Transcript: 16 Years in Prison to White House Guest, CEO of General Contracting Social Enterprise w/ Chris Wilson

Hello, I'm Brittany Campbell Turner and this is the Constructor Podcast, episode number 35. Hello and welcome to Constructor, the best way to build it. This podcast is dedicated to helping property owners have certainty in their decisions about their construction projects. We talk about fostering trusting relationships within your project teams, help you understand how to lower risk, be under budget and on schedule in your construction projects, and most importantly, exceed your end user's desires. So for this episode, we talk with Chris Wilson.

Chris is the owner and CEO of two social enterprises in Baltimore City. One is a construction general contracting firm called Barclays Investment Corporation. The other is a furniture manufacturing company called House of Da Vinci, where they produce high end furniture. They will be coming out with a line of furniture products and one of the lines is commissioned by Red Bull. So you'll hear a little bit more about that in the interview.

But the reason why I wanted to speak with Chris is because I'm looking more and more for companies who are giving back to their communities. You'll see more and more of that in future podcasts. Specifically, people who are uplifting, who are positively impacting humanity in a very general sense. There are lots of communities that we could do that with. Chris, specifically, he tends to hire people who need help the most.

Unemployed returning citizens who just came out of prison. And if you listen to last week's episode with Ken Grondbeck, the demographer, we talked about the demographics of the USA. And if you want to check that out, that's episode 34. One thing I asked Ken about was specifically diversity and the demographic trends in America. And his response referenced Latino immigrants who have been contributing to the economy in a really important way, basically growing the population.

We really should be paying attention to them. But he also mentions on the topic of diversity that the black male population that is imprisoned touches the millennial, the Gen X, and the baby-bunner generations. And we don't know how to deal with that. No one knows what to do with that population. And no one wants to talk about it.

This is where Chris Wilson's story comes in. Welcome to the Constructor Podcast, Chris. We're happy to have you on the show. You have two social enterprises, Barkley Investment Corporation and House of Da Vinci. Could you tell us a little bit about the difference between a social enterprise and a social cause?

My philosophy is I don't want to just make money. I want to do it in a way where I can solve a problem, whether that's a social problem or improve my environment. So if it's like blight removal, just doing stuff to improve and give back versus the pure capitalism, just make more money and create value for the shareholders or whatever. So that's just not my philosophy right there. I think that was the problem we've seen in the last recession in 2008.

It was just so much greed, just make money, make money. And we got to think about the people and think about our environment. So that's my philosophy. And not doing that through a nonprofit or 501C3, you felt like you could provide jobs to people who are in need, like the unemployed or people who are previously out of prison or that are just out of prison. Right, exactly.

So my thing with nonprofits, it's a necessary entity for society, but the model is based on people giving grants and stuff. And I just think the right model for us and what I'm trying to do is for profit, create like a value, create a sustainable model where you can also help people. Awesome. To get a little into why you're so passionate about having a social enterprise and giving that value to whoever is being hired and in addition to that, any of the stakeholders, just give us a sense just what drives you, what drives that desire in you.

I guess it would have to go back to when I was really, really young, maybe like seven or eight. I've always been an entrepreneur as far as I can remember. I remember my mom telling me about the law of scarcity and selling candy and stuff like that to my friends. And I also remember my uncle would lecture me and my brothers about how we need to get up off the porch, we need to get a job. Just always, every time I seen him, he actually would get on my nerves with it.

He would sometimes call us losers, but he never sat down and actually showed us how to get a job or showed us how to start a company or taught us anything. So that stuck with me growing up. And so I recognize the challenges here in Baltimore of unemployment, drugs, people not graduating from school. And I want to be able to help remove obstacles out of people's lives and create those opportunities So instead of just telling someone, you know, you need to get a job or you need to find a career and going about my business.

I'll say that, but I'll say I'm sure you are you do it. Well, I'm going to provide training for you to perform like this job right here. And thank you off the streets. So you are you able to experience the lack of direction when someone said, go ahead and, you know, you should be doing this or that. Right.

But you were you never got the direction or were taught the steps. And you saw in your community that people in general were not taught the steps to do so. And so your your drive is to go ahead and actually teach people, provide that skill set. Right. Right.

Because that's really that's all it is. It's you know, it's no difference. Like someone knows how to do something and someone doesn't. And you know, my teachers, like growing up, my teachers would say sometimes in class, I got mine. You got to get yours.

And then sit down and read the newspaper. And it's like, well, how am I going to get mine if you're not going to teach me anything? Yeah. Yeah. So so that's an important driver.

Just to just to be able to say, you know what, I feel that there's a deficiency in the way things are structured and even culture. Right. And and and you're you're working to fill that gap, which is an amazing thing. Thank you. Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about the goals of your either one, the furniture company, House of Da Vinci. I know you say you're planning on rebranding soon. Right. And then also Barclays. OK.

Yeah. Tell us tell us what you're trying to achieve in the next year or five years or. So what the furniture company like most of my focus lately has been on the relaunch for the furniture line. I've been the company is about three years old. I've been making all kinds of furniture and restoring antique pieces.

There's a correlation in restoring furniture with my other company, and it's just finding pieces of furniture or people that like most folks don't see any value in and just tapping that the untapped potential. And so with the with the sofa, like if I found like an old antique sofa, I would store a sofa to like his natural beauty and then sell it. And so what we're trying to do now, we're working on a lot of furniture. So we're building Chesterfield sofas, including the frame, everything, executive conference tables, an end table and then just a chair, maybe a chair for like restaurants or lounges.

And then we're going to mass produce them. And so we hire people. Some of our people have come up for present. We also have a couple of folks who never went to prison, just really skilled and love to build stuff. And so we also make art to so we're selling some paintings.

And the thing about our company is a percentage of our profits we give directly to causes around Baltimore, people who need help, the most people that's on the ground, that's doing the community organizing or just stuff for veterans and just doing stuff for people like that. And so people like if you buy like Red Bull just commission us to build a sofa, Chesterfield sofa. And we call our we don't call our sofa Chesterfield. So we call it the San Tam Winchester sofa, which is named after one of one of the most challenging communities here in Baltimore.

And usually when people hear San Tam Winchester, they think about like the uprising, Freddie Gray, the highest infant mortality rate, the highest incarcerated population in Baltimore City. But there's also another side to San Tam, a lot of resilient, innovative people who do amazing work there. And so this sofa that we sold to Red Bull, we want to like be able to tell that story about, you know, the sofa, San Tam Winchester, also our materials, we use reclaimed materials, we source all that stuff locally. They get to hear about the people who who built the sofa.

And so we think that's powerful right there. So that's the story I want to tell. It's all about the story we do. We make nice furniture, but we want people to know our story and what we're going through here in Baltimore. So I know you said San Tam Winchester is is the one that's supported by Red Bull or rather you sell that to Red Bull, right?

Yes. That's awesome. Red Bull, yes. What other community organizations are you supporting in Baltimore? So another organization that we work closely with and that we make donations to is Second Chance, which is a place that sources it gets material donated, furniture, building materials, and they resell them.

But they also this model, they employ about 100, 150 people, 70 percent of the people just came up in prison. So they're providing opportunities, job opportunities for people who need help the most. I also raise money for the University of Baltimore Second Chance College Program. So it's a group. It's about 33 inmates who are working towards a bachelor's degree.

And so the work that I do out here to do the companies and to speak in and through fundraising, we give a lot of money to that program. And that's something that I'm trying to encourage other folks to do, other business leaders. It's not just about making money, but having an impact in our communities. And this is one way to do it through business. I think that you've gotten a lot further ahead than maybe a lot of people by connecting connecting with these larger organizations and getting the support like you're getting with Red Bull.

And I think it's an inspiring story. So anybody, any one of our listeners, doesn't matter if you're an owner, if you're a contracting firm, doesn't doesn't matter who the listener type is. There's an opportunity to think about how to how to support the under supported in the community. And I like that you mentioned the furniture has its own untapped potential. But I think that you carry that over into people as well.

You want to be able to you want to be able to infuse and enable and uplift the those who have untapped potential. Right. That's I mean, that's a very good point. For example, a few years ago, I worked as a workforce development director and I would also meet with like local gangs and folks who they had tattoos all over their face, just came out from prison, not working, back child support, all this stuff. And some of my partners would say, well, don't focus on a person like that.

Focus on someone that you can employ. We can't help everyone. But I would look at this person like they showed up on time when I scheduled the appointment. Their limbs work. Their attitude is reasonable.

They can work. You know, they could they could paint a wall and not get paint on the floor and get them a job. And I would do it. And I would help these folks. And it's like, oftentimes it's like Ma's Law's hierarchy of needs, like as long as they could like a place to stay, food and stuff like that.

Like that's what people need. I can do that. You know, and that's what I started doing. And that's when I realized, you know, I want to focus on this area where I can help people like that. And people need to see people that look like themselves, that come from where they come from.

So like my uncle, if my uncle would have done things differently, you know, maybe things would have been differently for me growing up. It wouldn't have been so rough. So what do you think the biggest obstacles are that you face as you're trying to build your businesses? You know, I I'm sure there's a lot just given the hirees are trying to hire. Right.

X cons, if you will. And then. Right. Right. You know, unemployed for a while.

You know, like you said, people people want to work with others that look like them. But you as a G.C. or, you know, if somebody is walking into a space, you know, they have an expectation of what people are supposed to look like. So, I don't know. Feel free.

If that's if that's, you know, just one of the obstacles, you know, feel free to talk about anything else as well. Right. Well, well, one thing I don't use the word X cons. I prefer either like return a citizen or, you know, you know, I don't think the term I think that's a little outdated. But as far as the challenges, so that's that is a challenge.

Right. To to work in business with a population that that also faces like, you know, a lot of challenges. And most of these challenges are in the living environment. And so having a decent place to stay, not having the car, limited education. And so there is.

Sort of there's a ceiling of capacity and skill sets. And so that's why it's important for folks to even when you get a job to continue to keep training and keep pushing yourself to move up the economic ladder. But but there's different challenges. Right. So just the fact that I focus in this area or even myself, like I come from this area, like I've been to prison, grew up in a tough neighborhood.

I lost family members to gun violence. I had to, you know, battle like, you know, PTSD. But there's there's a stigma for people like myself and especially in business. When I started when I came to Baltimore and I started my company and we were profitable, like instantly we started making money. We started like, you know, hiring people.

I grew up, I went up to like 23 employees for my construction company and I couldn't get a line of credit from from the banks. Banks would say we need two years of tax returns. It's like I'm a startup. I just started. We need collateral.

You pretty much like like they would loan me money if I didn't need money. And so I needed that line of credit to revolve on credit to because, you know, I couldn't wait 90 days to get paid from a client and it had to flow payroll. So it was it was just it was killing me. And so that was a challenge. And I realized a few years later that the reason why my, you know, my loan lines of credit didn't get approved is because of my background, having been in the prison.

And so it's pretty it's pretty hard to overcome that. But we're still here. We're still making money. Yeah. Thanks for correcting me on the the term X-Con.

I returning citizen. And just given given the obstacle that you you just mentioned about getting a line of credit is the constant returning. It's not like it's not like it's returned. You know, it's not like you can just hop back and jump right. Jump right in and operate just like everybody else.

So right. That's that's huge. I don't think that some people realize that there are obstacles that that people face when they're trying to to establish themselves again in society, especially in the black community, especially in the black males that are that are trying to write, you know, do better for themselves. I notice something else. And I've actually been journaling about this, particularly in the black community, is because of like, well, take Baltimore, for example, with with all the gun violence and the homicide rate and the opiate academic epidemic that's taking place right now.

I'm noticing a lot of people are suffering from trauma, PTSD, like, you know, and stuff doesn't have to happen to you. It can happen around you. And I just I see a lot of people that's they're struggling with it. And oftentimes in our communities, we don't we're reluctant to seek help or go to therapy and stuff like that. And so I just I just see a lot of people that suffer.

And, you know, people cope different ways, like self-medicating, drinking too much, using drugs. And I think like this is a result of trauma. It's actually generational trauma that's just been passed down to families. Yeah. And so so it appears to me that you you help in that a little bit.

You provide a little bit of therapy. Yeah. So I got a tough manager slash social worker. Yeah, yeah. And and that's why that's what people need.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the black community does need to be focused on. But I think there's a lot of that taking place in other communities. And and they do seek out help.

Right. And they're able to come up out of it. And it's and it's it's a mindset shift that that does need to take place. But I think there is that time investment that you're putting in to people and that care that you're putting into people that that's allowing people to to improve. So so you started out with twenty and twenty three employees.

Where are you at as far as employees now? So we scaled down a bit. So we're down to down to I think we have nine nine employees construction and we're at six for the furniture. Reason why I was just again, making payroll and floating like it just was too much for me. And so I had to scale down and, you know, we probably operate like a movie production company, depending on the project, we can scale up.

And so when I went up to twenty three employees, I was building a seven unit apartment building. So we needed a big crew. And so and so we hired people and worked on that project for like a year. And so right now, we're just just riding, riding, working clean, lean, mean. Yes.

Yes. So that's how we're rolling right now. Yeah. But I love it, though. I love working.

I love building and I like being around the crew. So I have a couple of questions for you around mindset and culture and construction. So just to give you a little bit about my background and for the audience as well. I have worked as an owner's rep for probably about ten years. And I would say the first four years I worked in a lot of government work, which, as you know, there are the women and minority requirements, at least here in Chicago.

So I had the opportunity to work with companies that sometimes are underrepresented, a lot of Latinos, black males. Just just more minorities in the organizations, because quite honestly, they had to represent in numbers. So I had the opportunity of, you know, teaching people different skill sets while while having while keeping them accountable. From my perspective, a lot surrounding around schedule, schedule management, schedule preparation and schedule execution. I think as I think as long as there's that support where where you can invest and teach and uplift, you know, by by creating some systems in place.

I think I think that's truly where the secret sauce is at. And I use that term, but maybe there's a better one. And I guess I like it. Yeah, you don't like it either. No, I like it.

I like it. Yeah, like, oh, you like it. OK, good. Well, I'm curious, Chris, do you have do you have systems in place when you when you talk with someone to when you when you're prospecting to see if you'd like to hire someone or if you're even looking at a job, right? Is it worthwhile to you to to embark on an acquiring that because you're going to be in that space for a while when you when you're actually constructing, like what what's your right?

So it's a good question. So what's jobs? I'm always thinking about. Like, I guess I will start with the client or the people. I like to do business with people I like.

Yeah. And so so it's just the little things. And so when we sit down, we show up, say, if it's a walkthrough to look at a project, are they on time? Because 50 percent of any job or whatever is like just getting there on time. So if I'm going to look at a job site or and we agree to meet at a time, if they show up late, I'll make a note of that.

You know, I'll do my homework on, you know, if they pay the bills. Oftentimes, folks don't want to pay on time. Check, you know, check some references and stuff. And then it's also internally about, you know, what is my capacity? And like, and what is like, you know, what's the capacity of my team?

Can they get stuff done or, you know, what am I? And so I just make decisions based off of that and whether or not I want to do the work. And trust me, like I've I've made mistakes and like, especially when I first started out, I learned a lot. I got in and my first project I started on. Well, my second project was that seven unit apartment building that we had to do interior demolition.

We had to do some structural stuff. We had to raise the roof of it at another apartment. It was just a lot of work. And it was, you know, I had to learn a lot. Yeah.

So it was challenging. Yeah. So you I think you use the term see where our mind is at. Yeah, see, yeah, see where the mind is at. Yeah.

Let's break that down a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know, like, I mean, I guess I have a degree in sociology and I just I like to understand people better. And it's been times where, you know, we've done jobs and, you know, folks didn't want to pay us or all kinds of stuff.

Well, I just want to I want to understand a person who I'm doing business or doing a job for. And so for me, that's that's important. Just what type of person they are. I mean, especially like here in Baltimore, like it's different. Like when we do work in D.C., it's different in New York.

But Baltimore is just a very people oriented city. Like it's all about the people here in Baltimore. And it's a small city. So everyone knows everyone. And so I just try to focus on this work in areas where, you know, it's good people.

Yeah, that's that's huge. I think there are a lot of people, like you say, it could be money hungry. And that's definitely not your focus. You're like you want you want to be fulfilled and right. No, not at all.

And that that definitely is determined by the people that you're working with. Right. I'll give you an example. There were a lot of people getting hit crossing on a particular street in Baltimore by cars. Cars were speeding.

It was just driving too fast. And so there was a project. Some local artists wanted to figure out a solution to slow traffic down. And so we got together. We included the community and we wanted to create these structures, five life size elephants.

They had to be built. And we allowed the community to participate, the children. And they chose the elephants. They would paint like certain parts of the elephants. And then we assemble these elephants along along.

It's in front of the zoo, actually, but it was along the street. And the theory was, well, people would see these structures like they were pretty. They would slow down to look at them and it would slow traffic. And so it was a simple solution to get people to stop speeding. And, you know, of course, I was like, all right, well, who's going to pay for this?

Who's the client? And one of the local bank, PNC bank, actually paid us to do it. And so that was something I was like, all right, well, this is a job. Wanted to give me a closer relationship with my bank, closer relationship with the community. And it's a project that I would be proud to point to to say, listen, this is something that we built and we made some money from it.

And so that was that was a fun project to do. And it's, you know, it makes me feel good to drive. That was a few years ago, the drive by and see the elephants there. And also people are getting hit by cars. And so we like to choose projects like that and work with people who also want to have an impact in their community.

And, you know, everyone's happy. Yeah, actually, I think I came across those on your website. Those are actually really cool. They're cool pieces of artwork. And I would slow down to look at it, too.

Right. So if you want to take a look at the elephants, go ahead to Barclay Investment Corporation dot com. And you can see the pictures there, too. Chris and his crew working on different sites. They're amazing spaces with timber and you can tell that you can tell they have a lot of history there.

Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. That I want to get into a little bit the mindset around building a social enterprise in construction. OK, it seems that it seems that because you've taken the, you know, strong manager and social worker approach, you've been able to you've been able to do well in the community, getting business and in the set and the other. I I'm curious as to other organizations, what what you might recommend to them to start embarking on helping in similar spaces?

Right. Um, I think just like with construction and I just as myself, like growing up and just working in a backyard with my mom, doing landscaping work or just really appreciating the process of building stuff. For me, I just I really enjoy working alongside people, especially folks who I know who've been through similar stuff such as myself growing up and working alongside people like that, it allows you to bond and instill a sense of self-worth and ability and potential. And I don't know, I just enjoy it.

Just just helping people. Like I say, like my uncle would tell us we need to do this, we need to do that. And, you know, my approach was just different. Like I would be alongside my men and women that work for me and explaining stuff to them and working with them to build stuff and then handing them a paycheck and telling them, see, you don't have to look over your shoulder like the earn an honest living, you know, and it feels good. It's just, I mean, I just can't.

So I think, you know, employees and business owners, when you care about your people and you create an environment where people can learn and build and grow and move up in the company, it just, you know, you get better workers, you provide better service or create better products when people just like it there and like being around you. Yeah, I think people, especially some of the companies that I work with, they'll initially think, what's our talent and development program? Um, let's think about the in classroom training that we're going to go through.

And, um, you know, I think sometimes what's missed is that grassroots just side by side, working with somebody, understanding what it is they have to achieve and like thinking through brainstorming in, in, in place, like on the site, whatever it is, just, just like, let's, let's deal with the project at hand together. Right. And it sounds like that's the approach that you're taking. Absolutely. Sometimes I get in trouble for it.

Like my, my advisor would tell me sometimes, I know you want to bond with the crew, Chris, but you bond, you bring them donuts and pizza or something. It's like, I don't want to see, I want to see you down in that trench. And it's like, I like working like, you know, if we're digging a trench or something, I'm going to jump down in there and sing along with the guys and dig this trench. Like hard work is good for the soul. And, you know, I, you know, people appreciate that.

I get dirty too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I love this show called undercover boss. I don't know if, yeah.

I think there's nothing like, you know, just really taking the time to understand really what everybody has to do and like the mindset they, they have while they're doing it. And, and maybe just working through some of the small obstacles that can really improve, you know, the way they're doing something. And I don't know, it sounds like obviously you're not undercover boss. They're an in person, you know, but I, I think that that value is huge. And I'm sure that your employees help, you know, they appreciate that as well.

Yeah. I've helped. So I've helped some of my employees go on to start their own company. So this is this guy who I met when I was doing workforce development work, his name was Terrence. That's a carpenter too.

Showed on whole time, really good dude, had his own tools. I got him a job on a construction site as a carpenter helper for like $21 an hour. He worked for like three weeks. I think they found out about like his background. They laid him off.

And so, so I hired him. So I hired him. He started working for me, started running one of my crews and doing some construction, some carpentry work. I was paying him $31 an hour. And one day we were sitting in my car and he knew my story.

He knew I'd been in prison, spent 16, half my life almost in prison. And he seen that I had been home two years, started a company, you know, brought a house. And he was like, I want to get to where you at. And I said, you know, again, I thought of my uncle and I said, it's actually, you know, it's a lot of work, but like I can sit down and show you. So we met on a Sunday and I sat him down and I told him about like how we can incorporate former LLC, how you can get us some insurance, set up a website, do payroll, do like ADP or paychecks and just broke it all down to him, set up a website, some business cards.

This is how you do it. And like about a month later, his company, he started this company. I helped him start it. And his company was just a subcontractor company for my company. And instead of like handing them paychecks, I was handing them checks for like $20,000, $18,000.

And he went back into the community, just like myself, and hired people. So he was inspired by what I had done. And so, and that made me proud. It's like, that's what I want to see happen. Like that's what we need to do.

Like we need to go back and help lift our people up. Yeah. That's, that's an awesome story about how you enable careers for people, right? It's a, that's just giving me like tingles. I love it.

I love it. Oh man. So is there anything that you, you want to leave the audience with at this point? I don't know. I think one of my, like my personal, like I guess like philosophies or something that just stuck with me growing up is I never allow people to instill doubt into me or like, I know my worth and my ability and my potential.

And so I'll always tell people that like, just to make sure you surround yourself with amazing people. And so I'm definitely blessed to have made it like this far and accomplished all I've accomplished, but I've only been able to do it because a handful of people just mentored me and supported me and they're still there for me. And so that's what I want to encourage. But I call it, I call it my personal board of advice. Like some of them may not know they're on my board, but I just have people in my life.

That's just, just dope. They're just awesome people and they give me advice on all aspects, business, relationships, just in life. And that's, that's how I'm able to get stuff done. And so I don't want, I encourage anyone to, you know, just surround themselves with amazing people. You know, again, it's aligning yourself with positive people, aligning yourself with yourself, with people who are going to uplift you so that you can continue to be charged and uplift those people around you.

Yeah. So Chris, thanks for doing this interview with me. I want to ask what's the best way for people to learn more about you and what you're doing or how to get in contact with you? Sure. My website is chriswilson.biz.b-i-z.

I'm real active on Instagram and Facebook. So my Instagram is Chris Wilson Baltimore, Facebook is Chris Wilson, and my Twitter handle is Chris Wilson BALT. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. And hopefully we get a chance to find out where you are maybe next year.

Maybe we'll do a check in to see where you are. Okay, for sure. I hope you guys enjoy this podcast. Check out Chris Wilson's website, chriswilson.biz. Follow him to hear more about his upcoming book, The Master Plan, that will be released in spring 2018.

We will speak to him around that time and keep you guys updated. There's also going to be a movie produced that will tell his story, The Master Plan. So we'll be looking forward to that as well. Also, if you enjoyed this podcast, you'd be interested in my talk with Randy Hall where we talk about diversity and construction and supporting our communities more in episode 30. That's constructor.com slash EP30.

Don't forget to subscribe at constructor.com. That's constructrr.com to get email updates from me about upcoming podcasts. Feel free to recommend an interviewee as well there. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, you can do so at iTunes and Stitcher. Please leave a review to show your support and let me know you're enjoying the podcast.

I look forward to talking with you guys next week. you