Welcome to Disruption now. I'm your host. The moderator, Rob Richardson. With me is Larry Brinker with the Brinker Group, and he is responsible for I believe over $4 billion in construction projects. And we're going to go to us to talk to him about his journey and how he's navigated having obviously a lot of success. And but we really want to get to the heart of the lessons along the way because we believe in the beauty of the struggle.
We believe in the disruption, the disruption lies that in the journey it lies in the struggle. So, Larry, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah. So you are from Detroit, Michigan. Are you live there? Yes. So a weird question to start with, but. Yes, I'm going to laugh for. So I was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan, which ironically was the home of the Pontiac Silverdome for many years, where the Lions played prior to moving to Detroit.
With that being said, yes, I am a Pontiac, you know, born and raised person, and currently my business is in Detroit. The Lions don't necessarily drank the Kool-Aid, but. They're not as bad. You know, you don't play you're not play with. I don't claim them. I don't claim. So who do you play like? This is a very important question. Oh, man. You know. Look, I stayed a Bengals fan even through the hard times. There was.
It is very like the Bengals and the Lions had a very similar history until recently. But so it's. Yeah, so I understand how you feel actually. So what I would say with the Lions is the fact that like they're winning now, which is great. I love the grit. I love what they represent. It's just, I mean, years of weekly letdowns. You just have to let it go. Sometimes I am slowly getting back onto the bandwagon, but overall, it's great for the city.
It's unbelievable to see how much a city gets behind a team. I mean, we went, oh, in 16 one year and every game was still sold out. So I'm back. On the benefit of it. All right. All right. You're back on the bandwagon. So let's talk. I really think you learn a lot about people when you when you get to be like one of their defining moments. So I'm curious to hear your defining moment, like a moment you had where it was a really tough moment.
It could be a moment that was transformational, but it's a moment that you saw that you had to figure out a way forward or there wasn't or was going to be, you know, complete failure or was just it was it wasn't going to be something that you accept. Walk us through what that moment was for you. Yeah, I feel like I have several. But okay, What's the first one that comes to mind?
The one that comes to mind for me is like, excuse me is Kobe noted the fact that I unfortunately, I was one of the first 65 people in the state of Michigan with Kobe. Right. Which was, well. Super scary. That how you want to make history. But go ahead. Yeah. No, not at all. And it it was like the first week of March.
And what happened was I ended up becoming very sick, spent a couple of days in the hospital, and from there I was fortunate to recover, although I had some friends who at the same time called it that didn't didn't really survive it, which was unfortunate. But after coming out of COVID, it made me look at things a bit differently as it related to our company. And a lot of it was really navigating through how do we continue to operate a company while keeping people safe at the same time?
And is the difference in construction safety? When you think about, hey, we never want to go go home every day same way that came. But when you think about COVID, we were looking at literally the idea that myself, my father, any of our key employees in over our staff period, could tomorrow get sick and not be here. Excuse me. And so with that being said, the defining moment for us was was do we continue operating our company as we always have, Right?
Or do we really look at how we can be transformative and flexible to make sure that we're keeping people safe, but we're putting our our our people first and foremost. And so from that perspective, it was one of those things where we were one of the first companies to shut down. That was a decision that I made early on. I was actually still in the hospital at that point when I made that call.
But not just that, but I would say we were one of the first companies prior to knowing if there would be help from the government or anything else to say, hey, we were going to keep everyone on payroll. We wanted to keep everybody at home safe and whatever losses we incurred, we were willing to to accept that just based on the fact of how close it hit us. And so a defining moment from that perspective was really not necessarily taking what I would say is the easy route.
And then also being one of the first to make a decision like that, which is during those times of cold, it was really something that we had never faced. So the fact that we were talking about shutting down a construction company, telling our clients that we were shutting down our job sites, those were not easy conversations. How'd that go? I mean, it's it's it became an easier conversation, I imagine, when when when the government followed with that decision.
But you made that decision before it. It was mainstream. How did you walk through a conversation like that with clients? Like that? Seems like a hard conversation. Yeah, so I can joke about it now, but the week leading up to me testing positive, I actually had meetings with, I would say 70% of my clients. Are there in person. In person. So they did so well. They didn't get COVID, but it was a situation where they were pretty worried.
So they started shutting down their offices due to the exposure. So it hit home a bit different for them as well. But it was still a different conversation when you talk about their own offices compared to their dollars. Right? So yeah. Exactly. Right. And so. That's when you really get to see people's principles, not when people what they had real. Values. And real values, like when you have to actually sacrifice something for real. Absolutely.
Those are your values, not what you say your values are, but what you're willing to sacrifice shows your values. Absolutely. So for the most part, it went over well. It was it was so fluid and so fast moving. By the time some of our clients had an opportunity to even digest it. I mean, we were a couple of days past the conversation and things had progressed even more so fortunately, it went well. I feel like from that perspective we definitely saved save some lives.
Most likely we have about 500 people that work for us on a daily basis. Well, and and when you look at our current numbers as a company, we're pretty proud that through that that that hardest time from March through, say, June, July we were pretty low in terms of positive cases. Did it make you feel better about your mortality? A little bit more. I know it did for. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So so I have to tell you. But but finish that point too, and end up after you're done with that.
Go ahead. You're finished. Yeah. So. Oh, no, no, no. So I have to tell you, I'm 43. I was 40 at the time. Excuse me. And and up until that point, I never thought about my own mortality. Right? Yeah. We usually don't. Write. And it wasn't until I went to the hospital and I was. Excuse me, I was locked in a a and isolation room with no human contact whatsoever. I had a nurse come check on me once every 4 to 5 hours, and I was in the hospital for two and a half days.
And it's not until you're in that room by yourself and you really don't know what's going on. People are coming in when they do come in, terribly afraid that it makes you start to look at things differently, say, wow, like, I mean, this is not only serious, but the fact that you don't have your family to support you, you don't have your friends, you don't have human contact which which which by itself goes a long way. Yeah, really made me think about my own mortality.
I mean, those nights that I were, that those two nights I was in the hospital, I mean, I spent all night, both nights praying just a if for some reason I'm not here tomorrow, that hopefully I've done all of the things that I needed to do while I was here to make make sure that I was in a good place. So, yeah, as a 40 year old, those are tough thoughts and tough and tough experience is that most times we don't have to face until we get older, right?
Yeah. So did it did it make you approach anything differently in terms of how you do business or your personal life? Like to talk about that? Like what? How did that make you changed in terms of your day to day execution practices or just personal limitations? Yeah. So from a business perspective, I put more of a focus on work life balance first and foremost, right?
Because no matter how much money you make, how much success you have, right, the only thing you leave this earth with is you're leaving people with the memories that you have had with that person or those people. And it made me think that we oftentimes spend so much time worrying about work or stressing about things we can't control. And always on this constant chase for achievement and success, which is great, but at the end of the day, the most precious thing you have is your time.
You can't sell it, you can't trade it, can't buy it, right? It's the most precious commodity. And it made me think more about the work life balance for my employees. Like I try to do everything possible to make sure that they understand that I support them. If there's events they have with their children or their family that takes away from from work. I understand. My whole thing is, hey, you have a job to do as long as you get it done. I'm okay with that.
But I've. Never I've never I've never as you. Catch imagine levels. How do you do that? Like, but like, how have you found the balance with work life balance? Seriously? Like what are practical things you do? I haven't found this balance yet, so I'm asking where is the body then? Like because you've obviously had success. For me, obviously that was very intentional. It was very intentional.
It used to be where I would kind of have a little bit of guilt when I would go on vacations or I would travel or just decompress my role as CEO and president. I can never just turn it off. Right. Exactly. Like I can think back to I was in the Maldives one time for my 40th, actually, and I was there for two weeks. And literally I was answering emails and taking calls for days. Right. But what I've learned to do, though, is really be more intentional on on what what what brings me joy.
And doing that and for me is travel where I feel at this point I can be present with my company. I've done a great job of of establishing an executive team that makes sure that from our strategic vision to our daily task are executed in a way where it gives me more time that I can still do things that I like to do. But also it allows me to have a pulse on the company still and pulls Colgate right? Like now we're on Zoom.
There's so much you can do and not necessarily be in the office every day and still get your work done and be successful. So for me, the work life balance has been more just the intentionality of of getting up and going. Because when I come back, I'm rejuvenated. I'm ready to go. Yeah, but yeah. So do you have any habits that you do that keep you grounded, are motivated, are streamlined, that that are really important for you as an example? Yeah. I would say for me it's the values of my family.
So it's right. So what happened? So let's talk about that. So you still, you know, at at a funeral I heard this statement and I repeated it at my sister's funeral, as well as my grandmother, as well as at my grandmother's funeral. You know, the days are long, but the years are short. And so. Right. But so it's very I think it takes some very intentional work to be present and intentional day in and day out and not let the years go by.
What is it that you do to be intentional then, with your family to keep those? Do you have any like habits that roots you in that. Sort of excuse me, I would say I don't necessarily think I have any habits that route me in to that more than it is me never forgetting where my family comes from. Right? Right. And so I say that because my mother is one of nine, my father is one of ten. So I grew up with a ton of. So you're not married. You're not. Married.
Cousins, Divorce. Divorce. Okay, Yeah, that's that. That's so you're you're talking about your you're you're you're the infrastructure you come from from your family and you have a strong family background. Got it. Okay. Yeah. And so my mother comes from. You have kids? I have two boys. Okay, boys. Yep. Yeah. And so just coming from a large family like that, we always really were super close. Right?
But when you think about the story of my grandfather, my father's father, my grandparents migrated from Tupelo, Mississippi, during the Jim Crow era. You have to go to Michigan to have an opportunity to work, right? So my grandfather worked in the factory. My grandparents had middle school or lower high school educations and raised ten kids off of a factory salary right. And my father tells the story that we that they never had much money, but they were rich and love.
They were always rich in love. Right. And me growing up as the grandchild, I got a chance to see that right. And so the success that we've had in our business has been amazing. But for myself and my father, we're still two guys that grew up in this family that didn't have much. My father stories no different.
My mother and father were high school sweethearts, went to prom together and all that stuff went off to school and my mother got pregnant with me their sophomore year, so my father had to drop out of school and figure out a career and decided he wanted to become a carpenter and. My father a laborer. So we have a lot in common. Yeah. Yeah. And so basically went through apprenticeship school, became an apprentice, and then he went on to be a. Journeyman.
And a foreman after that, and after about eight or nine years, decided he wanted to create his own company. And and that is such an awesome story. You know, I want to read so part of what I do also in with the Labors International Union and Muscle, my father has had a similar experience and he's he's not an exact executive with the Labor International Union. But what I think is so important about what you said is I think a lot of black businesses almost say it straight.
What we get wrong is that they try to skip the process. Absolutely. There is no shortcut like your father, what you just went through. Like I know so many people typically in construction, right. Is this a central problem that I see with black owned company? I'm just being straight up, right. I agree. Some of us go straight to it. We like, okay, we just want to get straight to being getting the $10 million contract. And what they do is they shortcut it, letting somebody else be the lead.
And they don't build the they don't build the skill set, they don't build the infrastructure. They don't build the knowledge capability and the business acumen of what it takes to build a business. And then when the contracts go away, as they always do, because they're just going to use you for that. You're quite. Right. All right. So your father, I just this is very important, right?
He went through and actually got because we we get criticism like, you know, whether you're nonunion no matter what. Like we I believe in union, obviously, but no matter what you need training. You need to understand what you're doing. And and so there is merit in training and training yourself in the workforce. And people want to jump out without any level of necessary expertise. And what they do this is obviously it's across the board, but I've seen this appeal so much, right?
Yeah, that I just think it is worth pointing out that there's no skip in the process. Everybody looks at social media and says that, you know, that people think this stuff is instant. You're comparing yourself to to another person journey that you probably don't know the details of it. So I just I just think it's a great point. Yeah. And so what's interesting is he started the first company and then he got an opportunity, which was the first company that he did was drywall and metals.
The second company that he got an opportunity to create was a general contracting construction management company. And then after that, he ended up creating a glass and glazing company and then a carpenter and excuse me, carpet and flooring company. And then we acquired our electrical company in 2011. Yeah. And it was all based on just the opportunities, but to do it the right way, like you said. So he took the risk.
He didn't have a minority partner who was bankrolling the operation and really made. Him and. Was in the. Money. Exactly. Because most devastated will start. Right, Right, right. It is a front for the first times. Right? That was a front. Right. And so it's funny when you say you can't cheat the process, right? Because even my own journey, although I didn't have the same journey as my father, I went to college for what I'm doing now. So University of Michigan. So an environmental engineering.
Electrical engineering as my dad speaks. All right. Yeah. And so when I was done, though, and I worked for the company, I started entry level and I literally have held at least 80% of the job roles in our business. And not just that, but when my father felt it was time to train me for leadership, he ended up bringing in a guy who had recently sold his construction company to an international company, and he brought him in as president. It was a four year program from day one.
We knew it would be a four year program. Yeah, we. Brought him in to train me and then Jim CO had over 40 to 50 years of experience at that point. And so a year one, I was a fly on the wall, I was in meetings. I was. Yeah. Didn't know which way was up and I was meeting your father. My father would get along, Yeah. Yeah. So I met, I met his contacts.
I was building my own contacts, but I was in meetings just understanding the dynamics of leadership In a year or two, started to get a little bit more comfortable understanding certain things still, and I am like, in step with them shoulder to shoulder. We're in meetings together, we're planning together. And by year three, I really was was, was beginning to feel very comfortable where at that point he would ask me, hey, here's a situation we have, what would you do? What do you want to do?
And he would have me answer. And if I was off base, he would walk me through why I was off base. But it helped me get an opportunity to have the cognitive thinking needed for leadership, but have a backstop where it was a where it was a free flowing, comfortable environment for me to learn and do so. And then also, man, it was tough. I mean, it was many nights I was up to three or four in the morning reviewing 300 page contracts.
You have to to like put my own notes to and comments to come back and sit with him that next morning at 8 a.m.. So walking through my cat, my comments to see if I was correct, if I was off base and he would walk me through if it was something I missed or something I looked at differently. But it taught me so much during those three years. And then the fourth year was really at a point where he was like, Hey, I'm here. I'm a figurehead. You make the calls, right? I'm not.
And if you're wrong, I'm not going to even going to tell you you're wrong, but I'm not going to let you get too far off base. But if I have to take the heat, I'll take the heat and so by year. Go ahead. What point in the relationship, because I've had this with my father, too, but what point in the relationship did it? Maybe the dynamic change because obviously he's a mentor mentee father figure, but then it comes a point where you also, I'm sure, bring different ideas, different concepts.
Oh, you can you can push back on them. Yeah. Like how to get to that. Tell me that dynamic. So it's not there yet. You're still not there. I'm not there, you know. So. So, so year four was at the point where. I was like, You're not there. You guys are still on. Okay. Yeah. So year four, we're still like, I'm still training, making decisions for the company under the guise of my mentor who was brought in to train me. Right.
And so by the end of year four, I was like, okay, I'm charged up, ready to go, Let's do this. And so when it was time to make the transition, when my mentor retired and I assumed the the position at the time a president, it wasn't like I had a deer in the headlights. Sure. And I was like, all right, I know what I want to do. I have a plan.
And our like my first year I saved our company almost $650,000 by just renegotiating some of our contract with a few of our employees that were just bad contracts. Right. And it gave the the employees more money to take home. But it saved us money on our side as well. And so so then that led into the transition from me being the understudy to now the leader right now having to interface directly with my father as the leader of the company.
Right, Right. And what I love about my father is he's never been a guy that's been overbearing. Oftentimes when you think about those transitions from G1 or G2. Yeah, it's tough. Extremely tough, tough man. The best thing that happened to me was my father going out to hire someone to train me so we could maintain our father son relationship, which is amazing. But then it allowed me to do all of the stuff that I needed to do behind the curtain.
So when I was in this role, he could respect me differently and not look at me just as a son, but know that I was ready for the task at hand. And so as so as we progressed through that, it was very soon thereafter that I started challenging some of the status quo processes or things that the company had. But that's the case. What happened there? Like what was that had to be some challenge there. But people were, you know, are used to a certain way. And how did that work out? Like how did you go?
So to my father's credit, it was excuse me, it was a very easy actually. Okay. So I remember vividly. He did a good job, I guess, is that you kind of ask the question because that for years in between kind of helps provide some buffer versus being like an immediate thing and kind of like a culture shock your father properly so, and you also properly took the instruction because people that you could to say like, I'm ready to go.
But but I really respect the fact that the generational wealth building and the ability to keep it that legacy, part of what we also should not be ashamed of as black people is our story is not a poverty story. It's not like, Oh, right. I feel as if sometimes we are shamed in certain rooms, if we've had any success or any opportunities handed or I guess provided by our father and our parents and I think is like, that's the point. Like, that's what we are aiming for literally. So it is the point.
It is what most cultures do. Yeah, right. Only we say to each other for it, this is what I'm like it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for me over the last two or three years I've been unapologetic about this should be right. I've gotten that way too. I'm like, I tell people, do. My father helped me. Yes. Didn't do everything. No. But the point of a parent is literally the only job, I think, is to make sure your kids start from a better place than you. Did it have more knowledge than you did? That's it.
That's the time. And and what I say with that, Rob, is and I just had this this conversation last week. It's great to have the opportunity. Right. So what my father did for me, what I'm doing for my kids, is providing that opportunity. Once you get that opportunity, you still it's still requires hard work. Hard work. You know. That's easy successful, right? I mean, it's hard It's really hard to like it. Yeah. And I think people think because you had an opportunity that makes it easy.
That's what I. Like most times. It makes it harder, right? Because I can tell you, growing up through the company as I was rising in my career, I was always looked at differently than the rest. Of course, employees because they were waiting on me to mess up where they were waiting on me to not work as hard. And so I always had to be twice as good, work twice as hard, just so I was never viewed as, Hey, this is just the son of the owner.
And kudos to your father for for also instilling that in you because, you know, you could have viewed it from an entitlement point of view. You could have that's not an uncommon thing for anybody to to do. So that's the hard part is going to be for your kids to get that because the third generation. That's the tough. One. That's the tough part because they've never had. That is the tough one. Yeah. Because like we we sell it. We come across similar places.
Like, I didn't grow up rich, but I wasn't poor, right? We were middle class. And then my parents started doing a little better later in life. But kids that I've always had generally like is a little bit different, right? Because it's actually harder, more challenging to raise your kids if you have it really hard to, you know, have an Yeah, that's so but if you have a little more than most, then it becomes challenging to keep your kids expectations.
Yeah, from not being a title like I could just take it slow with. So yeah. So, so for me growing up that that truly was the best part of like my, my like childhood was that I got a chance to see to two sides to life, basically. Right. Yeah. And I say that because we grew up very much, I would say lower middle class. As my father was starting the business, it was oftentimes very where he wouldn't take paychecks. Right. That's how it works, especially if you started off.
Yeah, I got to tech start up. Believe me, that's still working. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And then by like I would say around the time I was seventh grade, my parents wanted to put me into private school. Yeah. Which was the best thing that happened for me. But I remember being a kid, I would get notices at home that if my tuition wasn't paid in two weeks or a week, I couldn't come back to school. Right? So I saw that side of it. It wasn't until high school. That you had a David Chappelle life.
Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're, you know, you don't feel a difference that you go around people that actually have money, right? Right. Yeah. And so, so high school like junior high high school, private school. I had my friends from the neighborhood where I lived. Then I had my friends from school who were living in the suburbs. And I would go to their house and they had indoor gyms and indoor pools in their house. This was back in the nineties, right? Early nineties.
But then I would come back to the neighborhood and we would try to figure out how to scrub up $5 to go get some juice and cookies. Right. And so I got a chance to see both sides. But what it did for me was that it normalize the fact that it's okay to have nice things. It's okay to strive for that. So it gave me the sense of drive that, hey, I want to not only take the opportunity that I have, but I want to grow that. But also with that, there's things that I,
I like that I know that I've seen that I want to accomplish. And and that's been one of the biggest drivers for me is like, I don't like to lose. I love to win. I like to prove people wrong. And ultimately everything that I'm doing is for the betterment of our family as a whole.
So my parents, my sister, my kids, my future grandkids at some point, etc., but also at the same time bettering the lives of people around me to where like, it's no fun if you're the one winning and you look and everyone else is losing. But how? But how can I take the opportunity that I've been provided to pull people up with me? Yeah, in various ways, which is what we've done through our core business, through our Giving scholarships list goes on. But it's just a core value and principle.
I want to get to some Rapidfire questions as we get ready. Sure. Go ahead. What your most what's your most important accomplishment or highlight from both personally will say, but also for the business with breaker. Like what is it? Yeah. Personally I would say it's just and raising my two boys and being there for them.
Although I'm busy to carve out that time that I still make time to make sure that I'm out there for sports games, they're events for school, etc. So it's just being a good father first and foremost. Professionally, I would say the biggest accomplishment has really been just the fact of being able to establish my own name recognition and respect in the market after my father. Right. All right. What advice would you give your younger self and what advice would you ignore.
That advice to give my younger self. Be patient, be patient. What advice would you have? Nor ignore? You must go on. It's okay to disrupt. All right. That's a good choice. All right. How about how about what is what's an important truth? You have that very few people agree with you on. Wow. And I can tell you an important truth that I have that I've been amplifying over the last year. And I'm going to continue to amplify.
Can't necessarily say people disagree with me on it, but it's the fact that one of my my goals at this point is really to, uh, to help people become comfortable with the uncomfortable conversations.
And I say that because, like, when you think about what we we face as a like, as black people, oftentimes the conversations our our had as it relates to the history from from slavery to Jim Crow to segregation and the like, drug laws and all of the stuff that comes with it of just just all of the stuff that has kind of been put in motion to put us in the place that we've been in, that we are always playing catch up.
And I feel that people are more comfortable having those uncomfortable conversations. It will allow us to have empathy for each other in different ways. That then helps to unite us as a people. Right? Right. Look at how divisive things are right now oftentimes is because people don't understand the history or where we come from or what we've done or what that person has has gone through.
And as a result, you live in this world of of like just what you know, but you don't really have an opportunity to understand the next person. Yeah. So. All right, final question. Your motto or logo that says who you are summarizes what you believe. What would that motto be and why? Oh, man, that's a great question. Right? Oh, I would I would say integrity, respect, faith and love. All right. Larry Brinker, good to have you on, man. Thank you. It's been a pleasure, Rob.
And I wish you the best with what you have going and with your podcast. And thank you for the opportunity to be a part of it today.