and blasted a gun. The shooting lodged a bullet near his spine but luckily didn't paralyze him.

Until that moment, Smith said, he'd been a decent kid who played football and video games, and did well at school. But the attack threw him off track and headed him into a life of anger.

He attended Eureka High School through St. Louis County's desegregation program, but he was kicked out for fighting in the 12th grade. Instead of earning a diploma, Smith distinguished himself on the streets.

He fathered a child before he turned 20, and later another.

His path ultimately led to run-ins with police in Oklahoma, Kansas City and St. Louis, where he was arrested in 2001 with a firearm stuffed in his waistband and 4 ounces of cocaine stashed in a Monte Carlo.

While the case lingered for over a year, he agreed to drive a friend to Construction Prep so the friend could fill out an application. Smith decided to turn one in, too.

"It showed me that there is something else in life that is much better than what I was already doing," he said.

He was accepted and became a standout student. After graduating, he got a job framing houses, and he starting coming back to Construction Prep to share his lessons.

On one of those talks, Abrams, the odd man out, with a law degree in his personal toolbox, was in the audience.

Smith had to explain to the students that federal agents had stopped by his job site to arrest him for the old drug charge. He pleaded guilty to the charge and told the students he had accepted the reality of going to prison.

To Smith's surprise, Abrams stepped forward and offered to help. Abrams didn't have criminal law experience, but his word was built on success. And he happened to have attended law school at Washington University with the presiding judge.

ASKING FOR LENIENCY

Just after lunch on Jan. 24, 2003, in a St. Louis federal courtroom, Judge Catherine Perry trudged through her docket until the sentencing hearing in Case No. 363, USA vs. Terrill Tyson Smith.

A letter signed by Construction Prep students had arrived a day or two before. Martain was going to testify, and Abrams was poised to read a statement.

Martain addressed the court first, talking about the rigors of the boot camp and how Smith, the "star" of the program, fit into it. He motivated peers to be successful and, since graduating second in his class, regularly came back to pass on his experiences.

Abrams stepped forward next, introduced as a member of the Missouri Bar. Wearing white carpenter pants and a denim shirt, he read from a prepared statement.

Abrams told the judge that he enrolled in Construction Prep to learn how to be useful with his hands but discovered that the lessons were "more about building lives than erecting structures," according to a court transcript.

"If somebody told me that an eight-week course can dramatically change the lives of people from disadvantaged or troubled backgrounds, I would have been more than skeptical," he told the court. "This program changes many of its students' outlook, work habits and ethics in a very short period of time."

He asked for leniency for Smith: "What is the value of saving a life? Terrill Smith is part of the process. He has earned a break. He will pass along his lessons."

The testimonies seemed to hit their mark.

Smith faced 27 to 33 months in prison. But Perry, citing Smith's "extraordinary rehabilitation," departed from the sentencing guidelines, giving him three years of supervised release.

"I am taking a chance on you," she said.

Before Smith walked out of the courtroom in disbelief, Perry wished him good luck, then gave him a final warning: "Don't disappoint me or any of these people, Mr. Smith."

Recalling the story in her office recently, Martain paused to let her emotions pass about what happened in the courtroom and Abrams' plea to the judge.

"That is why you have to believe me that God runs this program," Martain said. "Who sent that man over here?"

GROWING UP

In the early 1970s, Abrams was the kind of student at Clayton High School who manned a kissing booth. He was the president of a social club and a captain and quarterback on the Greyhound football squad.

His father was chairman of Save Our Sundays, which tried to retain the blue laws that kept businesses closed on Sunday. The Abrams family owned a chain of children's clothing stores, one in Wellston. Abrams worked at that store for a time, but his talent was in property. At 12, he was already talking about real estate deals.

Nearly done with law school, and in his 20s, he approached Donn Lipton, the late St. Louis real estate tycoon, and told him he wanted to be a business partner. Before long, they had acquired more than 1,000 apartment units. Abrams went on to acquire many other holdings, including a large swath of Brentwood Boulevard across from the Galleria.

In his late 40s, after selling a successful pre-framed art business, Abrams became a human venture capitalist of sorts. He said he saw himself as "someone who knows when it is time to get off the treadmill and hope that similar blessing fall on others."

Given some of the stories he witnessed through Construction Prep, Abrams looked for ways to help people. In one instance, he bailed a classmate, wanted on child support violations, out of jail so he could see and try to support his children, then negotiated a better lease agreement for a restaurant the man opened.

He bought another classmate a used car, set up a payment plan so the man could get to work; but alums said that man took advantage of Abrams and didn't make his payments, squandering the opportunity.

As for Smith, their friendship blossomed after the courtroom stunner. Their families got to know each other, and Abrams soon learned that Smith wanted to run his own business.

One night over dinner, Abrams floated a generous but demanding proposition. He wanted a deluxe home built on Conway Road in Ladue, and he wanted Smith to supervise the project.

Up to that point, Smith had framed cookie-cutter homes and dabbled in custom carpentry. Abrams' 6,500-square-foot behemoth - with 6.5 bathrooms and a walnut front door - was the first of its kind for Smith, who was 24 then.

"He gave me the shot," Smith recalled.

By the time it was finished a year later, Smith's boyish features receded and his weight bloomed from 175 to 220 pounds from stress. Abrams said Smith had to learn the difference between being a working man and a business owner.

The final cost was $2 million.

At a party, Abrams introduced Smith as the supervisor of his house project. One by one, Abrams' friends approached him. They, too, had projects in mind.

"Terrill got a break, he got a big break, a break very few people get," Abrams said. "But he took advantage of it."

BUILDING A COMPANY

After the house project, word began to spread about Smith's new business, Lawtonblock Construction. He remodeled homes and did additions and historic restorations for customers who included investors, bankers, doctors and professional athletes.

He estimates 85 percent of his business grew out of Abrams' connections, which mainly keeps Smith in upper-class areas of St. Louis County.

Mindful of how important nice touches can be for clients, Smith sometimes walks the dogs, or has his crew rake up the leaves in the front yard.

During one remodeling project, Smith met his future girlfriend, Leslie Scott, a doctor. Between them, they have three children. Together, they have a baby girl on the way, and they've asked Abrams and his wife, Janet, to be the godparents.

Until Abrams moved into a new home in Santa Fe, N.M., last year, the two men talked by telephone every couple of days. They'd grab lunch or dinner, get together to celebrate birthdays.

Abrams now comes back to St. Louis only occasionally, but he's never out of reach.

Smith moved out of the city a year ago and rented a 3,400-square-foot home in Frontenac for the family. He has a pool table in the basement and a new Range Rover parked in the driveway, near a red pickup full of tools.

He has enrolled the children in the Ladue school system and is comforted by calls he gets from teachers about their progress in school.

He has found no reason to tell the children about the bullet in his neck.

MEASURING SUCCESS

In town for a recent visit, Abrams met Smith in person for a quick lunch and ran off to Construction Prep for the talk with the latest batch of 16 students.

After the introduction, the two men told students that nobody would give them anything but an opportunity. At one point, breaking into laughter, Smith pleaded that Abrams tell the class he hadn't given him money.

Abrams emphasized a point he's made to Smith repeatedly.

"Your job is to make your client happy, to satisfy that client, and it doesn't matter how long it takes," he said. "If you don't think there are going to be dividends from that philosophy, you are wrong. The reason why people call you back, the reason people trust you, is because they know the job is going to be done right."

Before he finished, he told them a story about measuring success.

The story was about his father, who as a young adult wore only one outfit. But every night, Abrams explained, that outfit was cleaned, dried and pressed.

"He was going to look like a millionaire when he left that house," Abrams said.

"Sure, life is tough, it may be unfair, it may be oppressive," he added. "But in the end, the question is, how do we measure ourselves?"

After a short round of applause, the students got back to class, and the two alums went their separate ways.

Abrams, before heading back to Santa Fe, went to pay respects at his father's grave site.

Smith needed to reinvest some dividends. He headed toward West County to discuss a potential room addition for a client.

He'll be back soon, ready to share his story with Construction Prep's 50th class of new students.