E-mail a friendJanice Bryant Howroyd
airdate June 9, 2004
Businesswoman Janice Bryant Howroyd parlayed a $1,500 investment, a telephone and a small lease space into one of the most successful female-owned businesses in the U.S. Her Torrance, CA-based ACT 1 Group is a diversified company with offices nationwide. Howroyd relied on word of mouth to develop business relationships and uses the attention her success brings to encourage Black youngsters to focus on education.
Janice Bryant Howroyd
Tavis: Janice Bryant Howroyd is the founder and CEO of Act One Personnel Services--a company that provides staffing solutions for corporations nationwide. From an initial investment of less than $2,000--1,500, to be exact--her company is now one of the largest owned by an African American in the U.S. She's also the first African American ever named by the Star Group as one of the 50 leading women entrepreneurs in the world, and you see why. Check out that yellow suit. Bam! Hey, Janice.
Howroyd: Hello. Nice to see you.
Tavis: You OK?
Howroyd: Very good to be here.
Tavis: Nice to have you here. Your story is so fascinating. I mentioned a moment ago that you started this company with $1,500, and now you're, like, one of the top companies in the country. How'd that happen?
Howroyd: Well, I'll tell you. There are three things that I think have really impacted how we've grown our company thus far. One is, I've stayed steadfast in my family, which is rooted in a faith in God, OK? And we have to live that every day. We have to breathe that. As a matter of fact, our prayer is, 'Lord, let me honor you in all I do, in all I say, and in all I think.'
That pretty much takes care of the front and back of how we do. So it's that piece in the middle that I think constitutes the two pieces that are left in the equation. One is, we were able to turn technology into our geography. Tavis, you know enough about the state of employment in this nation--especially for people of color in this nation--that we've had a particular climb in reaching the realms of employment the way we like to--gainful employment. And so, having technology become a platform for how we've built our business, it's been fundamental to that growth. And I think that the third piece of it is that we really hire people and work with people we'd enjoy to live with. I think that when you add those three things together, you really have encapsuled the story of how we've been able to have what I consider a successful growth.
Tavis: Do most folk have that luxury? It seems to me that most Americans--I know far too many people who go to jobs every day that they absolutely loathe, so that if most Americans had the chance to work with somebody that they could live with, or work with somebody they'd really want to hang out with outside the workplace, there wouldn't be so many unhappy people in the workplace. I like it as a business philosophy, but do most folk really have the opportunity to work with somebody that they otherwise would enjoy spending time with?
Howroyd: Well, now, in church, my mother would tell me to say no. Let me just tell you--
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! Always do what your mama told you to do.
Howroyd: Ha ha! Let me tell you, Mama gives us a little levity here, I think. And she's watching, by the way, Tavis.
Tavis: Hey, Mom.
Howroyd: Um, here's the thing. I think that there are two ways to find employment in the world today. One is with jobs and one is with careers, so we hire both in our company. There are some people on their way to a career who just want good, solid jobs to achieve at. What happens too often--and not simply for people of color, but for young folk today--many people go away to school and they establish a career track, and they study for many years and invest lots of money in training themselves to find out that's not what they wanted to do anyway.
So I think that we need to think about two things--one, it's OK to have a job on the way to a career. Secondly, Tavis, I think it's very important that we understand that service is a good thing. Many of us think we don't have a career unless we've got somebody serving us. We need to understand the value of service in what we do. I consider myself a servant. I serve a lot of people in my company. Some of them think I do it well. Day to day, some of them may measure me differently. But I think that we need to remember that. The truth of the matter is, is that jobs are in a peculiar state today. The unemployment rate today is, what, 5.6, 5.7? Now, that's--
Tavis: Unless you're a black man. It's a whole lot higher than that.
Howroyd: And that's where my particular passion goes. And if you notice, I mentioned to you, technology became our geography because I've got to figure out a way how I want to be an impact in this world, about full employment for all of American citizens.
Tavis: Speaking of black men, and black people in particular, let me ask you whether--you know the age-old adage--you're in this business--that black folk-- and, for that matter, people of color--but certainly black folk have said for years that we are the last hired and the first fired. Is that still true?
Howroyd: That's still true when we think of ourselves as employees. This is my message: Yes, it's still true. What I need to pass along to folk is to understand that no matter who signs your check, you have the right to write that check. And it's how we think of ourselves--that sounds pretty-pretty from a lady in a yellow suit, building a business, as I've done. You got to remember, I started out in Tarboro, North Carolina, and I'm 51 years of age. I'm not sitting here pretty in pink, OK?
Tavis: Pretty in yellow.
Howroyd: In yellow, and I understand what I'm talking about, Tavis. We have to change how we think. We were blessed enough--there are 11 kids in my family and a mom and a dad. We were blessed enough to be taught at a very young age that we have to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs. We didn't need to see Michael Jordan. We didn't need to see Magic Johnson write contracts that made them entrepreneurs as part of teams. We had parents who taught us that we have to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs. We need to understand the wealth and the weight of our existence.
Tavis: What's fascinating about this conversation, though, is you talk about African Americans thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs, and indeed you've done quite well with that. But black folk will still tell you that the reason why, respectfully, they come to you to look for a job is because they'd rather be an entrepreneur, but they can't access the capital that apparently you found somewhere to get started--even though it was only $1,500. There'd be a lot more black folk, people of color for that matter, women for that matter, who are entrepreneurs and they wouldn't be coming to you looking for a job if they could have the access to the capital.
Howroyd: Grow where you're planted. Grow where you're planted. That's my whole message. Understand that regardless of who's signing that check, you're writing it. Now, there are several people who work for me. Some of them are in this studio right now. They will tell you they own their jobs. They will tell you they own their right to make a decision about how they employ, and that's the big difference. Europe hasn't had a problem with this for a lot of years. I remember way back when I went to Paris. The first time I found out I was beautiful beyond my mom and dad was when I went to Paris. Vanessa Williams wasn't Miss America yet. People treated me like a goddess there. It blew my mind to see the service and the quality and the elegance that service brought to itself. Black folk need to start to understand that, yeah, there's a lot working against us, but we've got more working for us if we work it from the inside. And we need to stop being afraid of each other to do that. Maybe that's not a public statement you want made.
Tavis: No, it's your interview. Say whatever you want to say. A number of things fascinate me, but two things in particular I want to raise now. One is I read somewhere you employ some of your family.
Howroyd: Yes, I do.
Tavis: I have 9 brothers and sisters--I love all of them--
Howroyd: You're blessed.
Tavis: I'm blessed with 9 of 'em. You can pick your friends. You can't pick your family. But I love 'em anyway. So I have 9 brothers and sisters, and I'm working my way into trying to find places to bring them into my operation. But I've also heard horror stories from folk that the way you want to keep your family--you want to keep loving your family, put it that way-- is to not have them in your employ. You've made this thing work, though, with your own siblings.
Howroyd: Well, let me tell you what's happened. First of all, we grew up under some dynamic rules. You've learned by now that my mom and my dad raised us, and they were a corporation, OK? They taught us several things. One--we couldn't go to bed at night angry with each other, OK? Secondly, each one of us had to adopt a younger one, which meant we had to learn for more than just ourselves. And thirdly, if we got into trouble, we'd better be getting into trouble helping the other, not being in a selfish venue. So when you grow up with that as very much part of a fabric of who you are, then it becomes less of a hurdle to work with each other as adults.
Here's the other thing, though, that I think was really pristine advice from my dad: my dad told me, 'When you go off and you start'--all of us entrepreneurs. Out of 11 kids, all of us are self-employed in some way. Now, here's the thing, Tavis. You must have a measure of success somewhere other than in Act One before you come into the Act One group of companies. They each have their separate disciplines. I've got a sister and a nephew who are engineers. I've got a brother who's a CPA. I've got family who have different disciplines that they've studied, and each of them had to realize their own measure of success by either getting three promotions before they came to our company from a major corporation, or they had to employ for three years successfully.
Tavis: So you made your family prove themselves when you hired them.
Howroyd: Well, I had to, because I didn't have the big corporation background. So they had to bring something to the table.
Tavis: I'm also fascinated by this philosophy you call the womb philosophy by which you've grown your business. Womb, W-O-M-B. Explain.
Howroyd: Well, you see, for me it really means that you have people who are spreading the message for you and you're nurturing internally what's going on. So when you're nurturing internally fully what's happening in terms of employment, in terms of self-realization and all those things that people don't really think it's OK to talk about anymore--but I'm one of those folks who say you deny me on earth, I'll deny you in heaven, so I gotta say it--then that message gets spread outside of your business and people tend to come inside understanding that they want to be a part of what's growing. They're not coming in trying to find the peace they take away from it.
Tavis: I'm out of time. Where is Act One going from here?
Howroyd: We will be a billion-dollar profitable company within the next 3 1/2 years. We will do that by keeping the humanity in human resources. We're gonna do it phenomenally by expanding the technologies that we've designed ourselves that help us to create a geography of technology, and we're gonna do it by keeping close the cultural things that make us work as a company.
Tavis: The name is Janice Bryant Howroyd. If you want to read more about her, she happens to be featured in this book. Can you see this? Yeah. It's Essence Magazine's book, '50 of the Most Inspiring African Americans.' Lovely photo of Halle Berry on the cover. Can't go wrong with that cover. Anyway, Janice is featured in this book, so check that out if you want to read more about her. Janice, nice to see you.
Howroyd: Thank you so much.
Tavis: Glad to have you on. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from L.A. thanks for watching, and keep the faith.
Back to June 9, 2004