Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi, I'm John Koh and welcome to icons of D.C. area real estate, a one on one interview show highlighting the backgrounds and career trajectory of leading luminaries in the Washington D.C. area Real estate market. The purpose of the show is to highlight their backgrounds and their experiences and some interesting stories about their current business as well as their past and to cite some things that you might take away both from educational standpoint as well as lessons learned in the industry and some amusing and sometimes interesting background stories. So I'm hoping that you will enjoy the show. Before I introduce my guest for this episode, I want to share some information about CoEnterprises, my company. It serves income producing real estate market participants through four distinct platforms. First, I advise early stage real estate companies on securing project financing and on forming and executing operating and financial strategy. My current clients include Bricklane, a multifamily investment and development firm who began in D.C. and has expanded to the Southeast U.S. with many acquisitions and projects and One Circle Company, an early stage multifamily developer investor in Boston who was nearing their first development project 2. Career counseling for early and mid career Real estate professionals with a program approach including two one hour sessions and follow up six months progress reports.
My clients range from recent college graduates to mid career executives who are contemplating change and three of course, this podcast sharing knowledge and insights of market leaders. I want to give a special shout out to my associate on this effort, Colin Madden, who provides pro script, perspective and marketing assistance to produce the podcast.
Finally, for deriving from the podcast listener base and my experience as a ULI mentor, Colin and I initiated the iconic journey in CRE, a community of young professionals from 22 to 40 years old who participate and contribute to online and live meetings, property tours, mastermind groups, book readings and career resources.
In summary, CoEnterprise's mission is to provide, motivate and guide high achieving individuals and young companies to get the results they want and in doing so, to elevate the D.C. area Real estate community. To learn more, click on my website coenterprises.com or reach out to me at johnoenterprises.com to learn about any of these services. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining me once again on icons of D.C. area real estate.
I want to welcome my guest today who is Herman Bulls. Herman is the Vice Chairman of jll, the international brokerage firm. Herman is African American and a leader in throughout not only the real estate industry but in several other fields including defense and technology, etc. Because of he's on seven boards as well.
Herman grew up in rural Alabama and was a football star in high school. He then attended West Point and was recruited by all the military services.
Went to West Point, but he was recruited by the first black football player there. He became a football player, but his sophomore year he was told that he wouldn't start for the Army Navy game. So he decided, nope, not going to stay on a football team, unfortunately, and became a radio announcer there. And one of his duties was to announce for army basketball at the time he was attending. Their head coach was Mike Krzyzewski, who obviously is famous from Duke, where he left and went and became a Hall of Fame coach.
While there, Herman went to Army Ranger School, which he says is the most challenging thing of his life. He learned significant things about his tenacity and ability to deal with things. He then subsequently, after serving at West Point and also teaching there, he went on to get his MBA at Harvard Business School and attended there for two years.
Led the African American group while at Harvard. Then he joined LaSalle Partners in real estate because he didn't want to be a consultant and found the real estate sector suited to his skills in brokerage and leasing and networking. So he started there in Washington and internally set up his own group to provide government services, which JLL and other brokerage firms hadn't done at the time, and grew that group significantly. So much so that he decided that he would leave JLL and build that group outside the company because he wasn't getting the support he wanted at the time.
Separately, then he was approached by Walker Dunlap to start Green Park Financial, which at the time was the Fannie Mae du lender he built that, decided that he wanted to continue with his government work, did that separately, and then was re asked to go back to Jonesland JLL and became on the board.
And he kept his other businesses alive as well. So he's very strong business career. And while there, he then got on several other boards and now is on seven boards.
He stresses many times that he likes to have multiple sources of income and really no people telling him what to do and how to do it. He kind of has governed his own career, which is a spectacular thing to do.
So beyond that, Herman has many interests and many network connections. He talks a lot about his relationships, what he had to do as a black man in business, also in the military. He deals with social issues, he talks about the environment, he talks about the markets. It's very, very thorough, wide ranging conversation with Herman. So without further ado, please Enjoy this great conversation. Herman Bowles, welcome to icons of D.C. area real estate. Thank you for joining me today, John.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: It's a pleasure and somewhat surprised to be here, to tell you the truth.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Well, I've overviewed your background in the introduction. Your life and career are very impressive. You're involved in so many initiatives currently. But since this is a real estate podcast, please describe your role at JLL and your company's role in advising real estate clients. After that, we'll get into your background.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Okay, great. Well, first of all, Jones, Lang, La Salle, many of you know, publicly traded company, a Fortune 200 company on the New York Stock Exchange, headquartered operationally in Chicago, Illinois, and over 100,000 employees around the world. We operate our business in three regions of the world, the Americas, Europe, Middle east and Asia, and also Asia Pacific. And most people obviously are familiar, but we really think of our business in two categories. We provide services to investors in real estate. And we've got about 75, maybe $80 billion that we invest in all product types around the world. So we take capital from all the regions I just spoke about from one region to the other and all product types. And then so from that we need to be able to do acquisitions, we need to be able to do redevelopments, we need to be able to do asset management, we need to be a part property management, we need to do financing, we need to be able to do dispositions. And more importantly, when you're dealing with the institutional investors is the reporting. Get that right? So that's part of the firm. The other part of the firm is what we call our occupier services, where I spend the majority of my time. And of course I early in my clear career I worked on the investor side. But on the occupier side, we're providing services to organizations that use real estate to accomplish their goal. So that is the property management for investors, the tenant representation. Big focus on sustainability for us. Colin Dyer, who was our CEO prior to our current CEO over 12 years ago, he saw the sustainability and how important that was going to be. And we made investments in that area to be ahead of the curve. And it's helped us tremendously with our corporate clients. And probably the fastest growing part of our business is our facilities management business, where for the likes of Procter and Gamble, Goldman Sachs, bank of America, et cetera, et cetera, we manage their real estate, bringing to bear the opportunities for economies of scale, specialization of tasks, and believe it or not, providing career opportunities for employees. So you manage your own Facilities. There's only so much research and development and training that you can do. But we're able to do this on a broad platform to bring those services to our clients.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Great. So what about your specific role? What, what do you, what are your day to day activities with tll?
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Well, I'll start with maybe where I started and where I'm ended up now, chronologically. So I joined LaSalle Partners in 1989 out of the Army. I was at the Pentagon, and like most Harvard Business School graduates in that time, it was either investment banking, real estate, or consulting that you were going to do. And as I was getting out of the military, I had met an individual, Robert McCormick from Chicago in the Pentagon. He was Assistant Secretary of Finance for the Navy. And I was telling him of my desires. Matter of fact, I met him one summer. I was working there as I was teaching at West Point. I did a summer tour down in the Pentagon and I told him my desires and he was in investment banking. He said, hey, you know, I've got a friend by name is Stuart Scott who runs and I'd never heard of a style partner obviously at the time, and be happy to introduce you to him. And obviously LaSalle was in Chicago, went out, met Stuart, and came down between kind of McKinsey consulting and real estate. I said, well, this, this consulting thing is going to require a lot of traveling. And I had three small kids at the time, so I focused on real estate and went in with lasalle. And I was very fortunate. We used to do at risk development and I was actually hired as a development manager. So my initial projects were Manufacturers Handover Plaza, Wilmington, Delaware. Really the base, the base building was in. And I did the rest of that, developed it. And then 414 Water street in Baltimore, Maryland, which was a development lease and purchase agreement with the city of Baltimore. So I did those two. And you probably remember the late 80s, what happened to real estate?
[00:11:26] Speaker A: I was in Washington.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah, you're there. And we had a little. Obviously the banks had gone a little while, so we had to pull back. And all of us developers, we became what, asset managers.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: So at lasalle, were you in dc?
[00:11:38] Speaker B: I was indeed. I've been in DC the entire time.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: I was from the Pentagon. Went. Right.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Did La Salle have an office here at the time?
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Oh, sure, sure, we did. Yep.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: I didn't realize that.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Okay. Oh, evolve, keep going.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: So evolved from that. So I went from development, which hit a Nader. Right. So developers became what, investment managers. So I went over to what is now LaSalle Investment Management.
And my clients were New York State Teachers Retirement System, where I serve on their board now their Real Estate Advisory Board, Alaska permanent fund, pincers, etc. Etc. And I handled our relations with the Oliver Car company before they went public. We were there, one of their capital sources. So we had Metropolitan Square, 1201 F Street, 2025 M Street Score 45 6, which is the AARP building. So I was the owner's rep on all of those deals with, with the auto car company. And then what happened, John? I, I had this premonition that I've always been somewhat entrepreneurial. And I saw this thing with public real estate. There was something. I said, there's something there. And I had this group, I had like five analysts managed at the time was probably 700, $800 million portfolio. Now that was 30 years ago, so that, you know, three, $4 billion now. And I had taught at West Point, so I had an idea of what a university environment was, although this was a little different at West Point. And I said, there's something. We being the firm had just signed up the largest facilities management deal in the world at the time with one of the baby bells out of the Midwest. And I said, wait a minute, GSA's got all this real estate. We know how to manage it big. I'm going to go after this. And again, nobody told me, you know, entrepreneurs, you have to get it from internal. You know, it's not somebody telling you to do something. So I first focused on doing my day job because I had to pay the bills, so to speak. And I just started working on this on my own. Then I said, well, you know what colleges and universities. A friend of mine from West Point was on the board of the state of Maryland trustees that oversaw the colleges. I was talking to him, he said, you know, we just don't do a great job with our real estate either. So I put a business plan together in early mid 95 and I called it Public Institutions. No other firm was doing this. And it focused on federal, state and local government, colleges and universities, not for profit and transportation. Because remember, we had done Union Station, we were working on Grand Central Terminal. So I just. And the, the, the, the commonality amongst those, I thought was their programmatically objective or priorities as opposed to financial investment return. And I just went out, started walking the halls of the Pentagon. I let a couple people in the front firm know what I was doing. And I wrote this business plan and sent it up. And yeah, I'm a vice President. And it was like, yeah, government real estate. Yeah, I don't, I don't know. That doesn't sound too exciting. And I just was not going to be denied. And I went out and a friend of mine that I'd gone to Harvard Business School with was working at the gsa. And there's this little building called the old Post Office Pavilion. Sure. It is now the previously the Trump Hotel. And it's possible to get assignments from the government on a sole source basis under certain circumstances. And I was able to get the assignment to do the analysis of that building. They wanted to know what should it be? From gsa. From gsa. Okay. And I got the assignment. The people in Chicago said, wait a minute, I thought everything with the government had an rfp. How, how did you get this? What is going on? Did you do something untoward or whatever? And long story short, got that one done, then the next one. A friend of mine in our research had said, hey, University of Pennsylvania is getting ready to build a new hotel and they're looking for blah, blah, blah. So I got introduced to him, guy named John Fry, who was the evp. He's now the president of Drexel. Long story short, we were able to get that development management contract to build a hotel conference center at University of Pennsylvania. So all of a sudden we had a couple of things to build upon. And then from my walk in the halls of the Pentagon and as a matter of fact, a classmate of mine was Secretary of the army and he had nothing to do with the contract. But I didn't let the people in the Pentagon know that because you walk around and people think, you know, people. And then we won the opportunity to lead the housing privatization process for the army and for the army and the Air Force. Over the years we ended up doing over 15, $17 billion worth of trust structured transactions. So that started building the business and it was just me.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Were you in the reserves at that time?
[00:16:33] Speaker B: I was in the reserves.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: You don't necessarily walk the Pentagon as a civilian?
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Well, well, yeah, I do have. And the security wasn't what it is today. And I was able to. Yeah, I could just show my car before 9 11. Before 9 11, of course. So just having. And obviously my classmates and the people I knew were in positions, I won't say of authority, but influence. So it gave that opportunity.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: So you're like a lobbyist there yourself? Almost to some extent in the Pentagon.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: I never thought of it that way. You're probably right, John.
So did that and built this practice at jll called public institutions.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: And today it's a. As a firm, you know, we do over a billion dollars, you know, worldwide, over a billion dollars a year. So this has remained separate.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: It's not. You never merged this into the company?
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's definitely merged into the company.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Well, that happened.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Well, let me tell you how this happened. So I was out doing this, and there's something about marketing and sales, and what it is about is about good bedside manners. So you need to make people feel comfortable.
And what I was doing the whole time, I did the Penn project, the army privatization, gsa, and there were a lot of other smaller projects. I was representing this as JLL's Public Institutions Group.
There was really no such thing.
I would go out, get these opportunities, then I would come back into the company and say, hey, Joe, I need this bill, I need this, blah, blah, blah. And at first it was. People were excited about it. And then finally you get toward the end of the year and I've got an opportunity because I was in what we call the sales group. So I was really in our sales group. We called it client services. And, you know, the emperor has no clothes, so to speak. Okay. So I was representing. I had all this material put together, and it was true that the firm had all these capabilities and I made people feel comfortable saying that, you know, we had this group and in essence, we did have the group. It was me, a group of one. And I got to tell you, it started to get so successful that I was having the opportunity to bring opportunities to firm and I would have to sell twice. I get the client convinced to do it, then I have to run back to the firm, go behind the curtain and say, hey, Joe, I need this bill. I need this whatever. And I'm going to tell you, I did that for about two or three years and it kept growing. I said, hey, guys, this isn't working for me. I said, oh, Herman, you're great. You're doing a great job. Whatever. I said, guys, this isn't working for me. And to tell you the truth, I had been. This was back when I was desirable, so to speak, as an employee. And people had been coming after me to work. And this was probably in the late night, 1998, 99. And I had given conversations and Mallory Walker over at Walker Dunlap, Mali had seen me in a couple of presentations. I was very active in the local dcbia and the real estate group, et cetera, et cetera. And I'd be on panels and Mallory, you know, Made a couple conversations with me and then he finally said, you know, it's coincidental. He said, look, let's talk and let's meet. And we met and I got really frustrated with the way I was doing business at jll. And it was not a. From senior management's perspective, it was looking like, you know, this is great. You're winning business, we're doing well, and you ought to be happy. But internally, it was very, very exhausting. And I actually.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: So you had no support? You didn't have anybody to help you?
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah, the support would be if I had a leasing thing that would leasing group with me. If I had a development thing, I'd get people out of the project development services group. So it wasn't structured. So I had to assemble your own team. I had to assemble teams internally for every opportunity.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: And that just got really tiring.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: I can understand.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: And, and I basically, I resigned. And when I resigned, they said, oh my gosh, here's piece of paper design. What is it you want? How do you want to do it? I said, it's too late. And I went over now one thing, because we had won the large assignment with the army housing privatization.
And you know, I was ready just to resign. And they said, well, Herman, we would like for you to stay on the board of the Americas. So stay on the board and you leave, but we want you to stay on the board. And that was smart on both, both, both sides because I had the relationships and this group worked with me and we were having a lot of progress. So. But I went over and I ran Green Park Financial. Sure. The Fannie Mae DS lender, of course. So I ran that business and I was still on the board at JLL. So I saw, matter of fact, on 9 11, I was in Ojai, California at a JLL board when the attack went on. Pentagon. And I had a group of people that worked in the Pentagon that were on that team that I, that I led. And you know, it was. And I was meeting with the CEO, Stuart Scott at the time, time. And on that morning he said, hey, we, we need you to come back.
And in the meantime, Mallory had decided that Willie was coming back into the company. And you know, do you need two Harvard MBAs?
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Well, I, I interviewed Willie.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Is that right? Oh yeah, yeah. And you know, he had been out doing other stuff and you know, Mallory was magnanimous about it. But let's just say we came to a mutual agreement. Agreement that I would go in and do some other things. And I had to work again, but I didn't have to work again tomorrow. And I just took some time, and JLL wanted me to come back, and I just said, no, you know, I'm. I'm an entrepreneur now, and I'm going to do some other things. So, John, what I did, I started the process. I had helped Fannie Mae with some student housing projects because I'd done that at jll, right? So I knew a lot of people in that community. And when I went over to talk to Fannie Mae about my leaving, they suggested, well, why don't you consider maybe coming and working with us? And I'll never forget, I was sitting there and I said, hey, instead of me working for you, why don't I work with you? So what are you talking about? I said, I'd like to start one of those dust things myself.
And long story short, I guess, you know, a little background. So this is all happening simultaneously, right? JLL is asking me. It's announced that I'm leaving Green Park. JLL is asking me to come back. And I'd already said no twice, because I had the opportunity to do. I had so many clients. I started a company, Bull's Advisory Group.
John Fry was leaving Penn, and he talked to the president.
And they called me and said, because I'd helped, I was their advisor in real estate. And they said, well, why don't you come on up and work for us for a while? And Judith Rowden was the president, and I was talking to Judith. I said, judith, I can tell you I think I've had an impact on your organization, but it's been as an outsider. And if I come and work for you, I got to tell you, within six months, my view is going to be drowned out because I'll be one of the natives. So I said, I won't come work for you, but you can hire my company.
And she did not hesitate. And by the way, John, I didn't have a company at the time. It was a concept. She said, okay, that makes sense. So I went out immediately and incorporated Bulls Advisory Group, which still exists to this day as my family office, and got a consulting agreement with University of Pennsylvania. I gave them two days a week at a very healthy amount. And let's say it was more than the base that I was making at jll, because obviously, you know real estate, you make your money in the bonuses. And then at the same time, I'm having conversations with JLL about coming back. At the same time, some having conversations with Fannie Mae about not Working for them, working with them, putting together a DUST license on my own. And little by little, everything fell into place. I decided to come back to jll. But their understanding was I was going to continue to put together the Fannie Mae Dust Company. And I was basically part time at dll. Now the public institutions continued, okay, but we know that leadership matters. And it was. You know, the guys that I'd hired were running it, and I came back and we got a spurt in the arm and that thing kind of took off again. And I was doing this again part time. My office with Bulls capital that I finally put together, and my initial partner was SunTrust Bank. I need an institutional partner. And those offices were here in Tysons. And then jll, and then you couldn't imagine it aligning more. That's when I first started getting corporate boards as well.
So the corporate board thing started. So I had just this portfolio of activities. And one of the things that I was motivated by, to be honest with you, was I really enjoy running Green park. Okay. And I had never been in a position, got to look at where I'd been. I'd been in the army, where I stayed for 12 years. I voluntarily went to JLL. And notice when I went to the army, what did I do? I stayed in reserves. I hopefully retired as a colonel. I met JLL and jll. I leave. But what happens? They offer me a board seat and I keep the relationship. And then the issue with Green Park, I was just really motivated to do it when I. Obviously they had made a different strategic decision in the direction they wanted to go. And to be honest with you, at the time, I saw it as a failure. And what I didn't know, that it was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. Because what it did, it awakened me to say, I will. I said at that point, because I really love the job. I will never be so dependent on one source of income or satisfaction of a job that I will have this feeling of emptiness that I have now. And that's why a bunch of people wanted to hire me. And I. I just said, I said, no, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do some things on my own. So it worked out with the Bulls Advisory Group with PIN as the first client. And we've had a couple other clients. I got a. One of my former DLL colleagues that worked for me as a 1090 employee, and I got a couple of other. Matter of fact, we developed the Lancaster County Convention Center Authority because John Fry had gone up to be president of Franklin and Marshall. And he was on the board. They had a problem with this. He said, I know a guy that can help us. So your reputation is just so important in so many ways. And it comes back.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: So bring it to today because you said you kind of were affiliated and you're on the board, but are you an employee or.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yes, I came. So what happened? We came to an agreement at JLL that I would you to do the things that I were doing. There weren't conflicts with jll. And so I, I, I basically had two jobs. A lot of people didn't know it in the firm because you needed something. I was there. So I was running PI. So I ran public institutions up until probably about 15, 6, 16, 17 and had two other people I was running that group with. And we were making a lot of money for the firm, but we were also making a lot of money. And I think a couple of board members said, you guys got bulls over here in this little thing. We need to have him. You guys should have him touch more.
And they actually. John and while I was running my company, Bulls Capital Partners, JLL wanted me to run what we call, it's called Work Dynamics now, but it was called Corporate Solutions. And they wanted me to run that group. And I actually, which would be a stepping stone to be CEO or whatever. And I actually turned the position down. And the reason I did, to be totally frank and we think about things, you got to do what you enjoy doing and what you're going to have fun doing. Number two, I probably would, I had probably two boards at the time. And though that position is so all encompassing that you got to do that 24, 7. And I really enjoyed the variety of my board then. Number three, I had just restructured Bulls Capital Partners and Goldman Sachs was now my partner everywhere. And you know, I wanted to. And those guys are, they were, they were good partners, but they're tough. As a matter of fact, they wanted me to say I wasn't going to do anything except that. And I wouldn't agree with that. So I had this portfolio of activities and then again about seven or eight years ago, I took a title of vice chairman. And with that I'm basically a center fielder. I can work anywhere in the firm. Firm. And my simple job description is I help teams win.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:29:18] Speaker B: That's what I do. So this past weekend I was down in Tennessee with the inauguration of the governor, met with the governor, the deputy governor, because we run a large portion of the state of Tennessee's real estate A deal that I helped bring in probably eight or 10 years ago. We're about to expand to one of their universities, which is a new good for them, good for us. Monday I was somewhere in the Midwest with a Fortune 50 company with a team, and we're going to look at their real estate worldwide. And it just keeps on and on. I oversee right now, for example, our relationship with Microsoft all around the world. And they're one of our major, major clients, Kaiser Permanente. I oversee that. So on a typical year, let's just say pre Covid on a typical year, I would probably bring in 20 to 30 relationships a year. And post Covid with kind of what's going now, it's still somewhere between 10 and 20 new relationships a year that I bring in. So in essence, I don't say this in a boastful way, but I'm a rainmaker for the firm and I help our team swing and then I maintain the relationships at the C suite level.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: So it's capital markets, it's corporate, it's.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: The whole any anything. So I've been fortunate it the boards that I sat on. Okay. As you know, you've been in real estate a long time and what's it about? It's about relationships.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm on USA board. I'm one of the governors of the American red cross with eight other Fortune 500 CEOs. Okay. Two of those. I've done business as a result of that. And you look at all the boards I've been on, probably seven, eight public company boards are over my career on three now, plus usaa. And you need people. Matter of fact, I won't name the company, but an individual that's on a board with me. I remember talking to him when he joined the board and we just spoke and he said, oh yeah, you a jll? I said yes. I, I don't at those situations, you don't sell. You just you're who you are. And then people see it and when they have an issue, kind of guess what they think of you. And they call them, of course. So I've got a situation right now that one of our competitors has that account account now. And when the CEO asked the, you know, the COO who realist for which real estate rolls up that hey, I want you to call my buddy Herman over at JLL and blah, blah, blah. So we're in the midst. Maybe if we talk again next year, I'll be able to tell you who and how that that turned out. But that's the over 60 to 70% of the deals that I do is somebody calling me as a result of relationships. Relationships. And the board of West Point is just phenomenal place to be to meet a lot of very, very, very exciting people. And you just, you're yourself, you meet them and it just happens.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: So really the trampoline of your success was the idea of when you started, you saw this government and this public sector piece that just wasn't there. And that was the opportunity.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: That was the opportunity. And as you know, every, every brother and their sister has that practice now because it's a huge market.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: It's massive.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: It's massive. And it still hasn't been penetrated Washington DC's basis, really. Yeah, it's true.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: So let's go back the plate, the wayback machine, as I call it and tell us about your origins a little bit.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Well, you know, I'm a, I'm a kid of the, of the, of the 60s from the South. I'm the youngest of seven, a family from Florence, Alabama. And I've been impacted by a lot of things. First of all, my mom was pregnant with me when my father was killed in a, in a tractor accident. We own two farms down in Alabama. And he was, he was so just. My, my dad was a laborer at TVA Tennessee Valley Authority. And I guess I got some of my entrepreneurship from him. But then in addition to that, we had two partials of land which by the way, total of about 200 acres still in the family today, really, that I kind of manage in terms of. We just lease it out as, you know, wheat and corn, that type of stuff. But he was going from, he, so he had his day job and he was going from where the house was to another farm. You had to get on Highway 72, which is a four lane, you know, highway, and tractor trailer ran into an 18 wheeler, ran into him, killed him. So my mom was. That happened in October and my mom was pregnant with me and I was born in February.
So you got to understand, when my dad was killed, my mom was in another part of the county picking cotton.
Okay. Because he has, you know, six kids at the time, she's pregnant with another one. And long story short, all the neighbors and relatives are like, you know, she's got six kids and she's pregnant. And by the way, my mom hadn't even finished high school, okay. And it's like, okay, Lucy Bell. Her name is Lucy Bell. And you'll see her, that's her picture right over there. You see behind me and my wife said, lucy Bell, we'll take one here, we'll take one here. And she's like, no, no, no. I'm keeping my family together. So, long story short, I can remember when I was in like the third grade or so, my mom was a cook, very good cook. She was a domestic and she sold insurance for Atlanta Life Insurance Company. Really go around, you know, in your car, you think about how inefficient that was. She'd go around, you know, the policy. She paid like a quarter a week and she was the person that would go around and collect that. I can remember being in the car going with her to do that. But then she went back and got her GED and then working full time. Then she went to John C. Calhoun. I'm certain one day that college is going to be renamed Junior College. That was up by Decatur and she became the licensed practical nurse. And we moved from the farm. Now I'm probably sixth, almost seventh grade. So we moved from the farm and we moved to Florence, Alabama, which was kind of the city, sweet home Alabama. Muscle shows, sure, all that area. And you gotta understand, John, at this time I had been in the car where you're stopped on the boulevard with the KKK in their hoods, like the firemen sending out, waiting for donations now, you know, looking for donations. They stop every car. I go to the movie theater and you had to go to the side door and all the blacks had to go to the balcony.
I remember in the bus station and the department store, the signs that said flights only okay. For the water fountains and the bathrooms okay. And I remember the indignity. We didn't go out to eat that often, but going out to eat and having to go to the back of the restaurant to get your food. So I'm a big proponent in the boardroom for diversity and inclusion. And I'm informed by those personal experiences as a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old kid that I really, really, really remember how it used to be. Now my kids, they have no, you know, I tell them these stories, but they don't, you know, they don't get it. Get it. They've lived in great neighborhoods their entire lives and they've had access and be able to do these things. So. So that was the world. And then we moved to Florence and I'm this little skinny kid. And the second six weeks period and they were getting ready to pick the basketball team and luckily the coach let me join the basketball team and that was at Appleby. And then it came time to Go to high school. And I went to Coffee High School, and I was the first black starting quarterback on the freshman team and went on through that experience. And I ended up. I was the first black quarterback starting varsity. I was first black president of student council. Now this is in the middle mid-70s, right? Okay, boy, stay record holder and high jump. I played four sports and somewhat of a unicorn, I think.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: What about your older, older siblings as good as athletes as you or not?
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I think my brother was very, very good. You can see a picture over there of everybody over there. I'm the youngest of seven, and out of those sevens with the start of my mom. Okay. There are 11 degrees amongst those seven. Everybody except one. Everybody went to college. Everybody except one.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Your mother must have been a really powerful, powerful lady.
[00:37:41] Speaker C: Powerful lady.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: There's no doubt about that. And so doing that. And what happened my junior year, five kids from our rival high school went to West Point. And it just made the, it made the news. And I said, oh, boy. And then, and then I got a note. You know, West Point started recruiting me for football. And a little, little story.
Gary still. And some of your listeners are gonna know Sage still from SportsCenter. Oh, sure, Gary. Gary recruited me. He came down the Forge to visit me. And to this day I just saw him, he and he and Sage at the o. Navy game this year. So Gary was the first black football player at West Point.
Graduated 1968. And so he's been a great footballer and ever since then.
[00:38:29] Speaker A: So what about the rival. Did Annapolis come calling to you as well?
[00:38:33] Speaker B: I had opportunities to go to Army, Navy and Air Force, and my best civilian school option was Vanderbilt. So they were putting together a. They put together a deal for me that it was going to be part academic. You know, let me tell you, John, I was a good high school athlete. I was a very good high school athlete. I wasn't great. And I think I, for whatever reason, obviously, I got a mimeographed letter from Alabama. You know, the kind where they. Oh, yeah, maybe about deer. Underline and write your name in. Back in those days before word process.
Yes. Bear Bryant was the coach. Yeah. And I, I, I. There was something about me. And I told you I played four sports, which meant you can't do that these days, which meant that I was not in the weight room because, you know, from, from went to football, basketball to track and baseball. And I. Not that I doubted myself, but the West Point thing was just so appealing because it was hard.
It was hard. And I would have people telling me as a 16 year old.
You're going to be so successful. Let me tell you what that does. That's a burden because you're going. I don't, I don't, I don't understand what you're saying. You know, what do I do? How do I do this? And to me, believe it or not, the easiest path was taking the hardest path.
So therefore I chose West Point.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: So were there other people that inspired you to do the military thing? I mean, what. I mean, my son west went to Naval ROTC at UVA and when 911 happened, he sat in our, in our basement and watched TV just non stop. And he just, he, after that he came to me and he said, dad, I want to, I want to serve. And I just was like, wow, you know, that was something for me to hear. So I just. What was your story with regard to wanting to serve? I mean, what was it to that.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: That determines you, you know, in retrospect? Obviously we, we had, you know, the remnants of Vietnam was going on. Sure. At this time.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: And my brother, my older brother had done like a year of rotc. And I, you know, I really didn't know what, you know, you don't really understand all the stuff. 16, 17, at least I didn't. And I, it's not like I had like two of my kids went to West Point. Obviously I'm able to talk to them.
Can we stop just for one second? Okay. Remember we're talking about.
So, so, so my motivation to serve, even though we had Vietnam going on, it wasn't really related to the surge that we saw as a result of 9 11. Right. The Homeland was being attacked and you know, Vietnam, you remember, it'd be, it was just on the news every night. And pretty soon you get what you get dulled by it. It was there every night I can remember. Huntley, Brinkley. There were 17 casualties in Vietnam today. And I heard it, but it didn't, it wasn't like this inspirational thing. And then as you go through the process of going to West Point and you go and take that oath, you say, oh wow, I am signing up for something. And you know, I was willing and committed to do it. And it's something about, I'm certain your son found in his cadre cohort. You get in there, you're working your butt off. It's a common goal that you're going to. And let me tell you, you become close to the people. Not so much. I don't want to say I understand cults, but I Understand group psychology when people are working toward a common goal and you feel good about it. And that's what kind of being the military about. And I'm a, I'm a Ranger, certainly, you know what the, the SEAL equivalent in the Army. And that's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And probably one of the most rewarding things because Ranger training teaches you that your abilities to do things, it's much more than you think it is because it's, it's more psychological than it is physical. And that's what reindeer school teaches you.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: So did you do that at Fort Campbell?
[00:42:55] Speaker B: No.
Ranger school is. Starts at Fort Benning, Georgia.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Fort Benning.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: And then you go to Dahlonega, Georgia, for the mountain phase, and then you go to the Everglades of Florida or the swamp phase.
So.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Wow, they move you so very much like seals.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, the seal, you know, seal is, you know, I, I watched that. I wasn't a great swimmer. And that gives me even more.
I had to, believe me, I had to become a very good swimmer to pass Ranger school. But the sales and what they're able to do in the water.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: So paratrooping. You did paratrooping?
[00:43:29] Speaker B: I'm airborne as well. Yes, yes.
[00:43:33] Speaker A: So you were in active duty after West Point, how long for?
[00:43:36] Speaker B: 11 and a half years.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Active duty?
[00:43:38] Speaker B: Active duty.
[00:43:39] Speaker A: So where did you serve?
[00:43:40] Speaker B: So after West Point, my. I had a medical condition that me from going to combat arms. So I did personnel. And my first assignment was Fort Dix, New Jersey, where I met the lovely lady you'll see around here somewhere, my wife, she was in the military as well. So we met at Fort Dix. And then I had an assignment back at West Point that was probably one of the seminal assignments of my life because I worked in the admissions office doing minority recruitment. And my area was southeastern United States. And I would be on the road for two weeks off a week. And John, I would have audiences from one like you and me here to 2000 radio, TV interviews. And it really taught me a lot about communication.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: So how did you get that gig?
[00:44:28] Speaker B: They. They picked six officers a year to do it. And I was fortunate enough to be selected. You know, my stars were there. And speaking of the communication skills, one of the things that happened to me at West Point, if you look over there, you see that picture of me and Coach K. He was the basketball coach at West Point when I was a cadet. So recruited to West Point, quarterback, played quarterback on freshman JV team. And sophomore year, I was on JD Playing. The only issue being that there was a plebe starting on varsity in front of me. I moved to defensive back and Homer Smith was our coach. And he just called me in one day and said, herman, you're never going to start in an Army Navy game. And you talk about someone that had been in extracurricular activities since, you know, sixth grade, seventh grade, and it was. It was emotionally devastating. And then what I did basically is refocus my efforts on academics, and I became the voice of army sports because that's one of the things they used to recruit me. Hey, we've got a radio station. Because I had a radio show in high school. That was one of the other things I had. And so with that, I did play by play for football, which was great because I knew the coaches, I knew the players, and that worked out very well. And I had a radio show that I called Thursday Night Live, and I would have, you know, athletes be on. And this funny sounding guy that you couldn't pronounce his name called me up and said, hey, I want to be on your show. And it was Coach K. And, you know, he was building a program, young coach or whatever, and. And that's Chicago accent he has. There you go. So for. For the last two years, you know, I travel with the team. I broadcast from Madison Square Garden because we went to the NIT tournament and went around his. His little girls who are now young ladies. They used to sit on my lap in the bus. And Mickey, his wife, you know, she would ride to the game. So he and I. I've got a couple letters over there from him, as a matter of fact. So Coach K. And I'm actually a member of the board of the center of Leadership and Ethics, Cole center at the Fuqua School. It's a Coach K Center of Leadership and Ethics. So I'm on that board. So he and I stay in contact through that.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: Yeah, and he's now retired, so he's got more focus on that than anything else, I imagine.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think he's going to be a ambassador for the university, so we'll still help him from a public relations fundraising aspect. He'll spend a little more time at the Kohl center, where we would have our board meetings for that that we go down and he would spend. So the center, for example, Mary Barra, CEO of gm, General Motors, she's on there with a bunch of other executives. And we go down and he would spend the evening with us for dinner.
Then the next day we would do stuff. Then we would go to a basketball practice and actually watch it because the whole thing is talking about leadership and people performance and all this good stuff up. And then, then he would spend. The next day. He'd spend a whole morning with us and talking about. I've got a couple things on my phone now. Talks about what he does and how he thinks about the team and we use recruiting the player. He looks at the relationship between the player and their mother.
And that's the thing that he sees. He sees that respect and admiration there. That's one of many. But that's one of. He said that's one of the, of the key things that he does when he looks at the kids that he's going to recruit.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: So having the opportunity to, you know, call him a friend and be around him. And I was so, you know, disappointed that everything came to a late run last year. Wanted this Cinderella finish for him. I wanted not to be.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: What, what, what, what leadership aspects have you learned from.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: From Mike? Let me tell you. So as a cadet, I would, you know, go practices as well to be prepared for everything. And I'm going to tell you one thing I've learned from him is. And I, and I obviously, I shouldn't say, obviously I do not know Nick Saban, but from what I see, I see the similarities and it's about perfection, okay. And I think of Alex Iverson saying, you know, practice. What do you mean, practice? You know, I get up for the game. I mean, that just was. Would not go for either of them, okay. Because they are about dedication. Practice. It's about the team. And let me tell you, Coach A, I was at the Army Duke game last year. He scheduled a game with us and he was fortunate to give some tickets to me and my kids. We were, you know, three rows up, right behind the bench. And yeah, obviously I remembered this from my time at West Point. He is not a spring sailor when it comes. It comes to how he talks to his kids, okay. Nice, nice Catholic guy, but let me tell you, he gets in their grill. And, and the thing about that, he has this uncanny ability. He gets in your grill and it challenges you and you want to do more so those kids will run through a wall.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Well, he learned from a master.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Bobby Knight.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: And Bobby Knight coached Indiana when I was at the University of Michigan, okay. And my senior year, Michigan and Indiana played for the national championship in 1976. And they had already beaten us twice that year. We only had three losses and two of them were In Indiana. And sure enough, they clobbered us in the finals too.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: Coach K may have been an assistant on that team, because he might have been. He was an assistant for Bobby. Then he went and coached our prep school. And at the age of like 25, 26, he was head coach at Army.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Yeah, but Coach Knight was a perfectionist as well.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: I never, I never met him. I was at a conference once with him, but never met him. However, I can see the tree in terms of the outburst of expectations of perfection.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: So any other. You were a radio guy, you were a play football. Anything else at West Point? I mean, how, how many black people were basically there?
[00:50:22] Speaker B: We. We graduated about maybe 75, started. We graduated about 50. They're about 50 black classmates. And this is out of a class of starting 1400. And you graduate 1100 or so. So it was a small, small percentage. Kind of Story of my life since I went to integrated school starting in the fourth grade in Alabama. Alabama. I'll never forget. I won't mention my buddy's name. Some people your listeners are knowing. At JLL, I started an organization in. In the D.C. area called the Real Estate Group. And not the Real Estate Group, the black Real Estate Group. Okay. And a rep. A rep. I. So I'm the founder and additional president, initial president of that group. And one night I took. Yeah, I used to go to real estate group. And I was, you know, for many years I was the only black person in the real estate group. And you just find out I got so much business in there. That's where deals, it's all about relationships, as you said earlier, of course. And one of my colleagues from jll, I took him to the AWAP real estate. And the next morning I saw him. So he was in there and it may have been a, you know, two other black people in the room and, you know, 65, 70 people. And next morning I was. And I said, hey, blah, blah, blah. How did you enjoy the event? I said. He said, oh, my gosh, it was great. That's great, people. He said, however, I gotta tell you, it felt a little.
So he's one white guy in a room of a lot of black people. And I basically said, blah, welcome to my world every day.
And he just went, wow, I never thought of it like that.
So, yeah, you know, sure. Particularly, I won't say all blacks, but blacks that are going into professional wings. You. It's not so much that you lead a double life, but you lead a life where you are very often in the minority. Of course and what that does, it gives you sensitivities that others do not have, and you notice things. Sure. And now that I'm, you know, these boards and have opportunities to, you know, people ask about being a board member. I said being a board member, it's pretty simple. You don't have to know any answers. It's got to know the right question is to ask. And that's what a good board member does. And being able to ask questions is a very powerful tool.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: Do you think it's the. We're at the point now, I was going to ask this later, but I'm going to ask it now, where you don't feel like a token anymore and you now feel really part of the system or not.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: Well, at this point, look, look, I. I've been very fortunate a lot of ways. I worked very hard for it, and I've been very fortunate. Yep. And I realized that I'm looked at differently in a lot of ways than I want to say the typical or average. Average black person. Right. And I'm certain some of the reactions that I get based upon my social and economic status is not enjoyed by the majority of my compatriots who have my skin color.
So what you can't do, I should say you can't do, what I don't do is just assume, based upon the experiences that I have every day, that everything is okay out there in the Valley. And we're beyond race as an issue, and it's the land of the free and equal opportunity. So I'm not that naive to think that that's the case. However, are things being talked about that weren't talked about earlier? Yes. Let me tell you, I've been on a crusade at La Salle Partners in JLL for a long time in terms of the importance of diversity in real estate. You know, as well as I know our industry is horrible with diversity. And what I've done over the last 15 years is look at it not as a rights issue or equal opportunity issue. You've got to put it in the sense of a financial issue. It makes business sense. Okay. Won't name the client. One of the big clients that I lead, the head of real estate happens to be African American male. I have a good personal relationship and professional relationship. And we had an opportunity at JLL to do a really, really large assignment in a. In a major city. And the JL team know my job. I put it as, hey, this opportunity, blah, blah, blah. And they put the team together and they gave it to me.
And I Looked at it and I said, I gotta tell you something, if this is the best you can do for the team for diversity, we won't do the assignment we won't do.
Now would I've been able to do that 20 years ago? Probably not.
But I'm not working for money anymore and I'm not totally working for principles.
However, I'm in a situation where I can have that type of impact and I can say those things and I don't lose any sleep over it. And others look around and say, oh my gosh, did he say that? Yeah, I said it. And the moral of the story is, however, went back to the drawing board and the team. We put together one of the most diverse and productive teams that I have seen in a long time.
And two things that that taught me or that people can learn and certainly reinforce for me is, number one, it can get done with the right motivation. And look, my team members, the senior people that put that team together, they didn't do that purposely, okay? Their sensitivities weren't as acute as mine and they took the path of least resilience. Hey, Bob here, Sarah here, Sally here. They put the team together and then you've got this male dominated, homogeneous, predominantly white team.
And then what I chose to be was the conscience of the organization to say, this ain't gonna get it. Yep. Okay. And the people that I did that to, they learned so much from that, okay? It's embedded in them now that, hey, diversity has power.
Diversity can be good for the organization. Diversity can put more money in my pocket.
The feel good stuff around diversity, John, I'm gonna tell you, if we were only doing that, and I'm from the south and you know that on the. I don't know how much time you sit down there, but there's a church on every corner, okay? So if you're going over the moral aspects of it, during the 60s and 70s, when I was going to the back of the restaurant, people were going to church then too, of course. But did it make a difference? No.
But you start impacting economics and all of a sudden people notice.
So I'm in an organization want to mention here called, I don't know if you saw it from my background, Executive Leadership Council. And it's a group, when I joined, it was probably 100 African American executives, top senior executives in America. And now there are 800 of us in this group. Okay? And our sole purpose, men and women, men and women, men and women. I encourage you to look it up. ELC.org. it's a phenomenal group of people. Everybody from Kinshina, you know, Ursula Burns, et cetera, et cetera, have been or members of this organization. And we are unapologetic in saying what our. What our objectives are and what we do.
And those who are given more. Much, much is expected. I'll paraphrase it in that way. And you want to just get yours and say, I got mine. You get yours the best way you can. There are a lot of my peers and compatriots who are successful. That is not the attitude they have.
[00:58:48] Speaker A: So paying it forward to you.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Paying it forward is extremely important to me because I got kids and I got grandkids.
Right.
And I want them to not see me as a unicorn. And in some ways, maybe I am, but I shouldn't be.
Understand.
[00:59:11] Speaker A: I get it.
So I interviewed Mike Bush.
[00:59:15] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:59:16] Speaker A: You know, Mike Bush.
[00:59:17] Speaker B: Mike does a lot of. I did a lot of work with Mike on his. His attempt to get more minorities in real estate.
[00:59:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: So Mike and I are actually good friends.
[00:59:26] Speaker A: So Mike asked me to teach at Howard University, and so I went to Howard and taught real estate finance to his cohort, one of his first cohorts of Reap. Project Reap, as he calls it. It was inspiring, I have to say. It. It was great. And most of the. I mean, it was. The age was ranging from. From, you know, right out of college to 40. Some people were, you know, coming back and they want to learn real estate. And Mike was. And I said, mike, what. What drove you to it? He said, you know, John, I just saw something I just couldn't live without trying to do something about, you know, and he's a Harvard, you know, lawyer, and maybe Stanford. Stanford undergrad, Harvard lawyer. He's Jewish. He's from, you know, Arizona. I said, no. He said, I just saw it in the Giant stores when I was working there that, you know, there was a disparity, and I wanted to sell that. I saw it in the real estate industry. A complete disparity, probably 9 to 1.
[01:00:33] Speaker B: If not more, maybe 20 to 1 in some cases.
[01:00:37] Speaker A: So anyway, I.
[01:00:38] Speaker B: No, Mike's a great guy. I spoke at the. Probably 18 months ago. So I spoke at the graduation for the group here. I've probably done that two or three times in my career over the last 20 years.
[01:00:49] Speaker A: That's great project.
So let's see. So you went to Harvard Business School. What drove you there?
[01:00:56] Speaker B: When I was at West Point, I thought I wanted to be. When I went to West Point, I thought I Wanted to be a lawyer. And I went to West Point and I took an economics class. And I thought economics was business, but somehow that's still very, very exciting to me. And then I took. Back in the old days at the academy, we only got seven electives. We took a lot of engineering. And my electives I took in the, took an accounting course, I took International Economics, I took Comparative Economics. I took everything in economics I could get. And in the course of doing that, the department that did that taught those courses, Department of Social Sciences. Three of the professors that I had there were Harvard Business School graduates.
And they were just so impressive.
And the idea of, you know, following their footsteps, I was inspired by. So when I graduated from West Point before you. So as I stopped playing football, it was very amazing. My grades went up as well. I mean I was kind of beast, mostly B's and C's, and last two years it was always B's because. Right. Let me tell you plein intercollegiate football, it is, it's a, it's a chore. And I've got a lot of respect for people that do that, having done it for a couple years. But in any event, these guys inspired me. And Harvard Business School was one of the things that I knew that I would look at. So what I did, John, is my second year out to practice. I applied to Yale. You know, they had the new program, Masters of Public Private Management. And I got accepted. So that was at my third year. Then the next year I applied to Harvard and Stanford.
Okay. And this is days when you didn't have word processor, every word had to be typed. And I spent, I literally for the Yale application, I spent six months working on that application. I'd come back from work and work on it every night. And you know, I had the basis for it. And then when I did the Harvard and Stanford, you know, it didn't take as long because I gone through a.
[01:03:00] Speaker A: Lot of you're accepted Yale, why didn't you take it?
[01:03:03] Speaker B: Well, let me finish. So I'm in the army still, all right. And I still had an obligation. So it's my third year. So I asked Yale, I said, could you please provide me a two year deferment? And they said yes.
So kind of in the clear, I got something I can do. And then the following year I applied to Harvard and Stanford and got accepted to both of them. And I asked them would they give me a one year deferment. And they said yes. So my wife and I are in the army, we're in Korea. And I've got a few decisions to make.
A, am I going to. Because I was eligible to get out of the army, am I going to get out of the army and go to grad school?
The second thing is at West Point, I was being recruited to go back to West Point to teach, and they would pay for grad school.
And my wife, we had options that she could get an assignment at San Francisco or in Boston and support me if I got out. So it's yet another option. And then fortuitously, the people in admissions office that I worked, remember I tell you I worked at admissions earlier. At this point, our relationships are. And that colonel had been to our meeting. He said, okay, you're going to grad school. What's Iris going to do? Said, I don't know, we think she'll get a job in recruiting command or something. And he said, this is when faxes were, you know, they were the technological advancement. He said, can you have her text her transcript to me right away? And long story short, within two weeks, Iris was selective grad school. And as we looked around all the places to go, we decided on Boston. And I think in the end, Harvard. I had visited Stanford on the way to. We were going to Korea. It just, I mean, it was February.
CO ED's were out throwing Frisbees and just, just so beautiful. But then there was just something about Harvard that was drawn to me. And long story short, she went to Tufts for master's in education and I, I went to Harvard for business, and then we went back to West Point and I taught finance and economics, and she was an admissions officer. So it just worked out beautifully.
[01:05:12] Speaker A: That's great.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: That's how that happened.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: And then after that, went to JL after.
[01:05:18] Speaker B: Well, after West Point, taught, then went to the Pentagon and then jll, and then JLL got it. Okay.
[01:05:26] Speaker A: All right.
[01:05:27] Speaker B: And I have to take this opportunity to talk about my wife. I lost her a year and a half ago to cancer.
And what a. What a lady. Her. Her. Her celebration of life was held at the Army Navy Club, and Secretary of Defense spoke. She was a defense executive for many years working on foreign language and policy. So she was retired lieutenant colonel from the Army Reserves as well. She was a president, presidential appointee in the Clinton administration. She was the number two person for personnel in the Army. Delightful lady. I just got something yesterday that hopefully by the time this goes out, they have approved a. This doesn't happen very often, but the language and cultural community, they're going to name a fellowship after her.
That will be given to ROTC cadets studying language and culture. And that is just. Just something else. So she and I were. We met at Fort Dix, but we're married at West Point. We obviously lived there for. Together two of our three kids. You can see this little carpet has some dates on it that you see. Two of our three kids were born at West Point. Two of our kids graduated from West Point. She worked there, I worked there. And again, I've been on the board there for 20 years. It's just a special place to us. But more importantly, what she did for our family and what she did for the nation as an admissions officer there, she was responsible for over a thousand kids over the years getting admitted that she worked with. And just a great. A great person, you know, will have a place in our heart forever for her.
[01:07:03] Speaker A: Did you inter her at West Point?
[01:07:05] Speaker B: She's also interned at West Point. So I was up there last. So I was up 10 days ago for a board meeting. And every time I go up, I'm obviously I go down and she's right by the old cadet chapel. Just fortuitously that a very, very prominent spot that she's there. You can walk in and I see her in this. This fall, two of the kids and I, you know, I'm up there often, so I go and talk to her, quote, unquote. But two of the boys went with me up to a football game. And, you know, it's. You know, it's challenging for these kids to lose their mom. However, she's just had a great influence on a lot of people.
[01:07:43] Speaker A: My neighbor across the street, my wife's best friend, probably their son. Their third son is a West Point graduate.
He just graduated about, let's see, four years ago. Three or four years ago. His wife was also a West Point graduate.
She is serving.
While he was there, he was a.
[01:08:07] Speaker B: Rugby player for the rugby team and.
[01:08:10] Speaker A: Had two knee injuries. The second one created the point where he couldn't. He couldn't do the physical. The physical at the end. So West Point gave him a degree.
[01:08:24] Speaker B: But he couldn't serve right.
[01:08:27] Speaker A: Then he went right on to law school, finished his law degree, and now he's attorney and she's serving in Fairbanks, Alaska. And he's up there as an attorney up there now.
[01:08:39] Speaker B: So.
[01:08:40] Speaker A: But I did go to an RV Navy game with them in Baltimore. I've never had that experience before.
[01:08:46] Speaker B: What an experience.
[01:08:47] Speaker A: It is quite an experience, I have to say. It's quite something. And army won that game, so. So that was like the first time.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: They'D won in 14 years. Believe me, I was there. I've been to. Since 1974, I've missed four Army Navy games.
[01:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:09:07] Speaker B: So actually, fine, because the COVID The COVID one, when they. They played it at West Point, nobody. Actually, I could have gone to that one because, again, I'm a pretty nice donor to West Point. However, that was when my wife was sick, so we didn't. We didn't go.
[01:09:22] Speaker A: So you're quite vocal and engaged in several forums, like several corporate boards and advocacy groups. Perhaps wax philosophically. You already have a little bit about involvement not only as a black business leader, but for young people today in the real estate. Commercial real estate sector.
[01:09:38] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, John, this one is. It's important, but it takes nuance to answer.
So the first thing that I tell any person, black, white, green, female, male, the first thing you have to do is establish legitimacy. And you establish legitimacy by performing, being the best that you can be. Okay? So you got a presentation and you got some market stuff you got to do. You don't just look over and kind of go, okay.
I remember my wife used to tell my kids, with the success that we've had, she tell them, say, you know, you guys joke and you just think, your dad plays golf all the time and go. Goes out to dinner. Okay, I'm gonna tell you. He works, he prepares, and. And you guys gotta understand that that's where the foundation of the success is. And I would say the same thing to all individuals, particularly black. Particularly blacks in real estate. So I talk about six characteristics that are necessary for success. I'll go through very, very quickly. Sure. Speaking. And the first one's interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills. Is it personality debated? Not really what it's about. It's about being a continuous learner. And as a result of that, you're comfortable in any environment you're in. And that gives you that ability to be interpersonal with people, your community. Communication skills are essential. Okay? And certainly when I went to West Point, I had a southern draw, no doubt about it. And I found out as I did my radio work, the southern draw is a result of lazy talking. Now, you probably would never guess. I've got some tapes I could play to you right now. You would hear me in high school, you would say, who is that talking? But those. Those communication skills are so important. They come in three forms. Your diction, your speaking, your writing. Particularly for young people out there listening to this, what you write stays with you for a long time. And Then more importantly, part of the communication process is listening, which some people, you know, my mom used to say, you got two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion. The next thing, your analytical skills. And, you know, you and I, you know, when you and I first started in real estate, the analytics was about, you know, we didn't have a computer to do our spreadsheets, but doing the analysis, right, you're running the numbers, so to speak, and that's important, and that's a quantitative part of it. But the longer you're in the organization and the higher you are, the qualitative analytical skills become important. That's where you're judging people. That's where you decided to go after this deal, not the next deal, et cetera, et cetera, of course. So I would, I would tell the young listeners or even the old listeners, get feedback on that quality as well. And then leadership. Leadership is critical. I told you the story of PI. And not that it didn't do well when I left, but it didn't, you know, it stopped this and did this, and I came back and did that again. So one person can make a difference. Coach K in the Duke basketball team with the best recruiting class in the nation that Coach K would coach, coaching those kids this year, they would not be in the bottom of the ACC right now. I'm convinced of that. Okay, so leadership, and that's that ability to influence a group to accomplish a common goal. That is great.
[01:12:54] Speaker A: You learned that in the military, I assume that.
[01:12:56] Speaker B: Or you learn a lot of that in the military. And then risk taking or entrepreneurship, you gotta look at it. You can always go in the middle of the road. Okay? So when I stopped working for Green park, the less risky thing I could have ever done in my life is go back to JLL and continue what I was doing there. No risk, making a lot of money, and you're just happy. And I said, no, I'm gonna take a risk. And I took a risk of starting two companies. And, you know, you got, you know, I look at that, I said, you know, when I started PI, even within jll, it's a reputation risk, right? But you deal with that. And when you're starting companies and you've done quite a few things, look, if it doesn't work out, you just go get a job. That's the attitude you have to take. Okay? And then last but not least is passion.
You gotta have passion for what you do. Passion is contagious. And that's part of the, you know, it kind of wraps around all those other things that we've spoken about. So if you do those things, you're effective at what you do.
It gives you a license to write, the authority, the responsibility, the obligation to speak up. And that's where I feel that I am in my career right now.
That's great. That's great.
[01:14:21] Speaker A: So we talked about it already, but I'll bring it up. Network networking is such an important part of this in any business.
How would you recommend people to start.
[01:14:32] Speaker B: And build a network? Well, that is very interesting because in my core speeches that I give to groups and I give quite a few speeches, matter of fact, during COVID it was really good because it was convenient and I was free and I had to turn a lot of things down. But one of the things I do talk about about is networking. And that's actually two concepts to me. One is networking and the other is connecting. Now, networking is necessary.
Networking is good. However, networking is transactional. Let me explain what I mean by that.
I'll make a speech because. Oh, let me get your card. I really want to network with. Well, what they're saying is I want something from you. That's what they're saying. And that's not bad. Not bad at all. Okay. However, what I have done and what I didn't tell you is that high school where I was the first starting quarterback and the first black student council president, it was 16% black.
Okay, let's think about that.
[01:15:39] Speaker A: In rural Alabama.
[01:15:40] Speaker B: In Alabama. Okay, let's think about that. So what I have. And. And I got this about 25 years ago because I went back and analyzed my career. I did one of these introspective things and I said what I am and I have been is a connector.
Now, being a connector enhances your net work. Let me tell you what a connector is. A connector is someone that'll do something for or with someone without expectation of getting anything in return.
Okay, John, I've done that for 50, 60 years. Okay? And when you do that, your connections results in relationships which are so powerful, content foundation of your network.
Remember I told you 60% of the deals I get is somebody calling me, it's because I connected with them.
And it's not just now and to connect. It sounds great from a hypothetical theoretical perspective, but you've got to be what? Consistent. And you've got to be authentic, genuine and genuine. Okay. And you know, I saw your eyes light up when I, I said this, because that's what you do.
[01:17:04] Speaker A: I'm a connector too.
[01:17:05] Speaker B: And it's all about being connected. That's how I met two people yesterday.
One jll, one out, and we were talking, and one went to Davidson College, and he was talking, blah, blah. I said, oh, Davidson, hey, I happen to know the CFO down there, and you're going back, and blah, blah, blah. It'd be great for you guys to meet. I said, you know what? No, I home this morning. The two of those people are connected.
Okay? Just. And it.
It's not a. I don't expect anything from it. But let me tell you, I want to be. I don't want to be disingenuous. I don't expect anything from any one specific connecting. But I do know that as a result of connecting, great things are going to happen, but you don't know which one.
So you got to be consistent on all of them.
[01:17:55] Speaker A: It's like planting seeds.
[01:17:57] Speaker B: It's planning. I talk about it as acorns. Yeah. You have a whole bunch of them, and some of them are going to come through. But again, it's not that expectation. Every seed I plan is going to come through. You never know which one. You've got to be genuine. You got to be authentic. You got to be consistent with your plan.
[01:18:16] Speaker A: Well, I admire you a lot, Herman, because I started an organization of young People, now has 62 members in the commercial real estate sector. That's exactly the whole. The whole philosophy you just talked about is exactly why I did it. To get people to learn to do what you were just talking about. Exactly.
[01:18:35] Speaker C: Almost.
[01:18:35] Speaker A: Almost to the T. And would love to have you come on and meet them sometime when we have that opportunity. So. Already went with. Do that another time. So how do we change the mindsets to accentuate differences among people, highlighting their strengths as contributing people both in business and society?
[01:18:55] Speaker B: We can. We can start with, you know, the moral obligation.
But I've already told you my analogy, that people went to church in the south, from slavery through Reconstruction through Jim Crow to everything, and it didn't change their behavior on Monday morning. Right. So they had a. They were able to compartmentalize and do things and still look at our founding fathers. Well, and that's all coming out now with our renaming of all the things that we're doing with DoD. So I.
Here's a statistic that you're probably aware of.
18 and under in the United States.
The majority of the people are people of color.
Okay. And if you look at that and you transport it, and these are things that I see in the boardroom, okay. Of Fortune 100, Fortune 500. Sure. If you, if you extrapolate that data between 2035 and 2040, the majority of people in the United States are going to be people of color. Now let's think about that from a business perspective. Okay, first of all, let's start with a really simple one. Who's going to buy your products.
[01:20:18] Speaker A: Who'S.
[01:20:18] Speaker B: Going to design your products to understand the markets that need to be available, and who's going to sell your products?
So if you are not a learning institutional organization, you're going to perhaps be the next Polaroid Kodak. Kodak the buggy whip salesman.
So the point of the matter is this thing we call diversity, which some people call being woke. You awoke because you're just worried about stuff that you shouldn't be worried about.
Okay? The people that are woke and are aware of the environment they're in, they're not going to be the frog in cold water that starts to boil.
It's that simple. John?
[01:21:17] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:21:18] Speaker B: And it's important, important that organizations that are going to be evolving. Sustainable, right? That's a big word these days. Sustainable. Sustainable organizations are going to have to be aware of the environment that they operate in and ask themselves, what products are we going to produce, who's going to buy them, who's going to sell them?
[01:21:44] Speaker A: So in another interview recently, we're going in the steam a little more. You cited two pandemics, COVID 19, which has mostly passed us now, hopefully.
[01:21:56] Speaker B: And I predicted that we would get past it. Right.
[01:22:00] Speaker A: However, has left lasting impact on commercial real estate sector. Of course, the other being the social pandemic driven by the divisiveness today in setting racial and gender conflagrations, but also political too, which combines into that how will the US come together to resolve these issues? Will it just take time for the millennials and Gen Z generations, which you just cited, or majority minority now, to accede to leadership with different attitudes.
[01:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah, well, in that speech marks me the, that I gave over the last two or three years. I cited that Covid is a pandemic, devastating ingenuity of man and womankind. We would find a way to get through that.
And you and I are seated here and for lack of a better term, we're not wearing masks and we feel safe and the economy is going and you know, it may become like polio or whatever to become extinct one day. And we certainly hope that's the case. Maybe like the common cold, however. But we have applied our best thinkers. Society decided, segments of society with the majority decided that we needed to do things in order to protect the well being of all.
And we're going in the right direction now on the political racial dimension.
Somewhat of a sine wave in our nation. Right.
And the way I look at it is I think some people look at the pie and they assume the pie is going to stay the same size and they've been accustomed to getting a certain piece of the piece. And if others are coming to the table, that means I'm going to get a smaller piece of the pie. So what means do I use to make sure that I keep my peace alive? Okay, I think that's the simplest analogy I can give and that goes from being economic influence to political influence. That influences is the polarization in our nation. Okay, so we've got people on the far right, extremists in terms of what they're thinking, people on the far left, extremists of what they're thinking. And they think that the louder I say it, the more impact it's going to have.
And what I think it's going to require, it's going to require. Remember those six characteristics I talked about? It's going to take somebody with some strong leadership that this country, that this nation can rally around to say I'm not going to get what all I want on this side, I'm going to get all I want on the other side. However, we've got to think about the well being. And for me, I'm a granddad, okay. And the things I think about is I want those grandkids I have and other people out there to have many of the same opportunities that they can do.
And you know, the pendulum swung pretty far to the right. You know, I'm a military guy. One things we didn't suggest, I'm on the Defense Policy board, for example, 18 people on that board. Madeleine Albright was chair of it. Henry Kissinger's on the board now. And John, you have these times in your life, you're sitting in these rooms and you just, you pinch yourself, you say, am I really here?
[01:25:44] Speaker A: Henry Kissinger in the room?
[01:25:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm on this little country boy from Alabama. What am I doing in this room? You know, the secretary and I went to West Point together. So it's just, it's just whatever. But when you make the pledge to defend the Constitution and you're willing to give your life for it, and my oldest son who's still in the army, one tour in Iraq, two tours in Afghanistan, India for.
Okay, so I want all the people on the right and the left who are willing to espouse their sometimes virtual opinions about what's going in the country, I want them to be willing to put their light. And I never served in combat, but by golly, I was positioned, willing and able to.
And two of my sons, who at one point, both of them were in the combat zone, I want them to put somebody they love that's out there trying to defend what it is that we believe in.
And it's, it's, it's just, it's a different story when you got to pay the cost to be the boss versus being a mouthpiece. So I don't think I espouse anything controversial, but I'm espousing my pushing opinion in terms of those of us who are willing to serve, to give others the opportunity to do what they do freely on a daily basis.
[01:27:19] Speaker A: Thank you. That's inspiring. Perhaps the sector of real estate most impacted by Covid has been the office market. We're switching back to real estate now.
[01:27:30] Speaker B: Is that what we're talking about?
[01:27:31] Speaker A: Real estate, particularly in major city CBDs. How would, how do you see this downward shock and demand playing out over time?
What are you seeing among the. Your clients?
[01:27:44] Speaker B: Because you're on several boards, first of all, in the boardroom and the CEOs they were dealing with. And we know how Jamie diamond feels, right?
[01:27:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:27:53] Speaker B: Everybody should have been back in the office a long time ago. And then, you know, Facebook goes that, you know, do whatever you want to do. And I kind of go back to the point in the pendulum, right, is swinging and where is it going to end up? I go back to the point of saying that humans like interaction with other humans. Okay. And as a result of that, if I'm making a bet, I think it's never going to be what it was, where you went to your office five days a week and, you know, eight to five and punched out, all that.
However, I also don't think it's going to be. We're going to do zooms forever and, you know, just come in who you think you feel like. So whether it's three days in or four days in, I think something is gonna. The confluence is going to be where there's an opportunity for people to interact. So let me tell you a couple things. The reason I think that's important, women and minorities are going to be the most negatively impacted by the stay at home mechanism. Okay?
Because people have, based on their experience, preconceived ideas of who Herman Bulls is black, little black kid that you don't know anything else about. But then all of a sudden you run into Herman at the coffee machine or you run into him having lunch or whatever. You say, oh my gosh, you know, Herman's actually an okay, okay person. And when you don't have that personal interaction, you're not going to be as positively perhaps or negatively, but mostly positively impacted as you would be otherwise. And I think that's going to be to the detriment of women and minorities for not being able to have the chance encounters. Because over a whole, the majority where they're going to see each other at church, at the country club, on vacation, places where perhaps these other segments of society are not going to be. And it's back to where I talked about that team at JLL for the project that I told them, go back to the drawing board to put the team together again. They didn't, they didn't wake up and say, you know what? I'm going to be, you know, none participant in, none inclusive. Today they took the path of least resistance. I got five other things I'm doing. I got to get this team together for Herman. And here's the team. Hey, Bob, I just saw Bob this weekend. We played golf. I'm going to put him on it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you're not deliberate in doing these things, there will not be a change.
So in the end, I think we're going to have a, a hybrid type situation and there'll be other, you know, obviously industrial in a lot of places. I read an article this morning where, you know, Amazon is perhaps overly, you know, impacted by the expansion they did for their warehouse space. But I, I think certain segments to include warehouse, I think that's going to continue to go well. Right. I need something, I can get it. You know, in this area, you order a little dispenser for my toilet, you know, you know, I ordered it this morning, I get it this afternoon. I mean, you know, that's better than it's ever been. Sure. Housing in our nation is, is a challenge. Right. So I think the multi housing industry and, well, it's a single family housing industry. It's going to follow the normal economic cycles. That's my opinion on that. Office is going to be the biggest question mark. And the issue there is like, for example, I was downtown in my office office yesterday on K Street and you know, two or three restaurants that I normally go to three or four years ago closed, closed. And one said, we don't open for lunch, we'll be open for dinner because you know, just not enough, not enough people down there and I'm part of it. I haven't been to my office that much in the last two or three years. Of course my job is I don't need to be in the office. I need to be out with clients. But that's a different story. However, people just aren't, are not down and that's going to impact the big, big shortcoming.
[01:32:06] Speaker A: And it was came out in the paper this last week and I've been talking to my guests for the last year about is gsa.
You know the president hasn't said okay back get to the office. GSA has not come back. And that to me I talked to John Falcicio, the deputy mayor and he said yeah it's, it's big. The government's not here.
[01:32:29] Speaker B: Right.
[01:32:29] Speaker A: And they're a big part of the downtown walking and well the walking, the.
[01:32:34] Speaker B: The lunch, the right. The, the tourists, you know, shoe shine guy, the shoe repair. I mean that ripples.
Look my, my dry cleaner here in McLean that I've been using for the last nine years business. Yeah.
And you know that's may sound minor but it was in a convenient place and you went there, you knew the people.
[01:33:04] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:33:04] Speaker B: And they can't make it. Yeah.
[01:33:07] Speaker A: I mean I don't know you talk about office. I mean the retail is just totally disruptive. So I interviewed Don Wood of Federal and he said the bifurcation has just gotten almost because they're the probably the, if not the number one retail REIT in the country. The number two or three and they maintain because the quality level. So just like an office quality is so critical in retail and it is an office now trophy is the only thing that's going to lease just about.
[01:33:40] Speaker B: You know and, and the same thing you may note that I'm on the board of host hotels.
[01:33:44] Speaker A: There you go.
[01:33:45] Speaker B: And we are in the upper segment. Guess what we're doing? Well, people with money are spending it. But the limited service hotels that are dependent on that traveling salesman that now is doing most of this stuff on the phone and they're not doing it. That's going to be, that's going to be a sketchy part of the watching industry to be in.
[01:34:04] Speaker A: Well we, we talked about you know, minorities and women. We also have to talk talk about the 1% to the 99 too to some extent. I mean what's going to happen with that over time. Just this morning the Washington Post said there's A case on wealth tax that has just went through and apparently somebody was above 10%. They were taxed on their, near their, their assets. So it's coming.
It's going to be interesting to see how that's going to be handled.
[01:34:39] Speaker B: Hey, social, you didn't say socialism, did you? No.
[01:34:44] Speaker A: Well, it's starting to sound a little like it. So you are meeting regularly with corporate leaders, talk about the pervasive influence of esg, particularly in the commercial real estate sector. Will the future of the industry and success be tied more to performance rated with ESG metrics than financial metrics? And how do you see those incentives being allocated?
[01:35:07] Speaker B: Sure. Well, first of all, when people say esg, I think the first thing they think of is the environmental aspect of it. Okay, so esg, environmental, certainly we're looking at the greenhouse gases and those aspects of it from the environment. And then the, the S is about social, of course, and that's everything from pay equity. Right. Or to working conditions.
And then of course, the G is about the governance and that's holding the organization accountable for what they need to do for the long term to take care of all of the stakeholders. And we talk to the stakeholders. You know, traditionally you say everything's sent for the shareholders, but you have other stakeholders in there to include the employees, to include the suppliers and include the community, communities in which corporations operate. So ESG takes that broad, I should say, expansive view of topics. And when we think about real estate, we can talk about. Let's start from the back, from a government's perspective. We know majority of real estate where we got some large ones like CB and Coast franchise, but the majority of them traditionally has been what some of the firms you've worked with, small, entrepreneurial, of course, organizations and getting bigger and bigger. And the governance aspect of it, you know, family owned. How do you do governance? You do governance so that you can perpetuate the family ownership, et cetera, et cetera. From the social aspect of it. I'm working in reverse to get to, I think what your question may have been, the social aspects of it. I tell you, all of the major real estate firms are on a push to make sure that women and people of color are prominently placed. And it goes back to what I told you earlier. Who's going to buy it? Okay. Of course. And the clients, the clients are demanding that there be diverse teams put on their projects. I had one of my clients say, well, look, I may not be as diverse as I want to be right now, but I can tell you I want you to meet my aspirational goals for the diversity of the teams that you put on.
[01:37:11] Speaker A: And if you want to raise money, you better have it.
[01:37:14] Speaker B: Well, I'm, I'm on. Let me tell you and let's not forget where you were. But I'm on the real estate advisory committee of New York State Teachers Retirement System.
Everybody in the world that's raising money comes through there. Raise money. I think word has gotten out. I've been on that. I've been on that board for 20 years because they were a client of mine and I stopped working at jll. They call me right. I don't want to say, hey, will you be on our board? And I did it. And I don't. I don't participate in anything jll. I recuse myself if they have a deal coming in.
However, word has gotten out through all the consultants. I'm the only black person. There are two other women on the board. I'm the other black person on the board. Is that. I tell you the bulls guy is one going to see not your issue telling me about diversity. I want to see pictures of your team.
I want to see the trend of what you've done over the last few years in terms of diversity and I want to hear about your commitment to it. I can ask that question and I had one. And again, I'm not going to name any people.
One entity that was coming in for money and they were positioning themselves to be successful in minority communities.
And you look at the entire management team, white woman, woman was in a senior position. And then you look at the marketing material that they put out.
I'm going to tell you, John, I blasted them.
I in a very professional manner.
And you know, and that's been about a year and a half ago. And every time they come, they come back one more time and they bleed with diversity because they were schooled and my other board members are. It's where now when that comes up, I'm not the person that has to raise it.
So we got the culture of the board such that let's tell them so the consultants right now that's part of the checklist. And you talked about the raising the money. If you're not going to be holistic in that process of doing that, you're not going to be as successful. And then getting down to the. We had. Colin Dyer was the previous CEO of jll and I'm going to tell you he had the vision 10 years ago of understanding how important the environment was going to be in real estate. And we actually set up environmental group within the firm being able to do audits and being ahead of it. I've actually helped represent the firm at Davos in the past and we are worldwide leaders jll in terms of thinking about the environment and impact on real estate.
So something that's very important. And I think you see all the statistics that long term value in buildings that are green, okay. They're going to be the ones that are going to be sustainably valuable throughout the cycle.
[01:40:15] Speaker A: Well, I'm reading the Carbon Almanac right now. I don't know if you've heard that book. Seth Godin is the kind of, and it's facts about the climate and our, you know, existential risk of the, of, you know, of climate change.
And it's pretty daunting those statistics, I have to say. And he looks at everything from the entire ecosystem of the planet from you know, plants and animals and the whole thing and what humans have done over the last, since the Industrial revolution and all the statistics coming around it. I just wasn't aware until listening to that. It's, it's pretty, you know, in 10 years things are going to be pretty rough if we don't start taking.
[01:41:03] Speaker B: Well, we've had some pretty severe weather on the coast this year, haven't we?
[01:41:06] Speaker A: Going to get worse.
[01:41:09] Speaker B: And one of the things, the most recent board that I joined, Influence Energy, which is a, was a joint venture between AES and Siemens Energy and we went public last October on the nasdaq. And I'm actually chairman. And the, the opportunity to be a chair is a new experience and it's rewarding and at times it's lonely because you gotta, gotta, you know, there's nobody to look up to. You know, you go look in the mirror, you say, well you know, most sports you're on, you know, you just look up. The chairman's gotta decide that. And you know, now when you're the chairman, you're like, you know, okay, what are you gonna do?
There you go. But the point on that is that it's so intense, exciting because you know, when they asked me to be chairman, I'm like, I don't, I don't know, I'm not an energy expert. What this is, is an energy storage that energy supply systems we put together on the industrial level that actually back up utilities, for example, so, so I'm learning a lot more about it every day. And with that you are aware of all of the shortfalls in terms of continuity of service. Okay. Making sure that we're Using renewables to the extent that we can. And it's going to be a, in this new IRA legislation, you know, where we're giving people incentives to spend money on energy efficiency in the United States. It's going to be a boon for us. And I just, that's just something where you do it kind of like usaa. I feel so good about being on that board because we're helping, helping service members, you know what I'm saying? And this one is back to your question. I feel that I'm helping the environment because this is going to be the future. It's just exciting to be a part of something like that.
[01:42:56] Speaker A: If you haven't read the book, I'd recommend it.
[01:42:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:42:59] Speaker A: That Carmen Almanac, you pick up a lot from it. So now let's get to some personal things. So what were your biggest wins, losses and most surprising events in your career?
[01:43:11] Speaker B: Start with the, with the losses because that's, you know, things where people, I think good leaders are vulnerable. Right. You got to be vulnerable and authentic. And I think the loss is probably from a career perspective was there's a program called the White House Fellowship and it's a very prestigious program where mid level executives go and work in the government. And I made the finalists for that twice.
Okay. And was not selected. And at the time, you know, you're on this trajectory, your career, you're going, oh my gosh. You know, it's something that a lot of people that I admired had done it and I was looking to follow in their footsteps. So that was disappointing. And then you look back on it, had I done it, I would not have been able to get out of the military when I did because I would have gotten another obligation and therefore I would not have been at jll. And maybe we're not sitting here. Right, right. And then the second one was when I told you that I was running Green Park Financial, which is now walking down.
And that was a big disappointment because I really enjoyed what I was doing, felt that I was doing a good job.
And that may have been even a better thing that happened to me because what I decided after that, I think I told you earlier that I would never become dependent upon a single stream of income because when that happens, maybe you have to make sacrifices or maybe you get disappointed like I did there. So I basically used, use that as a lesson learned to diversify. First of all, who are you? And I don't mean this in an egotistical manner, but you are your brand. Okay? Each individual has their personal brand. And then you have to decide how you're going to distribute your brand.
And some people distribute their brand through one organization and that's their brand for the rest of their career. Now my, my brand, if you do it on 1099s or W2 or whatever, you know, I've got 20 brands, right, with income streams coming from all of them, which means that you're not over dependent on any of them. So maybe that gives me the comfort to do what I did on the project at jll, saying that we won't do the job because you know, I wasn't, wasn't like, you know, I wasn't gonna miss milk over it. However, I thought it was important to influence what I think will be a great muscle for our organization going forward. I own a lot of stock, so I wanted to be, you know, I'm not going to sell it all when I retire, so I want it to be sustainable and go that. So those would be kind of in, in the third one, the third one which we hit on very briefly was when Homer Smith told me I was never going to start in the army naked but smoking. I mean that was, that was devastating at the time as a 19 year old or whatever.
[01:46:15] Speaker C: Right.
[01:46:15] Speaker B: You know, I knew I wasn't that good, but I thought it was better than that. So those are the things and I think you, you, you try to learn from your disappointments and then, you know, many highlights from. I mean, probably one that I wish my wife had been able to witness was being selected for the Defense Policy Board. I mean, John, that's so cool.
I mean, I get the same briefings that the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff and President gets in terms of current operations and what's going on. I'm in there with some of the most highly respected thought leaders in the world on these issues. And you know, the two business guys in the room are myself and Jon Huntsman. You know, John's now vice chair of the board at Ford and he was governor of Utah, ambassador to China and Russia. And I can, you can imagine that those subjects probably come up and having the ability to learn and, and believe it or not, I even have some things to contribute from my perspective with the majority of the people being national security experts and ambassadors and things of that nature. So that's certainly has been something. And my wife, because she was a professional defense industry, I know she would have been very, very proud of that. It's a very prestigious position and we don't get paid. I'm actually a Special government employee for that, you know, for the security clearance and all that great stuff and to be able to make a contribution and feel that you're continuing to get back and then just the whole thing, being able to bill PI at public institutions, at jail out from. From nothing, when you had people that were naysayers that would say, you know, that's never going to work or whatever. So. And I don't mean that in terms of gloating that I told you so, but it's still just taking the not impossible, but challenging situation and pulling it together and making it work and being on all these boards. I mean, the board work. If I only had to work, work at one job. Even though JLL is a terrific company and I really love it and so grateful for the experiences, if that were the only thing I did on a daily basis, I would be so bored, to be honest with you. So to go one day and talk about the heights of financial services to another day talk about defense policy, another day talk about the hotel industry industry to another day to talk about H Vac, mechanical contracting and construction. And you put all that together and guess what that does for you, John? It gives you a unique perspective, of course, that no one else has. I can guarantee you that's your brand and that's my brand. There it is.
[01:49:01] Speaker A: That's perfect. So what was the most surprising thing you talked about? Wins and losses? What. What really hit you just out of your career? Career. Something that just kind of amazed good or bad, just blew you away.
Well, you never expected.
[01:49:17] Speaker B: Well, that. That beautiful lady Iris married me. And I mean, it was just. I gotta tell you, I. I remember.
[01:49:26] Speaker A: And you met her at Fort Dix.
[01:49:27] Speaker B: Met her at Fort Dix, New Jersey. And I can tell you, so.
So she had. Was in the process of retiring from DOD. She did 42 years of federal service, counting her time in the military.
Wow. And we were on the precipice of. I mean, you know, we've been successful from a resource perspective. We both like to travel, we have all of these plans for everything we can do. And I guess I would just. Just one of the things I'm sharing with people is hug the people you love and tell them about it and be prudent about planning for tomorrow, but don't put everything off.
And one of the things that she told me a long time ago after getting the necklaces, the rings and all that, she says, you know what?
I don't want any more things.
I want memories.
And we talked about that, you know, as she was battling with her counselor and she had some great memories. So I would encourage people to, you know, the bright spot is make, make memories and family. You can probably tell for us family is so important. That's great.
[01:50:42] Speaker A: That's awesome. So you just talked about family. So your life priorities, what are your priorities? Family's got to be first, then world.
[01:50:48] Speaker B: Let me tell you. You know, it's a.
Even when I was starting at jll, I coached my kids basketball teams and I was assistant coach on their baseball teams. It was one of some of the most stressful times yet some of the most rewarding times I've ever had. Coaching your kids. And as I see my older son now, he's coaching his kids.
[01:51:14] Speaker A: That's great.
[01:51:14] Speaker B: Okay. And I know that he was positively influenced by what he saw. So media. So family is very important. I think the organizations that I've involved in from you mentioned African American Real Estate Professionals, which again I was a co founder of. We have another organization, Real Estate Executive Council, which is the most senior African Americans in real estate the United States. You have the Executive Leadership Council, which I tell you that organization, top business people being in these organizations. And elc, for example, I was chair of our foundation for two years. I mean I was at the top. So being in these organizations and having the ability to contribute back from an intellectual basis of saying, you know, how did we get done what we're doing here at. How do we keep the process going so that others can have these opportunities and those are, you know, professional highlights where it becomes, you know, we all have egos. There should, you know, every human being has an ego. However, having the opportunity to do this and contribute and you actually see things happen. And the person I think of about that and I got his book up there somewhere, George Baker, right. He was a guy behind the scenes that liked to make things happen and he didn't have to be in it. And I would, I would like to have, you know, that perception of myself that you just make things happen and they're good things and you feel good about just sending that backstage, right? Watching it happen. And that's kind of where I am in my life now.
[01:52:54] Speaker A: So what would, what advice would you give your 25 year old self today?
[01:52:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I gave a speech ELC about four years ago, selected me for the top award. It's called the achievement award. And the year before I won it, it was the year after Mr. Smith, African American billionaire, he was done at. Ken Chenaut has won that award before. President Obama has won that Award before. So to be included in that group, he people, it's just really, I don't know. Again, one of those pinch yourself moments. And what, what I would tell my 245 year old self is really what I told you about West Point.
That was hard and that's what attracted me to.
So don't necessarily look for the easiest things on a short term basis.
And this takes some coaching to understand what's the long term game.
And I tell you, the toughest thing I've ever done in my life physically and mentally was go to Ranger school. Right. And I'm so glad I did that. So take those challenges where you can learn about yourself and you see that that societal or uninformed, self imposed limitations and restrictions don't really exist. Starting PI people are just, you know, do your day job, don't worry about this. You know, starting Bulls Capital Partners. Oh my gosh, we never. It's been 10 years since a de novo Fannie Mae Dus lender has been started and I just, I just. You can't take no as the answer now. I don't succeed at everything. However, those seminal moments in your life, you got to know when to hold them, when to fold them. However, don't fold easily.
[01:55:00] Speaker A: Sounds like antifragile is the approach that you've read that book. You know what I'm talking about.
[01:55:06] Speaker B: I know the concept.
[01:55:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. So if you could post a statement on a billboard on the Capital Beltway for millions to see, what would it say?
[01:55:23] Speaker B: A combination of things is something I was actually impacted by as a youth before I even went to West Point. And I have it on a plaque downstairs.
It's a combination for both the government, military and capitalism.
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country and then internalize that.
[01:55:57] Speaker A: Thank you, Herman. Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. And listeners, I hope you enjoy this interview. Thank you.
[01:56:05] Speaker B: Thanks, John.
[01:56:06] Speaker A: Appreciate it. So we just listened to Herman Bowles, the vice chairman of jll. He's quite a guy. He's been amazing through his education, his background, his career, education, the whole thing. It's just he's the whole package on seven boards. Arguably one of the most amazing black businessmen in the country, you could say potentially so. As I usually do, I'm bringing my post scripter today is Ramiz Munawar. Ramiz, welcome. Thank you for joining.
[01:56:41] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[01:56:42] Speaker A: Yeah, appreciate it. So what did you think of the conversation, Ramese?
[01:56:46] Speaker C: I think that was a Fascinating story. And to hear him tell it from, you know, when he was a child all the way through today, I think was just such an interesting path and such a unique story relative to what we've heard throughout this podcast. You know, I think my, my three key takeaways were, you know, number one, don't be afraid to challenge yourself because you won't know what your maximum potential is until you do. And it's important to step outside your comfort zone. Number two, and this is something you and I have talked about before as well, which is to be successful, you have to have a combination of analytical skills, communication skills and leadership skills. And that's not only leadership within sort of your work environment and your organization, but also leadership with yourself and understanding yourself. And then number three, which is sort of related to my first takeaway, which is don't be afraid to bet on yourself. He clearly did that numerous times, as we heard, and by having that mentality created an entire division of a man, major company that way. So he clearly had assumption to do that. And I thought that was just fascinating to listen to. What were you some of your thoughts on it?
[01:57:56] Speaker A: Well, just the thread of his being born to a mother. Number seven. Number seven, child to a woman in the rural south who was a laborer and, you know, just, you know, abject, pretty much abject poverty, was able because of his athletic prowess and obviously his personality and assertiveness to become the first starting black quarterback in the high school that he was in, which is 85% white, and to become the first black president of the class of his high school class. This is in the, in the early 1970s in Alabama when George Wallace was the governor of the state. So there is an amazing thing then he gets into west point, goes to 10 West Point and is told his sophomore year that he's not going to play in the Army Navy game, which was a real disappointment to him. But he got there and he said, okay, well, I'm going to, I like radio, so I'm going to be a radio announcer. I did this in high school, so I'm going to do this now goes there goes Sports announces, happens to meet the coach of the army team at the time was Mike Krzyzewski, who at the time had been trained by Bobby Knight, another great coach.
But, you know, Knight was the coach before he played for Knight when he was there. Mike Krzyzewski did.
Of course, you know, Herman didn't know at the time that Mike Krzyevsky would become the Mike Krzyzewski. But they had a relationship beginning then. So then he goes on to Harvard Business School after serving in the military for three, three years, had Army Ranger training, which he said was the most difficult thing he's ever gone through in his life.
And it taught him resilience like he's never seen.
So then he goes to Harvard Business School, does very well, networks out from there, and has a choice. Does he go into consulting, management consulting, or does he go into real estate? And he decides to go to LaSalle Partners in Chicago, which was a corporate real estate company, but it also obviously eventually became an institutional investment company. And so he pivoted into that and built relationships through that and then got involved in all kinds of things, all in Washington, D.C. and then networked at the Pentagon because of his experience in the army to find out, oh, there is an opportunity here. Wow, let's go take advantage of federal real estate. Nobody else had done it.
And he looked around and said, why isn't this market being ignored, addressed?
So he starts doing it on his own because he didn't get support internally. So as you suggested, he started his own internal perv to deal with it and had to assemble teams and then realized, nobody's supporting me here. This is. So he just said, heck with it. I'm going to start my own company, do his own thing to start it anyway. So it's just an amazing background and story.
[02:01:23] Speaker C: Yeah. One of the consistent threads through all of that was the importance of challenging yourself.
And I, like a lot of people, love competition. I thrive on competition. And I think challenges bring out the best of us and they unlock potential. And that daily challenges is why we show up for work every day in environments that aren't challenging, aren't interesting. I think at one point he said in the episode, the easiest path to was to do what's hardest to that effect. And that was the decision.
[02:01:56] Speaker A: Go to West Point.
[02:01:58] Speaker C: That's right. And so he chose that path because it presented the opportunity for him to instill the discipline and rigor that he knew he was capable of. And ultimately, that's the confidence that led to him doing what he did with Park Public Institutions at jll. And I thought that was just really inspirational.
[02:02:18] Speaker A: Well, I wonder where he got that. So I'm guessing that his mother was probably the one person that really inspired that in him. Had to be.
[02:02:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[02:02:30] Speaker A: You know, because he looked at what she was able to do, and she always probably took to the more difficult path, but still succeeded, you know, pretty impressive.
[02:02:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:02:43] Speaker A: So go ahead.
[02:02:45] Speaker C: And as you said, he was the youngest of six or seven. And he. I think he had said that his mother was still in high school when she had. That was not an easy time to live. So I think that was an incredible challenge that she took head on and, you know, had to be a strong component of his sort of confidence and motivation to do better.
[02:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So you look at what he's done and then you look at where he came from and you say, could you have climbed any steeper a path than he has of anybody you've ever heard of? So it's. I mean, I think if he were a woman and, you know, was disabled, maybe he'd have a more difficult. But other than that, you know, a black man from Alabama, you know, in that era doing what he did, he always seemed to take the harder path. He did not want to work. He said later in his career, he's not going to work for one person.
He wanted the flexibility. And that was the other thing about his life that was interesting. He always wants to be able to maneuver and run the chessboard for himself and not have somebody tell him what to do. And that seemed to be a common theme. What did you think of that?
[02:04:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I think we heard the story of when he had sort of started Public Institutions Division, felt that it needed more resources and more staffing and that he wasn't getting it at jll, decided to potentially sort of move that out of the platform, only then to wind up back into it with a stronger team and a larger organization and more commitment and resources behind it. And I think that goes back to what I said before about betting on yourself and just understanding where the opportunity is and just going after it.
[02:04:43] Speaker B: Yep.
[02:04:44] Speaker A: So why don't you talk a little bit about your impressions of what he said about DEI and that issue.
[02:04:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I think one of the stories that really struck a chord with me was the one about the white guy who went to an event and he was the only white guy there. And that made him feel really uncomfortable. And he had kind of said, you know, welcome to my world. I thought that was interesting because, you know, minorities in professional environments sometimes have a tendency to feel like they're living double lives. Right. And I can't remember exactly what the source was and maybe I can find it, but I recall that there was recently, last year, a major bank CEO who was talking about these DEI related issues. And he said that African American employees at his bank felt like they had to be one person at work and someone completely different at home. And that there was this Feeling that the moment you step out of the office, you can sort of take off the mask, take off the facade, and finally just be yourself. And that can be a really exhausting experience. As a minority, I deal with that a lot of that as well. You know, when I go to a networking event or an industry event, there's almost no one that looks like me.
And so I think, you know, it isn't. I wouldn't say it's uncomfortable, but it almost sometimes feels like I don't belong, that I would rather be in sort of a tech environment or a health environment, healthcare environment, which is something that myheritage is more likely to pursue. So I think there is sort of this mental exhaustion that comes with working, working in an institutional environment, because the underlying skills that are necessary for success aren't necessarily taught in our household. Growing up, my parents didn't work in that environment, so they didn't necessarily have that experience and that knowledge to pass on to me. So that when I stepped into that environment, I wasn't necessarily prepared for it. So I think every night it feels like I have to sort of wind down and like, all right, now I can be who I really want to be. And I think that speaks a lot to just not only our industry, but just problems we have throughout multiple industries about sort of acceptance and other diversity, diversity related endeavors. So it's kind of a general point. I don't know, you know, how much there is to chew on that, but that.
[02:07:02] Speaker A: How did you, how did you feel about the way he dealt with it and how he handled it?
[02:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's one of those challenges that, you know, it kind of reminds me of the whole sort of fight or flight reflex that, that humans have. It's one of those things that I had always understood and felt like architecture and real estate as a, as an industry was sort of my passion and that it wasn't going to be something I run from just because of my background. It's something that you have to, in order to overcome. You kind of have to grab the bull by the horns and just say, this is what I want to do. And if this is sort of a lifelong pursuit, it's got to be, it's got to be a focus. It's got to be something that I just take on every day. And you know, I think I do also want to recognize that as much as being a minority can feel like an obstacle sometimes, at least in the last couple of years, it can also serve in the opposite way. I think that if you Use it to your advantage. You can actually put in the work to improve and become the talent that is sought after. Right. Everyone's looking for diverse talent. We heard in the podcast about having diversity on teams and he talked about a situation where there was a, there was a, I can't remember exactly the story, but there was someone who was looking for diversity in a team, but his own team didn't have the diversity. And Herman said, hey, like if you want to walk the walk, if you want to talk the talk, you got to walk the walk. Yeah, I think it's tough to hire diversity if it's under qualified, but there's a lot of talent that I think is coming up through the academic systems right now. And I think the future in the industry is trending that way.
[02:08:40] Speaker A: Well, the other thing he said, and you have to recognize this is the demographics of this are changing. And by 2030, I think he said, or 2040, the majority of people in this country will be with colored skin, not white. Non white people will be the majority of the people in this country, which is when you add it all up, Hispanic and Asian and black and every, every non white, Anglo, Saxon and Catholic and you know, European tradition will be the minority.
That's the future. And of course you look at women coming out of college now, there are 50 between 54, 53 and 54, 5%, something like that. There's more women with undergraduate degrees now than men.
So no surprise that you might see a minority woman be President United States, maybe in the next five, ten years, who knows? But certainly a, the minorities are going to be in control eventually from a population standpoint. So the thought process has to be open mindedness. And I think it's a generational thing to some extent too.
And Herman had to fight it as being a baby boomer like I am and just a different thing. But he was in the way, as you suggested. He picked a tough path all the time and that's how he was able to overcome it. I think it's just his mentality, hey, I'm just going to do it, nothing's stopping me. But he always took initiative anyway. He is unique and he recognizes he's not there. Other people just don't have the same internal strength that he has. But he also recognized that he has to be a leader and demonstrate and inspire people younger than him that should look up and recognize that he has something to share and lead with. So, other thoughts?
[02:10:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, one thing I've been thinking about is as he talked about return to office and how he thinks that ultimately, you know, maybe it's not. Maybe the office environment is not going to quite be what it used to be pre Covid, but it's going to get close to that. And how sort of work from home has impacted minorities in a more disproportionate way because people tend to have sort of preconceived notions about who people are. And it's often minorities who are sort of portrayed in that negative light rather than just sort of neutral and how we aren't always given the benefit of the doubt and why it's more important for us to make an impression in person. And maybe sometimes it feels like the margin of error is smaller and not necessarily margin of error as in business mistakes, but more so just, you know, sometimes the way that someone speaks or the set, the way that someone communicates a message or maybe it's body language. Right. Things like that, that if you don't do it perfectly, it could be enough to stall your progress. And I think his point about how it's important to make that positive impression in person, I think that's a valid point. I think it's true. I think there is sort of a taller hill to climb. But like him, I think it's a challenge that I'm, you know, I, and others are willing to take on and one that, you know, I feel like is going to make us better in the long run.
[02:12:12] Speaker A: So what, you know, putting yourself in. In the minority person's shoes, what. What has been the biggest challenge in your life in trying to get into our industry, for instance? I mean, what. What. What has been hard for you?
[02:12:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it sort of goes back to what I mentioned before, which is it is not the expectation of who you'll meet. Right. When I go to events, I'm the only person that looks like me. And as a result, it prevents sort of a curveball that people aren't used to. And so I think it's over time conveying to people that you understand what you're doing.
Whereas I feel like if you're not a minority, you don't have to work as hard to get people to accept that. That, I think, has been the biggest difference, that your sort of background credentials don't matter. It's what you can do. But it sometimes feels like you have to work harder to prove that you know what you're doing. Right. That. That I think is the best.
[02:13:15] Speaker A: Well, that's what women tell you tell me too, that they have to kind of be almost Perfect to not get the same criticism. Or if they're together, they make a comment and then some guy reiterates it. The guy gets the recognition, and they don't get it. So now, whether you've seen that in your circumstance where somebody that, you know, some white guy next to you gets recognition that you didn't get for doing something, but it's just one thing that I've observed and over the last several years, and I'm doing all I can in our community to try to bring some diversity in, both men, women, and people of color.
Working on it. Hopefully, I can achieve that in the iconic journey. We'll see. So any other observations?
[02:14:03] Speaker C: Yeah, just sort of a point on that. You know, I'd like to mention, you know, I'm with Jamestown now, but I used to work for Jerry lynch, and that organization just has tremendous diversity. And that's one of the things that really intrigued me about them. And now at Jamestown, and really with both organizations, I've been fortunate to be in a position where diversity is not only appreciated, but also promoted. Both organizations, I think, have done just a fantastic job in supporting people, encouraging people to be more active in the community, encouraging people to push themselves, apply themselves, you know, have more confidence. You know, accomplishments are recognized. They're not, you know, credit is not given to somebody else where it's not due. And just with both organizations, met a lot of great people who really understood and supported what I stood for. So I just wanted to take a moment and recognize and appreciate, you know, what they've done for me and how they've supported me throughout my career.
[02:14:55] Speaker A: That's great.
Well, also, the bottom line is everyone, regardless of your skin color, your race, your. Your. Your gender, whatever is an individual, okay? And every individual has to do the best they can with what they got and then try and fit in to the situation that they're in. But dig deeply internally to figure out what you need to do. And as you said earlier, accomplishments are more important than your skin color or whatever else. But also you as a human are more important. Important than what you do as well. So look to the humanity in people. And that's what I try to do as much as I can. I try to look at the individual level. I try to cut away from all the cultural things and look to the individual, because I think all of us have strengths that we can bring out and contribute to the cause. So, you know, while diversity is important, I still look, you know, we're all. Everything's diverse because every human being's different. I don't care what you are, you know, so, you know, everything's diverse because everybody's different. So it's just, you know, you try to sweep culture away. Culture is important, though, and it affects your behavior and your. And that. But when it gets down to the basics, culture is secondary to who you are individually. So that I just want to make that point.
[02:16:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:16:30] Speaker A: As well.
[02:16:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And I neglected. Neglected to mention that I'd like to sort of take a moment to thank you and for everything you've done as well. I apologize if I overlook that. But you know that I appreciate everything you've done and how you've supported me throughout the last, you know, five, six, seven years that we've known each other. And I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be involved here. It means a lot to me.
[02:16:53] Speaker A: You're welcome, Ramis. And you've earned every minute of it. Your insightful commentary, your thoughts, your contributions to everything that, not only for this podcast, but also for the community. And then even in the mentorship thing that in the past when I was involved with the University of Maryland and you were there was very beneficial. So I really appreciate all the energies that you've put into it. And with regard to Herman Balls, I'll just kind of let it. I think this should be a good wrap up for that. And, you know, he's an inspiring guy, and I hope that you, you listeners are inspired by, by Herman and take away some, some good, really inspiring ideas from him and listen particularly his advice near the end of the episode. So.
Okay. Well, thank you. And I'm going to give a sneak preview for the next episode. So after this one, this is Black History Month. And so Herman Bowles is African American. And my next guest is Catherine Buell, who is an African American lady who leads the Amazon Equity Fund that's investing in affordable housing in this region. And it's quite a story. So stay tuned in two weeks for that one. Thank you for joining me today.
John Coe & Herman Bulls
