Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #224 The Oldest Black-Owned Construction Company In America with Cheryl McKissack Daniel

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EYL #224 The Oldest Black-Owned Construction Company In America with Cheryl McKissack Daniel · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: Money.
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  Speaker 3: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 4: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: You know, as a contractor, you know, you're you're making
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: three percent on a you know, two hundred million dollar
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: deal as opposed to the developer making twenty percent. So
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: you start looking at that money and you're like, oh
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: my god, this this you know math, it would be
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: better if I was on that side of the table.
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  Speaker 5: But don you know, I've been knowing for so long,
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: back when I was in college, and so Don had
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: said to me for many years, like, you know, I
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: really want you to come in on the development side.
• 2:28
  Speaker 5: And so Affirmation Tower is one of the projects where
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: he said, this is a good opportunity for you to
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: be a partner in the development money.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: It comes with a lot of questions and Fidelity can
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  Speaker 2: help you get answers. Visit fidelity dot com slash black
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  Speaker 2: Wealth to learn more.
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: My graduates from my school being forced back drop bag drop, Mike,
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  Speaker 6: drop back drop drop.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: All right, guys, welcome back, lay back home and we
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: got an exciting, informational, powerful episode today.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: This is big. This has big. When we talk about
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: generational wealth and sustainable wealth, I don't think it gets
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: any bigger than this.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Cheryl McKissick Daniel is fifth generation. So it's
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: interesting because a lot of times, you know, unfortunately we're
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: first generation you starting businesses is the first person in
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the family to ever start a business, and you know,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of trials and tribulations that come with that.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: This trial has come with any any level of business,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: but especially the first people to start it. There's so
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: many different challenges we just spoke about, like you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: not having enough money, not having mentorship, not having an education,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately that's one of the reasons why a lot
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of businesses fail. But you know that's not all to
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: this story. There are some businesses that have generations of
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: success and have been passed down generations, not only white businesses,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: black businesses as well. So Cheryl fifth Generation, I believe
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the largest black owned construction company in America, and it's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a fifth generation business, largest and oldest. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and currently has one hundred and fifty employees more than
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars of construction in the past decade. I
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: saw LaGuardia Airport.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, JFK as well.
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  Speaker 5: JFK.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: We want to thank you personally for that.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Grey It's so much better.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, especially with GUARDI I was like, this
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: can't be the best city on earth. And when you
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: land here, they're gonna look at this. So thank you.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you hallm Hospital so much. The Fulton Fish Market,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the Mark one hundred twenty fifth Street, Planic Yards, Columbia University.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: If you're from New York, you're familiar with everything that
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I'm just naming, so you know, have done a lot
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  Speaker 1: of construction. As I said, fifth generation and still standing
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and still you know, one of the top not only
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: black owned company, but one of the top construction companies
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: period in America. A very impressive heat and working with
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: our friend Don peeble Yes on Affirmation Tower, we covered
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that several different times, so I'm sure you guys are
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: familiar with that right now. So you know, it's important
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to highlight these stories because I feel like, you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: too often we don't know people like you, even Robert Smith.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: When we spoke to Robert Smith, I was telling him
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: like he's gained a lot of recognition now, but I
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: remember a couple of years ago, nobody knew who he was.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: At that time, he was the richest black person in America.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So it's just mind boggling that. You know, we always
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: know the athletes, we always know the entertainers, but a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: lot of times we don't know who the entrepreneurs are.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Those are the most import and Peter.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: And even Robert's story, he I mean, obviously he's accumulated
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: so much wealth and it is obviously giving back, but
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  Speaker 2: he's first generation, whereas your fifth, and you've created a company.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of times when we said we lacked the mentorship,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: we lack the education, but we lack the scalability. And
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  Speaker 2: so that's something that you and your family have mastered.
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  Speaker 2: And it doesn't stop here. The sixth generation is next generation.
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  Speaker 1: We're getting it, so I'm sure she's carrying on the baton.
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  Speaker 1: So first and foremost, thank you for joining us.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: Appreciate it, my pleasure. I'm so glad to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for sure. So I want to get into
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the technical aspects of it, but before
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  Speaker 1: I do, I want to get the backstory. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's the people that important to understand. Can you tell
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: us a story of how the company started and how
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: it was passed down from generation and generation.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, As you said, we are fifth generation goes
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: back two hundred and thirty years in this country. The
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: first descendant of our family came here in seventeen nine
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: as a slave and taught the trade of making bricks.
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  Speaker 5: That was Moses mckizwick the first. His slave master was
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: a contractor named William mcizick. That's why we have the
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  Speaker 5: Irish name uh. And his son, Moses mckiswick the second,
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: was a master carpenter and he was known for building
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: a Maxwell House hotel which is in downtown downtown Nashville.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: But he also moved our family to a place called
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: spring Hill, Tennessee. And in spring Hill, Tennessee, there's a
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: mansion called the Cheers Mansion. Well, he donated all the
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: bricks for the Cheers family to build that mansion, and
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: that mansion is still standing and it was bought by
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: Saturn Corporation. Uh, and so that's pretty much preserved the
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: mansion all of these years. And of course they bought
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: acres because they have a car plant manufacturing plant down there.
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: I bring that up because recently the last of the
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: mckisick bricks were stolen. I'm like, I didn't even get one,
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: and that was my great grandfather's. They were his bricks.
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  Speaker 5: Moses mckizick the third was the first black licensed architect
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: with Calvin mckizick his brother, first black license architect in
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  Speaker 5: the country, and they incorporated our business in nineteen oh
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: five in Nashville, Tennessee. Now just think about that. The
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: klu Klux Klan started in Pulaski, Tennessee, fifty miles from Nashville.
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: And for these two black men to not only start
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: a business, but then fifteen years into their business, they
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: had to get architectural license to stay in business. So
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: that is a whole story in itself. Motionure, It's a
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: motion picture. Two black men coming, you know, to the
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: state board to say they want to take their exam.
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  Speaker 5: They were denied over and over again, and finally one
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  Speaker 5: board member said, listen, let's let them take it. They're
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: not going to pass, and of course they did on
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: the first try. But they eventually got their license, and
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: because they were the first black license in the country,
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: the board got a lot of notoriety and they went
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: to bat for them to get licensed in twenty two
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: other states. And they worked in Haiti with Papa Doc
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: all up through the North all the way to New York.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: You will see the cornerstone of McKissick and McKissick that
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: was built by my grandfather, and then the company was
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: passed down to my father, who was William McKissick, again
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  Speaker 5: an architect. He had an architectural business, a general contracting business.
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  Speaker 5: He did a little bit of development, and he's the
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  Speaker 5: reason that me and my two sisters are all architects
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: or engineers. He used to tell us all the time, like,
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: you can go to school anywhere you want to go
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: to school, but the only school I'm paying for is
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: Howard University, and you're getting an architectural degree. So yeah,
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: he loved his HBCUs and you know, I have to
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: tell you that was just like a great experience. Howard
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: taught us what it meant to be black in America.
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: So I highly recommend HBCUs. We had the best thing,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: the brightest that would come to our university and speak
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: to us, whether we understood it or not. You know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: Amaya Angelo, You know, every president that you know was
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: in office comes to Howard University, and of course now
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: the vice president has even made our college even more notable.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: But Howard taught us a lot about out being black
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: and being comfortable with being black in a white world.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: And then the company passed down to my mother. When
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: my father had a massive stroke.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: She took over at your graduation right right.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: Right before my graduation. Four days before we graduated. My
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: twin sister and I'm from Howard. My father had a
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: massive stroke. We didn't walk for graduation. We had to
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: go home and you know, help our mother and pray
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: for our father, who eventually, you know, got out the hospital,
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: but he couldn't speak. He was paralyzed on one side.
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: So my mother took over the business after being a
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: housewife and a school teacher. But she did have a
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: master's degree in psychology, and I used to say all
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: the time that you know, she could understand the manias
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: and the phobias of people who couldn't understand how all
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: black woman was going to run this business because she,
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, over and over again, was asked to sell
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: the business because you're a woman, you can't do it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: You're not an architect, you can't do it. And she didn't,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: and she didn't because she said she was going to
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: hold on to it for the next generation. And so
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: that's our family story. My mother called up my boss
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: when I was working at Turner Construction and told my
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: boss she's quitting today and coming to work for me.
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: And then she called me and told me to pack
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: up my stuff and come to Nashville. I'm like, what.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: U.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: And you know, I was a little taken back then,
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: but now I know that was the best decision that
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: ever happened to me. And I'm actually doing the same
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: thing to my daughter right now, Like you're out of LA.
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry. She's in LA. She graduated from George Washington
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: and she went out to LA to live the LA dream.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: And it's not going well, so not the way I
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: think the.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Way you thought it was, so I'm imagining right. There's
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of to unpack there. First thing is, I mean,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: you grew up around architect Did you ever think that
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: you want to do anything else? It's kind of that
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: ultimatum that your dad gave to you that I feel like,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: did that stick with you when you were having children, Like, look,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: this is the business, and you're gonna run a bed.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: You can do anything you want, but you're gonna come
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: back to this business.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: I never thought I had the personality of an architect
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: or engineer. You know, I'm just very gargarious and outgoing.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: I thought I would do something like an airline stewardess
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: or a flight attendant so I could travel the world.
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: But it was a different day. You know, we didn't
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: have choices. You know, your parents really guided you where
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: you're going to go, and it was hard to say no.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: So it's the type of thing where you do what
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: your parents ask you to do with respect to education,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: and you put your dreams and desires to the side,
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: like I can always come back to this and what now.
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: I fly everywhere whenever I want, So it's like, right,
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: and I'm not serving people on the plane. But that's
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: I had that dream I was going to do that,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: and so it's fine, it's fine, I understand that, and
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: you know, that's sometimes I don't know if it's a mistake,
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: but our kids are being raised on the internet. Like
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: I thought, if I raised my kids and provided the
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: right model and they saw me get up every day
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: and go to work and explain to them what I
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: do and call them presidents, that it would matter. But
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: it doesn't because I'm at work. They're on the internet.
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: So there's this instant gratification out there. That's a lie.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: That's a lie out there that it's being perpetuated to
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: our kids over and over again. And it's not about
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: hard work. It's putting on something that makes you look
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: good to get noticed.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: It's you know, unless you you know, really are a
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: great artist, a great athlete, it's very hard to make
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: it in those areas. So, you know, the narrative, I
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: think it is not very positive for our kids if
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: we want them to go into business. And I see
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: that in my own kids.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: It's a few guys might be trying to change the
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: narrative a little bit.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, I've seen that I see that. I've
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: watched the Steve Harvey today.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it, so shout out to sh So let me
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: ask you this. Let's unpack this a little bit. So
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: five generations it was passed down to so that it
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: has to be some level I'm assuming of planning in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: place to because there's other family members involved, right, So
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: there's no other family like I mean, like, so it's like,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: how does is it like, is it written document in place?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Is it like, Okay, this is what's going to happen. No,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: it's just all through word of mouth and understanding.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: I think that's been the downfall of a lot of businesses.
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: If you think about first generation that make it to
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: the second generation, that's like forty percent, the third generation
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: going the second generation going to the third generation is
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: like less than four percent. And then this is, you know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: fifth generation. And you know, while my father may have
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: had a plan, he didn't write it down for me.
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: He didn't tell me this is our official succession plan.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Succession plan, that's what I was looking for.
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I got you. And you know that's something
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: very important for us as black businesses, because succession's coming
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: whether we want it or not. And so it's better
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: to plan for it. And you know, if I look
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: eight years out into the future, I may not want
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: to be doing this right, you know, to the level
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: that I'm doing it right now. So to do that,
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: you've got to deal with succession. And it's interesting that
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: you ask, like, how did this happen? Because I'm not sure.
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: My father got a plan from my grandfather, and so
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: you know, a lot of it I think is paying
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: it forward. It's what I call good karma. My grandfather
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: and his brother used to build black churches at cost.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: You know, they didn't make money off of it. You know,
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: they were charitable in the community. And you know, a
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: lot of that good karma and political will I think
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: created to a lot of our longevity.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So it hasn't been a succession plan.
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: Hasn't been.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Do you have a succession planer?
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: I have a discussion planner. I'm working my succession planner
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: right now.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: It's so speaking of succession, most people have heard the word,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: probably by watching the HBO show, And if they watch it,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: they know the dynamics of the father and he's trying
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: to have a succession plan. But he has two sons
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and he has a daughter he's very hesitant to give
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: it to his daughter. And obviously this is a female
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: run business. So what's that been like from your mom
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: down to you and now obviously hopefully down to your daughters.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: What has that been like some of the challenges that
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: you saw your mom facing that you know some that
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: you're facing them.
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: Well, my mom was very is very strong. She's like
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: a force of nature, and she taught me a lot
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: about business development. She taught me a lot about being
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: comfortable with who I am, no matter where I am,
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: which is kind of hard to do if you're sitting
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: in a room with fifty white men. You're and you
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: know they're talking, and you have a female voice and
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: you're like hey, hey, and they don't hear what you're saying. No,
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: Mom's like, no, take your papers and throw them down
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: the whole boardroom table to get people's attention, and then
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: you can talk soft, but you have to get their attention.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: I'll never forget Mom. When I first started working with her,
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: we would get on the road and we would drive
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: all through the South to our projects, to clients, to
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: new clients, and so a lot of times she would
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: she would insisted on doing all the driving and I
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: would write all the thank you notes coming back because
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: this is you know, this is carbon paper, this is
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: we didn't have xerox machines business right. So but guess
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: what I learned the importance of building those relationships and
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: how to build those relationships, you know, by writing these
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: letters and what to say to people to really get
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: their attention to want to work with mcizick. But now
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: we've been doing this for a couple months and Mom said,
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: you know what, today is your day. You're going to
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: go in. You're going to tell this client who mckisic is,
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: and you're going to sell the business. I'm like, it's
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: only been two months.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Are you sure.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: She's like, I'm sure. So we go in to meet
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: with this client. He's an old, old white guy. He
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: had like a road map in his face. He's looking down.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: He doesn't even look up at us. And so Mom
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: looks at me like, okay, Cheryl. So I'm scared to death,
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: but I'm more scared of her than I am of him.
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: So I hello, we're sure, I'm Sureyl mckizick, and I'm
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: going through everything. He never looks up. So I'm like,
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: this white dude doesn't care about us. So next thing
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: I know, I'm like done and it's completely quiet, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: he stands up. He says, come here, little lady. I
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: was scared of death. I thought he's like the big
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: bad rule if he's gonna bite me or something. And
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: he shakes my hand. He's like, I really want to
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: do business with McKissick. And I'm like, oh my god.
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: I didn't think he was paying attention. But that taught
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: me that it doesn't matter who I'm talking to. I'm
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: going to tell you who I am because I don't
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: know how you're receiving it or whether you're receiving it,
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: but you might really be receiving what I'm saying. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: maybe that's the way you are. You're, you know, maybe
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: an introvert. You're not as engaging as other people. So
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: I do that all the time now, but it's hard
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: to do when you are first starting out in business.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: You don't feel worthy, you don't have it all together.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: It's a little bit of smoking mirrors. You still have
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: to toot your own horn because if you don't do it,
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: no one else will.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Well let me ask you this, Oh all right, When
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: you took the business over how were you able to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: scale it to where it is now? We talked about,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: you know, all the developments that you've done and over
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the last So I'm assuming that you know you took
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the business to new heights when you took over over
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the course of the time. So what are some of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the things you implemented with some of the best practices,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: with some of the coab relations that you've done to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: take it to the next level.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: Well, I didn't expect for it to happen overnight. I
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: did think it was gonna take twenty years, but no,
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: it took thirty years. My strategy because construction is very
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: complicated in New York, it's very risky. So my strategy
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: was to work with very large contractors, form a strategic
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: alliance with them, and then have only three clients in
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: New York City. And those three clients were the New
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: York City School Construction Authority, Amatory Authority, and the Poort Authority.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: Why those they had the largest budgets. But it also
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: if you focus, you know, you can't be a scatter
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: You can't scatter your resources out because you won't have enough.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: So my strategy was just to focus on the main
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: two or three clients, and I do that every day
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: on my life. What are the one or two things
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: I have to do today, And that's what I do.
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: Instead of letting all the little stuff get in the way,
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: I focus on the one or two things that are
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: going to make the biggest difference. So that's what I
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: did with these clients, and from there I understood how
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: to deal with you know, the New York system, which
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: is navigating the system in New York is no joke,
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: you know, from permitting, you know, just getting mwbe certified,
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: all of that takes a lot of time. So I
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: developed these clients, still off as a subconsultant and then
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: I work my way up to a joint venture partner
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: with other construction managers.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: What's the job of a subconsultant was the role of them?
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: So basically, if there's construction management services that have to
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: be done, we manage the construction process. So we have superintendent's,
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: project managers, estimators, so we do budgets, we keep the schedule,
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: and we make sure everything is operating the schedule out
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: in the field. So when you are a subconsultant to
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: a large contractor you're providing staff in the field to
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: perform some of these services. And so that's what I
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: would do. But in the meantime, well, my staff is
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: working out in the field. I made sure I was
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: at the meetings with the clients because that's how I
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: develop relationships with the clients. Also, this is how I
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: understand how to do business for them. What are their regulations,
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: softwares do they use? How do you submit your invoices
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: to them? How often do they pay you? Well, who
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: does what's what's that stream like? Because you have to
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: understand that this back in the nineteen ninety one, ninety two,
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: ninety three, it was six months to get paid from
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: the City of New York.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: And you said the three departments were schools, the school
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: department for the authority and what was.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: The other The other one was the Domitory Authority, which
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: built all of the buildings for the for Higher ED
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: and so that was across the entire state. They don't
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: do just dormitories. They built hospitals, higher ED you know,
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: technical centers, data center everything. They were like one of
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: the biggest agencies at the time. So then what happens
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: when you become a joint venture partner to a large
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: contractor you are now a prime contractor, and so you
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: know the contract is between you and joint venture with
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: someone else. So now you really do have a bird's view,
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: bird's our view of the agency, the people, the business,
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: how to implement the business. And then from there I
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: went to just mckisick being a prime. So that's why
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: it's such a process. I mean, we can go through
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: a sales cycle that takes us two years to win
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: a project and then another year for it to start,
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: so nothing is moving quick. In construction. We're finishing up
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: a billion dollar hospital at Coney Allen that we won
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: the first year Deblasio became mayor, so that's eight years
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: ago and we are just finishing up. We won't finish
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: until well into twenty twenty three, so Eric Adams would
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: have been mayor for two years. So that's we have
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: a very protracted sk schedule. It's a long cycle. And
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: so when I understood that, you know, it's all about pipeline,
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: getting as much pipeline as I can. I didn't worry
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: about you know, a lot of people say, oh, I
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: don't have the people. I got to have the people.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I don't worry about the people. Because the
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: project's not gonna start for about a year, year and
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: a half from now. By then I'll have the right people.
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: So it's having faith that you can pull it together
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: in the future, like you know, bonding, Like, Okay, that
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: project needs you know, eighty ninety million dollars of bonding,
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: but I only have forty. Well, by the time it starts,
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: i'll have it. Yeah.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: So all right, So let's go into the So you
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: decide to work with those three departments, what's the process
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of even getting a relationship with them? Like do they
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: have to pick you? Because I'm assuming. Oh, so let's
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: take what's one of the department's school construction, pool construction.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Let's say Port authority. So Port Authority for anybody that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't know, they do all the transportation stuff, bridges, tunnels, infrastructure,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: all the infrastructure, right, So I'm assuming and correct me
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. They have a bunch of different contractors
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that are in their network, right, and then they put
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the RFP out right for a bridge that's being built,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and then all of the all of the people that's
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: in the network, all of the companies submit proposals, and
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: then they pick which proposal they want. But how do
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you even get in the network? Okay, so yeah, was
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that correct what I just said?
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: It's pretty much there might be other steps in there.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: So they have a pre qualification process, and so that's
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: from the very beginning. You have to pre qualify. You
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: have to get what's called vendexed in New York, meaning
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: you know, you don't have any criminal background, you don't
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: have you know, bankruptcies or old taxes or anything like that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: So just think about it. You have one is a
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: prequalification just to only talk about your experience and you
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: know your portfolio of work, the number of engineers you
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: have on staff, the number of architects you have on staff,
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: and then they decide to prequalify you. That could take
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: six months. Then you have this vendex that you have
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: to fill out that that goes a little quicker. And
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: then on top of that, you have the MWBE certification,
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: which tends to lag these days.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I mean that's Women Minority Women Business Enterprise right.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: Correct, correct, And so the business has to be fifty
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: one percent owned by a minority or woman and you
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: can get that certification, but it's very intense. I mean
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: three years of tax returns to prove that you're black,
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: you gotta open, they have to do a site visit.
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: I mean it goes on and on and on, and
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: you know, you can't even get pre qualified or certified
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: in any of these areas if you haven't done three
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: projects already. So that's another, you know, big hindrance to
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: people who are trying to get certified.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: So that the person who's trying to start the construction
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: company has a disadvantage over somebody like you who's been established.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: And this is where having a generation of business is
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: going to help a business like yours over somebody like
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: me who's trying to start. So is it How would
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: somebody who's trying to who has a construction company get
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: into a position like that, or they do they have
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to go to another area of the country and then
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: come back to a place like New Yorker. What would
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you suggest?
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: I would suggest trying to do something in the private
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: sector and get some experience that way, working as a
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: sub consultant to a contractor who's working, say at the
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: Poort Authority. There's ways to get three projects under your belt.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: But again it's a hindrance. And I say that all
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: the time. You know, like design build is the new one,
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: the new project delivery method in New York City. And
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: every time we evolve to something new that might be better,
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: if it's technology, if it's how we deliver our projects,
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: minorities and women usually get left out of that conversation.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: So right now, design build is new over the last
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: couple of years with all the agencies that I work for.
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: But for my staff to attend the Design Build Institute
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: and get so in the Design buil, they have to
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: have already had a design build project. And so I mean,
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: and it's interesting you say that. I think that all
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: the time. Like I came to New York with a
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: portfolio of work. What is it like for people who
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: have no portfolio of work? And when I testify before
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: city Council, you know, that's what I say, because most
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: of the people who are starting construction companies, who want
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: to be in construction, they didn't come with a big portfolio.
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: I came with a big portfolio. And it's still hard,
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: it's it's ridiculous. It's a fight every day. Last week,
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: it was a fight that hasn't changed. And so I
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: don't know, I don't know how I mean. I suggest
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: that you know, these companies allow individuals to use their
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: their individual experience. Because maybe you came out of Turner
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: Construction and you know you've built X number of buildings
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: under that umbrella, but now you want to start your own.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It's like applying for the job and they tell you
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: need experience to do it when you're fresh out of college.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: When I was in college, why didn't have the job
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: exactly right?
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: So it becomes extremely difficult. You said that when you
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: came to New York. So what was that transition like?
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Because the business starts in Nashville. Mam was in Nashville.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: How did we say, all right, we're packing up stuff
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: and which setting up shop in New York. Obviously it's
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: the big city. I'm sure budget just had a lot
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: to do it. But what was that transition like?
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: So my parents we used to do vacations every summer,
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: and one summer we came to New York and my
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: twin sister and I were probably like five or six
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: years old, and you know, I remember that week just saying,
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: you know, I love the city. When I become an
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: adult and have professional career, this is where I'm going
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: to work and I'm going to work in one of
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: these tall buildings. So I always knew I was coming
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: to New York after, you know, doing undergrad at Howard
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: and in grad school at Howard, I didn't apply to
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: work anywhere else but in New York City. So I've
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: been here. Even before I finished grad school, I started
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: working at an engineering firm in Manhattan. So New York
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: was always my endgame. And you know, I just love
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: this city and it's hard for me to work anywhere
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: else because in New York we're doing like sixty one
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: sixty two billion dollars of construction every year right now.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: I mean during COVID, Okay, it dropped down to fifty
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: I mean it is. The dollars here are incredible. I'm
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: chasing the project right now, which is Gateway. It's the
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: consultant like me. You're going to bring three hundred people
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: to a job for eighteen years. It's like a Swan song.
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: And so you don't have that anywhere else in the country.
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: Terminal one nine and a half billion is the largest
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: airport project in the country. The MTA, where we are
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: independent engineers, we oversee a fifty four billion dollar capital program.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: What I mean, and you bump into to other agencies
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: and private corporate two hundred businesses that have portfolios that
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: are huge, that are huge that I haven't even marketed yet.
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: And that's New York City. And so it's very hard
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: to leave here. Even though we were expanding in some
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: other areas of the country, New York is definitely our
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: bread and butter. And I'm glad I bet on New
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: York over thirty years ago and still betting on New York.
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: This place is incredible. If you have a down you
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: have a bad job, and a down year, the next
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: year in New York will bring you back. That's how
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: big it is now.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: That's a fact. So all right, let me ask you this.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Let's go in New York.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So how does the how does the actual financing work?
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it used to be a time where
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: it was a long time to get paid. Like do
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: they pay you in stages? Do they pay you a
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: lump sum upfront and on the completion of the job, Like,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: how does that actually work as far as you get
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: hired by the city and then when do they actually pay.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: It depends on what service we're providing. Most of our
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: services are construction management and program management. I would say
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: that's eighty percent of our work. That means we are
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: billing our staff by the hour, and we submit a
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: monthly bill for their services, like I said, to the city,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: to the city, to the state, whoever we're working for,
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: could be a private sector client. We submit our bill
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: and it's gotten much better now because of technology. But
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: it's also gotten better because the MWBE community has fought
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: this fight for thirty years to say we can't sit
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: out here this long. I mean, these agencies have put
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: contractors out of business because of how long it takes
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: to you know, get paid or approve a change order,
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: which means once they approve it, you can get into
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: the paid cycle. And so now I would say the
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: average is between forty five and sixty days. When we're
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: general contractors, that's different. Then we're billing on percentage of
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: the job complete, and we'll do that every month, so
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: the owner will have to agree that, yes, you know,
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: we've completed twenty percent of the drywall, one hundred percent
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: of whatever else and say okay, yeah, let's we approve
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: this and we'll pay you. So it's gotten much better.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Pretty much on a monthly basis than they pay and
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: it's like a net a net thirty.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: Forty five sixty net sixty.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have to have positive cash flow coming
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: in because even two months in business, that's a long time.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, or a lot of credit or what have you.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: So what have you been able to do, Like do
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: you just keep a lot of cash reserves? Do you
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: have relationships with banks? Because it's important, yeah, to know that,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: because I feel like that's something, like you said, takes
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of businesses out waiting to get paid. And
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: then it's like you still have your expense, you still
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: got to pay your employees and not gonna wait sixty
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: days to get paid like you got. They want to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: get paid on Friday.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: The bill ain't gonna wait either.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: So when I first started my business, I did not
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: have any money to pay my employees. I had a contract,
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: I had a couple of employees. But I had good
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: friends who were on Wall Street, and I went to
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: them and I said, and listen, can you each like
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: give me five thousand dollars and I'll pay you back
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: in six months, I'll pay you six thousand dollars. And
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: I got five people to invest in my business, and
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: you know, I guess I got my first check three
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: months three months later, and I was able to start
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: paying my employees and then I had enough money to
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: pay them back in six months. And they all were like,
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: this is terrific. This is a good return on our money.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: You know, Like can I investigate. I'm like, nope, your
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: money is too expensive. But that is discipline, Like when
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: you get paid, you got to look at that check
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: and say, that's not my money. That is not my money.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: Matter of fact, I don't even get a salary out
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: of that. Those dollars go to pay for the expenses
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: of the business. And I worked for someone else on
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: the side while I was starting my business, and that's
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: how I paid my bills. But I couldn't pay my
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: bills out of my business. I didn't have enough money.
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: And then from there, so that was probably the first
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: you know, influx of cash was you know, it's private
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: from just friends and family. Again another problem we have
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: with black people. We don't have friends and family that
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: have that kind of money. And then from there, it
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: probably took three years before I could get my first
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: line of credit. My first line of credit was like
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: two hundred thousand dollars, maybe it was one hundred I
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: can't remember now, and then it went up to two
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: point fifty and I mean like you had to like
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: give your first born.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what time frame when we were talking about
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: when you're creating this is it's eighties, but nineties, this.
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: Is now the nineties.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk because for the people to really
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: get understanding at the time period we're talking about black
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: women having your own business, I mean, these getting a
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: loan is like almost impossible.
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: Oh, it's ridiculous.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, because he's like, what people do that?
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like even now it's tough, but you're
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: talking about the time where they weren't even.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: Would you consider it, right, it's not even an option, no,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: let alone if you hadn't even started your business. Fortunately,
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: I think we do have some funds that are in
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: New York that are available to contractors if they have
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: a contract, they can borrow from the state and then
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: there's some city funds, but we didn't have that back
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: in the nineties. You know, you go to the bank,
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: they want you know, three ways out, they want cash.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: So if you want to borrow one hundred thousand cash,
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: you got to have one hundred thousand You gotta have
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: contracts that show, you know, you can pay back the
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: monthly payment, installment payments back to the bank. I mean,
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: it's it's a heavy lift. And then assets. You need assets,
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: and so that was very difficult. So finally in Philly
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: I would save. By nineteen ninety five, there was a
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: black banker at Melon Bank, and you know, I met
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: him through mutual friends, and you know, we started having
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: dinner and I was telling about my business and I'm like,
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: you know what I really need, it's just a line
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: of credit. He said, I'm gonna make this happen for you,
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: and he did, and he gave me my first line
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: of credit that you know, just kept growing over the years.
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: You know, another tip I have is sometimes the smaller
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: banks are better. They take the time to get to
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: know you and understand what the risk is. And so
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: that would be my suggestion to people who are looking
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: for lines of credit, go to the smaller banks where
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: the president is in the bank and you can sit
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: down and talk to them. They tend to have the
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: ability to be flexible as opposed to the very large
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: banks their rules and ricks forget about it.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: That was something shout out to MG to the Morya's
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: got he actually when I was? This episode is brought
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: to you by P and C Bank. A lot of
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: people think podcasts about work are boring, and sure, they
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: definitely can be, but understanding a professionals routine shows us
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: how they achieve their success little by little, day after day.
• 43:35
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  Speaker 3: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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• 46:00
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• 46:07
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• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Going through the home buying process, he said, sometimes working
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: with the smaller blanks is beneficial for that reason, just
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: a little bit more flexibility, whereas in the larger banks
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: it's like this is what it is. You meet, These
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: guidelines over not approve of you at all. Right, I'm
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: wondering because you said that the pay schedule was net
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: sixty and so obviously I'm thinking, how many projects are
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: you taking going to offset that?
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Do you take on maybe two or three projects at
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: a time, or how do you delegate that as far
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: as when you're trying to obviously make payroll and make
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: sure that you make money, but you want to have
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the balance where you don't overdo it and now nothing
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: gets done.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: That's the art. That's what I was telling you earlier.
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: You know, sometimes you just got to lean into it
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: and say, I'm gonna be ready when it comes, because
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: if you missed the opportunity to win a project, it's
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: not coming back around. And that's your pipeline. You got
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: to build a pipeline to show the bank that you
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: have a future and that you're going to be making
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: money past the next twelve months. And so for me,
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: I just always did all of that at the same time.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: I would go after my pipeline, and I would just
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: keep trying to keep money in the bank to build
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: up my balance sheet so that when the new projects
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: came online that are bigger that required more staff, I
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: could either increase my line of credit or use my
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: own cash to pay for my staff. So if I
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: start out with two staff people for one job, and
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: now I know, I know the jobs coming in six months,
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: and I need three people for that one, and nine
• 47:57
  Speaker 5: months after that I need, you know, five more, I'm
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: up to ten people. And now it's all about after
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: that those ten people, say the cycle or the schedule
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: for a project that's twenty four thirty six months, then
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: I have to find somewhere to put those people I
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: brought on so they can have longevity in my company.
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: And that's another thing that you got to like commit
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: to that. If you want people, you know, to be
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: dedicated and loyal to you, you got to figure out
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: how to keep them employed at your company.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you this. In construction, there's always
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: been a couple of you know, stereotypes. It's like it's
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: all it's men dominated. But then like the mafia, there's
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: always rumors that the mafia had a stronghold, especially in
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: New York, and so yeah, any experience with that.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about it. But it's changed. I mean,
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: so you know, a lot of my experience wasn't necessarily
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: with the mafia because you know, back in the day,
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: you just did what you had to, like you know,
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: they were doing they would handle all the trash, the concrete,
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: and you know, you just didn't touch that area. Just
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: go ahead and do what you had to do with
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: those folks. But there were coalitions like in Harlem, the
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: Black coalitions, yep, shaking down projects. Yes, we've had a
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: lot of experience, but that but that now has changed,
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: and you know, it's it's cleaned up a lot. It
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: really has.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: So like the coalition would be like a preacher and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: something like that, and they would like have like pickets
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: and campaigns and things like I could get this to
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: stop if you pay me one hundreds.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: I would say they were more like gangs and call
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: them a preacher.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: What I'm just saying that was that was the that
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: was they.
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: Start up with gods.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: But because I went from honest, so all right city, no, no, no, no, no,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying a preacher. What I'm saying to preacher
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: is that was the That was the gaze of it
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to make it look like it was something. But then
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: underneath it it's other elements to it. But for the public perception,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: For the public perception, it's like, okay, we can do
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: this and we can run on this because this is
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: something that you know, it's safe. People look at it like, okay,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: this is black power. They're trying to fight for civil rights.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: It's like what we talked about.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: But the underlying theme of it is like extortion.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, lobby, an extortionist lobby where it's like all right,
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: well if you want this to stop, So.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: The extortion that you understand because what happens a lot
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: in the black community is white contractors would come in
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: and work and all the workers were new Jersey license plates.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: You know that it didn't look like the community. So
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: these coalitions really came together to say, look, we want
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: to eat off this plate too, this is our neighborhood.
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: You're putting this in our neighborhood. So, you know, once
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: you begin to understand the mentality and what they're really
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: trying to do. And we're the ones who really kind
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: of ended all this in Harlem is we developed a
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: workforce program and so we would have we would sit
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: down and meet with all the coalitions and we would
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: tell them on every job in Harlem, we're going to
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: take one from you, one from you, and we're just
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: going to go, you know, round robin. As we're able
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: to bring neighborhood people onto the projects, and that turned
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: out to be very helpful at Harlem Hospital and Mother
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: Clare Depot, the State Plaza, Columbia Universe. You know, we
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: were able to make sure that the community people were involved.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: It's a certain level of pride, right when you yeah
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: something and you know it's yours, and you know you
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: live in a community and it's going to be something
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: that's going to help elevate not only the economic opportunity
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: for the community, but more it's going to bring more
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: jobs into it as well.
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: No.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: I sat in our Harlem trailer one day and I'm like,
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: who are all these people coming in? They were from
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: the ages of twenty four to seventy, dressed nights, speak English.
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: They were all looking for construction jobs. So I asked
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: the assistant, I'm like, what is going on here? Who
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: are these people? She said, Oh, they're looking for jobs here,
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: they're applications. I'm like, well, how many applications are there?
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: There were seven hundred, seven hundred applications in a period
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: of like six months. And then I'm like, oh my god,
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: Now I understand what's going on in Harlem. You know,
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: these people need to work on these projects. So the
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: president of Harlem Hospital, Dr Palmer, I went to talk
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: to him. I said, Dr Palmer, guess what this is
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: what's going on. He's like, Cheryl, We're gonna pay for
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: you to do a workforce program. It's not a lot
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: of money, but if you can get these people to
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: work or in the construction industry, that's what the goal
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: is and that's how we started our workforce program and
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: now we've done that in Brooklyn when we worked at
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: the Barkley Arena is we did all of the rail
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: around the Barkley Arena to make way for the arena,
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: the foundation of the arena, and then we did it
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: in Queens. In Queens we had a thousand people sign
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: up looking for jobs in about three weeks. And so
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: it's it's real. Everybody in their in their own community,
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: they need to be able to work on these construction sites.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: So for the construction workers though union, union and non union, Okay,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: So how because I know that's a hassle, that's another
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: story as far as the unions even have a lot
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: of pull and a lot of muscle in New York
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: specifically because I used to work on Park Avenue, so
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: I used to always see like it's issues with construction jobs.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: If unions aren't involved, they can make it hard. That's
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: another kind of extortion play. So how have you been
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: able to deal with the unions or do you work
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: with unions or do you not work with unions?
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: So we were a union contractor for many years, meaning
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: we had we signed on with all the unions. But
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: then we realized we didn't really need to do that
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: because that type of labor can be very intensive. You
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: have to hey every week, you know, the rates change,
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: you know, every couple of months, and I mean, it's
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: just so easy to make a mistake. And so now
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: you know, we are contractors that will sign a pla
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: project labor agreement on a job if we are general
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: contractors and actually have to hire union labor as opposed
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: to just being in the union, because that the liability
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: to financial liability of being in the union was really
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: really great. And so now the unions have gotten i
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: would say, a lot more flexible than their approach. There
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: are a lot more people of color working in the union,
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: and it's not anywhere the way it used to be
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: in the nineties and early two thousands. Is much more amicable.
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: But if you're going to work on a large project
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: in New York, you're definitely going to do it union.
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: Like our airport jobs, our MTA jobs, all those jobs
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: are going to reunion. There's no way around that.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Why is it no way around it?
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: It's political, yeah, pressure, But the thing is about the union.
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I just want to put this
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: in here. The union, they train their people extremely well.
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: And this is a highly technical business now and when you're,
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: you know, building in New York City or Scottscraper, you
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: want some of the best guilled workers you can have
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: and you can't get that anywhere else but the Union.
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: So there is definitely a role to play. And there's
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: also a positive side to that. And a few bad apples,
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: I believe you know tainted it from back in the day,
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: but it's not like that anymore. The union is very
• 56:50
  Speaker 5: very flexible.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: You said the word said the word pressure. So just
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: doing to me, do you feel that pressure? Obviously you
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: said things aren't as they weren't worth as far as
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: people that look like us in the construction business, obviously
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: in contractors as well. Do you feel the pressure of
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: obviously your families ignacy, but also being a black executive
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: in the space of making sure that everything goes right
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: because I feel like, and this is interest too, we
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: don't get a second chance to make it right right,
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: like if we mess up once you're out your tarnished forever.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: So do you feel that pressure every day?
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: Every day? I feel that pressure, like I feel we
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: have to be better, you know, we have to be smarter,
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: you know, our people have to be on top of
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: everything that they're doing. There cannot be slip ups, there
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: cannot be mistakes. And I'm just glad that over the
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: last fifteen years that our senior management they understand that
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: culture and that's that's how we work. And you know
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: that takes me to the succession planning too. You know,
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: succession planning is all about who's gonna run the company,
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: but then who's going to own the company. So there
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: are two parts of succession. Because I didn't know what
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: my kids were gonna do, and so what would I
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: do on the ownership side? But then how would I
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: build a company to run, you know, beyond me? And
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: I've spent a lot of time dealing with my senior
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: managers getting the right people in the right places so
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: that the company can run without me. And I have
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: to say my team is very good because I spend
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: my time really going after very large projects and then
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: I do a lot of my pr work, I do
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: a lot of speaking engagements, and the company runs extremely
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: well without me being there. And so that's another thing
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: if I'm you know, talking about succession is making sure
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: you have the right people to carry the company on
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: beyond you.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: So what do you think, all right, is it always
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: gonna stay family? Because some companies, after a while, they
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: still have the name, but they're not being run. It's
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: not a family run company anymore. The family can still
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: have control over it, they still have ownership, but there's
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: nobody in the family that's actually like the CEO is
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: not a family member. Do you foresee that possibly happening
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: or do you always you think that always has to
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: be somebody that's actually in a bloodline running day to
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: day operations like the CEO.
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: It could happen. It could happen that is not a
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: Macisic running the company. That definitely could happened. Could be
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: that music doesn't own the company. You know, I built
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: this company to I took the baton right from my mother,
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: from my father, and it's part of my charge to
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: make sure I of the baton to the right people.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: And you know, I'm not gonna make that mistake of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: just giving it to my kids and then forget about
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: all the people who have made us who we are today.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: That's not happening.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: That's something else.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: The best qualified person, the best qualified.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Katy actually said that at investments, And he's talking about
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: passing the baton to the family members. If the family
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: member is not ready, they're not getting the baton.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: No, or it could be a family member, well.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe not your children, but it could be a different
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: family member. Could be a niece or nephew.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: Or like that. And I do have those in my
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: family as well. But again, how.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Many of your family I should work in the company.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: Just my daughter, Darryl.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: That's it.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Out of no nieces, no nephews, no cousins anything. Why
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: is it a large Is it a large family? It
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: is not a large family.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: Our family, it really isn't that large. I have a
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: twin sister and I have an older sister. I have
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: a niece, one niece. For my twin sister, she's just
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: starting NYU so early. And then my other sister had
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: two daughters. That's it. But my oldest sister's grandson just
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: finished architectural school.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, is he going to work in the company.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: He's gonna get the same he's gonna get the same option. Listen,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: you can go out there, but I'm only supporting you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: if you come here.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: That's right. You got it. You got it? You got it?
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, so, so what's that like? Right as a
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: I mean obviously as a CEO and an executive, but
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: also as a mom. Right, you have this lineage of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: civil engineer, civil engineer, architect cvial engineer, and now you
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: have somebody who wants to deviate from that plan.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's hard to take, but it's the cars I'm dealt.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: And you know, I'm really good at not trying to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: make something into what it's not, just accepting because the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: truth sets me for So if I recognize it is
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: what it is, then I can make a decision. And
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: I love making decisions. You take me as a Texas,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: I've making decisions.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: So okay, let's talk about Affirmation Tower. Okay, so this
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: is a project, if it's able to be completed, the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: only skyscraper in New York with your majority black owned ownership, Yes,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: and all black, mostly black owned team as far as
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: on the construction side, on a lot of different aspects
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: of it. Don Peebles leading in charge, the most successful
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: black real estate developer in American history. So you're going
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: to come in as the construction on it? Is that correct?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: And developer?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're a part of the development team too. Okay,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: So so you guys develop you do realestate development.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: I've invested in projects that I've worked on. So a
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: lot of time developers become contractors because they have all
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: these you know, real estate assets that need some type
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 5: of maintenance or you know, refurb machine or whatever. So
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: they create construction companies, and a lot of times construction
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: companies become real estate developers because you know, they're taking
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: on the biggest risk for real estate developer is the construction,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: and the contractor takes that risk. So you know, as
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: a contractor, you know you're you're making three percent on
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: a you know, two hundred million dollars deal as opposed
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: to the developer making twenty percent. So you start looking
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: at that money and you're like, oh my god, this
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 5: this you know, math would be better if I was
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: on that side of the table. But don you know,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: I've been knowing for so long, back when I was
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: in college, and so Don had said to me for
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: many years, like, you know, I really want you to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: come in on the development side, and so Affirmation Tower
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: is one of the projects where he said, this is
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: a good opportunity for you to be a partner in
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: the development. So I think it was CB It was
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 5: cbr E caught me up. They said that they have
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: this great project with psyche k at Javits, and we
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: think Don Peeples would be the best developer for this
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 5: project because we see a hotel there. Do you know him?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: I'm like, oh, yeah, you're kidding. I knew Don when
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: he only owned his efficiency And so I called Don
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 5: and Don was already looking at it. And so c
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: b r E and Don got together because cbr E
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: they do market analysis, which was very important as to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: what should be in the building, and so they became
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: a part of our team. And then Craig became the
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: part of our team. And so it's Don, Steve Whitcoff,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: who I don't know owns millions of square feet of
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: real estate in New York, myself and Craig, so we're
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: the owners. David adj is the architect. MCCUSI would be
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: the contractor along with another company, Suffolk Construction, and then
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: it's MWBE thirty five percent all the way down the line.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: It's a very exciting project. We just need to get
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: it off the ground.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it speaks to the power of working
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: together whether I mean obviously have you worked together prior
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: to that?
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 5: Yes, So downtown on Leonard Street, Don finished a residential
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 5: building probably two years ago. We worked on that. That's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: probably the first building owned by a black person south
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: of one hundred and twenty fifth Street. But there's not
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: a skyscraper, and that's what we want to do.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, So all right, where does it stand right now?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: I know there's some challenges politically, So where is it?
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: What's up? Yes?
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: ESD ended the RFP process back in December of twenty
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: twenty one, and so they said they wanted to have
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: more affordable housing requirements with the RFP. So we are
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: waiting for the RFP to resurface. Uh, so we can
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: pursue it again. You know that that sits with ESD,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: the governor and her team to what yeah, as to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 5: what they want to do.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: So that that's how the plan works. They say that
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: they want more focal housing, you go back to the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: drum board with the team and say how do we
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: meant more infordable housing into it? And then we.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: Resubmit depending on what they have in the RFP. Yeah,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: well you know, yes, I mean you know it might
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: be that they affordable housing's go somewhere else. I don't
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: understand housing on you know, eleventh Avenue by Javits. It's
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: not a lot of amenities over there.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: It's like the wasteland.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but there's pressure. We need eight hundred thousand new
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: units of housing in New York over the next ten years.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Put it in where they can get it. How important
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: is to be politically connected in dealing with you know, politics,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: like you actually actively? Do you stay neutral? Or do
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: you back politicians? Do you support campaigns? Do you go
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: to you know, the brunch and pay ten thousand dollars
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: to eat? Yes? Yes, yes, yes to everything.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 5: I would say for every project that I have pursued
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: for my entire professional career as a technical buyer and
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: a political buyer. And if we can satisfy the technical
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: buyer and the politics is going our way, then we
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: have a better chance of succeeding. So that's everything we do.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: The technical what's a technical buyer?
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: They are the bureaucrats or they're the procurement team that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: looks at the proposal and says, okay, check you have
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: all the relevant experience, you have the great resumes, they're
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: the ones that do that. The proposals, you know, well
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: thought out and written, and they tend to make a
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 5: recommendation to some higher up, and that higher up it's
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: a lot of instances could be a political arm.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: So it's important to have good relationship with the politicians.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, yes, Celar, city council mayors, all that, all
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: of that, congressman, presidents.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: So across all parties.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because also they're advocating for MWBE. You know, they
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: may not say I want Machisic to have this project,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: but they certainly can say I want a firm of
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 5: color to get this project.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: So how do you how right? So this is interesting
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: because is a deadline between is a deadline between like
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: paying somebody for favoritism and supporting somebody's political campaign. Like
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: I remember when Hillary Clinton was running for president, and
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: I think it was Golden Sets, one of these investment
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: firms they had donated like and I'm not one hundred
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: percent showing a number, but it's around there eighteen million
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: to her campaign. But they donated seventeen million of Donald
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Trump's campaign. So they had you to bet either way
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: they won, which is smart. But then how do you
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: then it's like sometimes like the mayor in Chicago that
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: went to jail because I think it might have been construction,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: Like people were actually paying him money and he was
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: giving jobs to the people that were paying him. So
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: where's the balance in that. Well?
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: Number one is you don't pay the play, right, you
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: don't pay a politician for a job.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Well, you kind of are, so it kind of is
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: being kind of you kind of are paying play. Like
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: if you're supporting somebody's campaign a million dollars, it's kind
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: of paying the play.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 5: But you're also supporting their agenda, okay, and you know
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: their agenda. If their agenda isn't about MWBE, they don't
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: get any money from me. So you're supporting an agenda,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 5: and you're relying on that politician to say, when it
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: comes time to make selections, I need I need the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: team that has the most MWBE participation on it, or
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 5: I need the prime to be an MWBE as opposed
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 5: to a politician who says they don't care about it
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: at all. They'll accept a team that has no MWBE.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 5: So you're really supporting an agenda.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: So on the MWB front, when you look at the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: landscape and you sometimes you've been in against other firms.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: How many firms do you see in the landscape when
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: you're going to try to get a project? Are you
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: seeing a lot more? How does that look?
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 5: It's still not a lot that you know, play in
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: our space or compete in our space. It could definitely
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: definitely be better, you know, I don't know how many,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: but we definitely need more or but it's growing. I mean,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: less than two percent of all contracts for the City
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: of New York go to black women. I mean that's
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: a low number.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but how many people are actually forging that? Because
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: I've heard stories in beforewhard they have like a black
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: person at the front face of it. It's really a
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: white company or somebody's wife that happens.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: That happens, you know, Kathy holk or I think just
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 5: passed the law to kind of root that out. Like
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: there's an ig that you can call independently if you
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: see it, but people don't do it.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like there's two sides of that, right,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: Like if there's less competition from a business standpoint, that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: means there's going to be more opportunities for your company. Sure,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: But on the other end. At some point there needs
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: to be more to have more representations. So, like, do
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: you feel a responsibility? I mean you're ready trailblazing and
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: obviously speaking on platforms like this and others helps people
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: become more aware and helps to aspire to become what
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: you've become in a space. But it's like a double edge, right,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: So how do you how do you battle that? It is?
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 5: And it isn't you know? I always bring other mwbs
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 5: on my projects. Matter of fact, for the school, I
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: mean for New York City Economic Development Corporation, we have
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: the highest MWBE numbers on our projects, and so we train,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: we promote, we build capacity. And I know it sounds
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 5: like a double edged sword. The thing is, it's just
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 5: there's just so much work. It's enough for everybody to eat.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 5: And I feel that way. I just need everyone to
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 5: be professional and provide the same level of services, cause
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: we get we get the broad brush. Uh you know
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: when someone one does something wrong that we you know,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: all of us.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like Kanye, It's like Kanye.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, No, it's true.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: They try to every single person for one person.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: Exactly does exactly.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: They do that all the time. But nobody else is
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: held to that same standard. No, it's like Sam Bankman free,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: like he didn't destroy it for every single like he
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: took down twenty billion dollars in a day. I know,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: nobody nobody's painting a brush for.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Every got shut down Gemini.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just like you know, it doesn't work right.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, I saw we crashed. He walked away with
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: one hundred million after you know, losing all those people's money,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: and then three week.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: Press to it.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: You know, Hudson Yards got six billion dollars of tax
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: payers money and we can't get psych k at Javit
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: Center and we're not asking for these subs these Yeah.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: Well, for last question for me, how is the economic
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: times affecting construction interest rates, specifically inflation. We're in a recession,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: even though they haven't officially announced it yet. How has
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: that affected your business?
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: I think it's going to affect it on the private
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 5: sector side. You know, interest rates still may go up
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 5: another point. And so what I've heard from my other
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 5: colleagues in the business that a lot of the private
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: developers are saying, Okay, we're we're going to hold on
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: our new developments. We're going to slide everything out for
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: a year. So that's detrimental to them because they probably
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: have staff that they're ready to put on a new project,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: and now they that staff has nowhere to go for
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: a year. The other thing is the supply chain issues
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 5: were happen, you know, the electrical gear. I mean, we're
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 5: starting a new project for JP Morgan Chase in Wilmington
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: and to get our generators is eighty months. Eighty months,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: and so what does that do? That delays the job?
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: That costs more money. I mean, so it's it's a problem.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 5: It's a problem.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: And what about what about the inflation? Because where the
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: materials are coming from China?
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: No, our material is coming from everywhere, all over the world,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 5: all over.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: So how that inflation is you're paying You're paying a
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: higher price now, so that means that the job is
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: going to cost more money to get done.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, correct, We passed it right on to our clients.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: The other issue is insurance. You know, New York has
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: the highest insurance when it comes to construction, I mean
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 5: exponentially higher than any other date because of the scaffolding
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: law that we have, and now they're looking to impose
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: even stricter laws with respect to the scaffolding law, which
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 5: would increase our insurances even more, and so that cost
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: gets bared by our clients. I mean, we have to
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: deal with it the first year, but the second year,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 5: you know, all those costs are in our numbers now
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 5: and they go straight to our clients and so construction,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 5: you know, becomes unbearable. So we're lobbying trying to make
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 5: sure we can keep our insurance numbers. Now.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: So you said inflation and supply chain, but we didn't
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: even say anything the pandemic. Yeah, the effects that that's had, right,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: because you couldn't even have workers on site, and so
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: I'm imagining there's a backdlay of what you were doing
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: on projects. How do you catch up or how to
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: even manage that.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 5: Well, fortunately, most of our projects were deemed necessary. Okay,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 5: so maybe we had a couple of projects in Philadelphia
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: and a couple of projects in New York where people
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: couldn't go back to the site for six months, but
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: most of our projects we were back to work in
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: about a month to two months, which is fortunate. And
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: then we did apply for the PPP loan, and you know,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: we were able to get that something from the government
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: for the first time it's supposed to pay taxes.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: So how technology? How have you embraced technology? So that's
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: changed in the last thirty years from when you first
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: started to now.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and our industry is notorious bad when it comes
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: to technology, and everything we do is a big data
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: problem if you think about it, and so I think
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: the technology is catching up. The problem is it's just
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 5: so many different platforms. I wish it was just one platforms.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: You know that that does the schedule, another one that
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 5: does the accounting, you know, another one does the inspection,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: I mean the pre qualification. I wish it was just
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 5: one platform where it all came together. There are a
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 5: couple of contractors out there who are developing proprietory software
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: to do just that. It's a little big for us
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: to do, but hopefully they will create something where we
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 5: have just one platform. But if there's anything out there new,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: we'll try it.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking one day there's going to be somebody who's
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: going to have to steal. Somebody's gonna have the machinery,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: you'll have the construction. It will be one universe. It'll
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: be a clean cut. We have to we have self
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: reliance systems for us to just develop whatever we want.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 5: M Yeah, I feel it coming. It's coming.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: It's coming coming in the label for too with yeah,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence and robots. What's your thoughts on that. I
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: think that that's maybe not right now, but in the
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: next twenty thirty years, a lot of these construction jobs,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: the workforce is going to be cut dramatically because of
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: machines and artificial intelligence and robots.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: Uh, we'll see. I you know, I think if any
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: impact that there's gonna be that could have that drastic
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: of a change like diminishing the number of workers would
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 5: probably be modular. You know, engineer type stuff that's done
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: in a controlled warehouse that can you know, be shipped
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: to a site and stacked. That I see happening faster,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 5: and that it'll be a while where it happens in
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 5: New York because everything is a specialty here. Everything is
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 5: the first time you've ever done it. You can't you
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 5: can't get any redundancies to really stack it.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: By the regulation you had. Yeah, you got the domestic
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: obviously projects anything from an international standpoint that interests you US.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: You see on the pipeline down the.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: Road, Well, let's see, I chased the saudiast a few
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 5: years ago. Uh, they were building about ten soccer stadiums
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 5: and a friend of mine said, listen, Cheryl just wants
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 5: you to meet me in London. I can't tell you
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: who you're meeting, but just trust me. And so I'm
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 5: like okay, and so you know it's I got to
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: be there in twenty four hours at such and such
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 5: a time. So I do it. And before I walk
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 5: into the room, the guy, my friend, he tells me,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 5: he said, you bring me Osama. Ben Latton's brother saw
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 5: Ben Lawton. So Ben Lawton is the largest contractor in
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: Saudi Arabia, and I mean to the tune of like
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 5: one hundred billion a year. They were the Kings builder
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: and so you know, they did everything there, and so
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 5: they were looking to see how they could integrate with
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 5: American companies to build these stadiums. And you know, my
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 5: first concern is I'm a woman, like you know, some
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 5: days you couldn't even touch Sad if he had on
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: you know, his I don't know what you call it,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: the garb, yeah, whatever that means. He was a shape
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: that day and a woman couldn't touch him. But if
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 5: he had on American clothes, you could shake his hand.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 5: So I never I couldn't understand, you know, all of
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 5: their regulations, but it was it looked like a really
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 5: good opportunity. You know, they were paying our flights and
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 5: everything to come over to talk to them. But then
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 5: the king died and then the oil prices dropped, and
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 5: so they were losing money every day. Not that they
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 5: didn't have a lot to lose. I mean they it
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 5: didn't matter.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: To them, but just got a little tighter.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: Yes, And then I don't know if you remember the
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 5: struggle with m B S and.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: We had a whole conversation about this, okay abuda the
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: journalists they got, yes, well you did when we had
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: that conversation.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was me, you and Cheese No on the
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: roof and I would dubai and I wasn't diffidend. No,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: I wasn't dividend. We had the conversation about that conversation. Yes,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: came camera.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: Well there's in the change they you know, they didn't
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 5: know if they wanted to build the stadiums anymore. Doctor Zair,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 5: who was my connect, died in a plane crash with
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: Sad's mother flying into London, and so it just all
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: kind of fell apart. But you know what I realized
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: in that is, you know, I probably wouldn't do that again.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: And I wouldn't do it again because I didn't have protection,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 5: you know. You know, it's a different culture. You can't
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 5: open a business over there unless the Saudi Arabian is
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 5: your partner. It's just too many unknowns and too many risks.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: And I'm not sure that I would do that again.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 5: And then I know companies who did who didn't get paid,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 5: and again I just come back to New York. I'm home.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 5: It's so much business. I'm telling you, there are clients
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 5: that I can still tap into that I haven't. It's enough.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 5: It's enough.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, make it anywhere.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 5: Every right, everywhere, everywhere.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: You have it. Lady and gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: This is fun.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: We appreciate. Yes, anything where you would like, like, any
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: last words, any any thing you'd like to tell the
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: audience at.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 5: All Black entrepreneurship, that's my passion. You asked me about
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 5: helping helping MWBE firms. Recently, we started Legacy Engineering. That
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 5: was in nineteen ninety one with a good friend of mine.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 5: It's a mechanical electrical plumbing and fire protection design company
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 5: black on me and my friend John Rice, and we
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 5: started it with the whole purpose of creating entrepreneurship for
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 5: black engineers. So we are scaling this company right now,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 5: and we're bringing in engineers of color to eventually take
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 5: over this company from us. And to me, that's like
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 5: the best, and I am so excited about this one.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 5: This is a real giveback and so we're excited about that.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 5: And we've been extremely successful because there aren't any black
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 5: owned mechanical, electrical, plumbing, engineering firms in New York And
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 5: just think about all that work out there and all
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 5: the requirements out there, and then people like the goodwill
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 5: that this company represents. So that's all I would talk about.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 5: I encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: You have it, ladies and gentlemen, We appreciate you. Yes.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: Well the classic episode.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: Trailblazer for real, Yes, yes, and probably one of the
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: best dress I guess we've had.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: Oh just that, I'd say that, thank you, Thank you.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: Shot everybody own pitteon dot com. Shout to everybody at
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: e y L University powered by Recession Proof, the biggest
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: just got bigger. Shout out to all of y'all that
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: are part of that community. I mean it's an incredible
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: place to be shot. Shout there, vice supporting merger. Shout
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: to the MERG team. Bam uh my boy Sminny love
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: is love Ya keeps a poying Yeah.
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys, rock once to see you next week.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: Peace boos.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 6: My graduates from my school being force back drop bag
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 6: drop Mike Drot backdrop.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted legal border
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 3: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported, you will
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: never return. But if you register using our CBP home,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: app and leave now. You could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump America's laws,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: border and families will be protected.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,