- Support for this program was provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Berkeley College Education drives opportunity.

Be inspired.

- Hello, this is John Harmon, founder, president, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, and like to welcome you for joining us today on Pathway to Success.

Today's guest is Mr. Jar M Green pe.

He's the principal and chief Diversity Officer of Langan.

And this is one of our President's Club members and we're excited to have them on today.

The field of engineering is fascinating and you can't do anything without having engineers involved.

So Mr. Green, welcome to Pathway to Success.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

- Well, thanks John.

It's great to be here with you all.

Really appreciate the great work that you all are doing.

I am been at Langan for 21 years and absolutely love what I do there.

I can't wait to tell you a little bit more about it as we talk today.

- Good.

Let's start with your family.

Big family, small family, any siblings?

Where are you from?

- So I grew up in southwest Philadelphia.

My mom, my dad and my little brother we're like 16 months apart, but it's my little guy.

He is eventually got bigger than me as we grew older.

And then we ended up moving to White Plains in New York where my parents separated and I lived with my grandparents, my mom and my brother.

- So White Plains, New York, born and raised in South Philly.

You went to college.

How did you select the institution that you attended and why?

- So, you know, in high school I really liked math.

I really liked science.

My grandparents, they, they pushed and they said, you know, we didn't get enough education growing up in the south and we made sacrifices for you guys to do better than we.

Wow.

And they said, you know, education is the way to open doors and nobody can close no matter who's in front of you.

And so we knew we had to go to college and talking to teachers and guidance counselors, they said, you should probably go into architecture 'cause you like math, you like science.

Applied to a few colleges.

I got into some architecture programs, but I did not get into the program at Syracuse.

Syracuse is where I ended up going, but I went for civil engineering.

And so Syracuse said that in their engineering school, it looked like I'd be a better fit there.

And so I had the option to go into Syracuse for engineering, or I could go to one of these other colleges for architecture.

But the financial aid package covered everything.

So I said, you know, a full ride, I have to at least consider it for a, and then try to transfer over after a semester of engineering.

I said, wow, these are my people.

This is what I'm supposed to be doing.

And I realized that growing up I used to take my toys apart and try to figure out how they work, why did they make that sound?

And then try to put them back together.

So essentially that's what engineers do.

Wow.

We problem solve, I like playing with Legos, I like building things.

And so after that semester at Syracuse, I said, you know what?

I'm gonna stay in engineering.

- Engineering has always been fascinating to me.

Clearly not my lane.

I'm glad you're an engineer and I'm a chamber executive and we work well together.

But there you go.

Upon completing college, what was your first job and what was that like?

- So while I was in school, I did, I did internships.

So I had, I interned through a program called Inroads, which is really geared towards providing opportunities for underrepresented students to see what corporate America's all about.

So I had a job where I was working and it was sort of like a mechanical engineer, but it was showing me what it was like to work.

And when I finished the Syracuse, I had job offers, but I also had grad school opportunities.

I ended up going to University of Illinois Urbana Champagne to get my master's degree.

Okay.

In civil engineering with a focus in geotechnical, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

So with that master's degree now, I said, all right, now I'm ready to work.

So I went to a career fair in my last semester and stopping at that career boot really gave me an opportunity that has lasted till now because that was my introduction to Langan and eventually started working there.

And I was in the New York office for 15 years, grew from an entry level staff engineer that spent time in construction sites, seeing things get constructed that were designed by others.

And then in my career, I started to get to the point where I was designing things and then going in the field and seeing those get constructed.

Then I got to the point in my career where I was responsible for the career path of others.

And more recently, as of last six years, I've been at our Philadelphia office and also in our Pittsburgh office kind of covering the Mid-Atlantic region.

But I still have quite a bit of opportunity to do work in New Jersey and in New York and you know, you can't really get away from where you first start.

So I cover a lot of ground with my teams.

- So yeah, your, your first job for the most part, you've landed at a, a major private sector organization, but you also did some work in the public sector.

I wanna talk a little bit about the types of things you did and then we're gonna come back and contrast the two.

- Yeah.

Lion is a, is a privately owned company and I'd say probably about 75% of our business were working for, you know, private institutions or working for real estate developers.

But there's quite a bit of our work that that's public in nature.

So a lot of the aviation projects, projects with local port authorities, municipal transit organizations.

So we, we find that we do have public projects.

A lot of them tie more to infrastructure.

And then we also have projects for almost like quasi-public institutions such as like Parks authority, parks and rec, things of that sort.

So I, I like both.

I mean, the reality is that everyone that's doing something with the movement of land and soil and earth requires engineering services.

And so we find that there are a lot of vertical markets that we're able to work in and a lot of clients we're able to serve because of the nature of what we're doing as engineers.

- You know, what's fascinating about architects and engineers is that you see vacant land.

You know, you come back a year or two later and and it's been transformed.

Yeah.

What does it feel like being part of executing that?

- But my wife and kids, a lot of times will go places and I'll point to somebody and say, Hey, by the way, I remember when that was a swamp.

I remember when that was a parking lot.

Now it's a structure.

People are living in there or people are playing in there, or people are praying in there.

And it's, it's really a, it's a powerful feeling, but it's also a very humbling feeling.

So I have the pleasure of working on projects with teams that if it wasn't for us, the structure wouldn't be standing.

It's exciting.

And, and, and I also see it as opportunity.

Let's - Talk about Langan.

Who, who are they, what they represent, and then your role there.

Let's, let's unpack all - This stuff.

All right, let's, let's unpack it.

So once upon a time in 1970, there was a group of four gentlemen that started a firm Langan.

And one of the people, Bernie Langan is where the, the name comes from.

So it's a, it's a privately owned engineering firm, a land development engineering consulting firm.

Core disciplines are environmental site, civil and geotech.

But as we grew over time in number of people and in locations, we also grew in services that we provide.

So not just those three disciplines.

We're also doing landscape architecture, we're doing survey.

We also provide services that tie back to digital solutions and also ESG, environmental social governance.

So there's a lot of different types of services that we provide to clients.

But where are we?

So we're in 40 different places.

We are 40 offices around the US and around the world.

And we have 1600 people in those 40 plus offices and our headquarters in part New Jersey.

So that's where 350 people are, second largest office being New York City.

So I have been there for 21 years and I'm a principal, I'm a principal and a vice president.

So I'm one of the owners, one of the many owners of the firm.

And I'm responsible for all things geotechnical for the Mid-Atlantic region.

So geotechnical being, you know, I, I have a degree where I studied soil, I studied bedrock, I studied groundwater and how they interact together as engineering materials.

So geotechnical engineers we're the ones that are responsible for structure standing up and standing up straight and not sinking, and not falling over, not collapsing.

- So the types of clients and projects you have.

And then a little bit about the mission of Lange, - There are many different types of projects that we work on and it ties back to the client type.

So we worked on large scale projects such as the Kingdom Tower in, in Saudi Arabia, the tallest building in the world, right?

So we do those kind of things and then we take it down smaller projects where it's just like, you know, a community development center.

- Is there one in particular that is dear to your heart that stands out that you can talk about?

And then, then we'll go to our break?

- Yeah, that's hard.

That's like saying who's your favorite kid, right?

You're not really supposed to do that, but I'll just, again, we're, we're in New Jersey, so I will, I, I guess the first that comes to mind is a more recent project.

There's a, a former Sears building in South Jersey, so a Morristown that was recently converted to a, a hospital system for Cooper University.

And I think that that's, you know, that, that shows the kind of scale of what we're doing that's in the community, it's gonna change lives.

It was an asset that was underutilized and now has been rehabilitated that is reflective of the type of work that, that we really feel proud of here at Langan.

- So Jerry Green, PE principal, chief Diversity officer of Langan and WM U Provider, there's great insight of what Langan is all about and some of the things you've done.

So we're gonna take a break here on Pathway to Success and we'll continue our conversation in a moment.

- The African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey is your pathway to success.

We encourage you to visit our website@www.aaccj.com or call us at (609) 571-1620.

We are your strategic partner for success.

- Welcome back to Pathway to Success.

I'm your host, John Harmon, founder, president, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Congress in New Jersey.

Here with me today is Mr. Jar Green PE principal, chief Diversity officer of L. So let's pick up where we left off.

You know, you've done a lot of projects, but some of the projects you've described as serving a purpose.

Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

- Sure.

We did a video series some years back where we focused in on projects that we call projects that are serving a purpose.

And these are projects that really align nicely with our corporate social responsibility or lang and citizenship as we like to call it, but projects that are given back to the community.

So some of those that were spotlighted included the new patient pavilion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with Penn Medicine.

That is a project that's been transformative for University City employees love working on projects, but when you work on a project that has that added kind of oomph that it's really going to change the actual community you're serving, these things really, really, really excite us.

Another one that we focused in on was a project that we did at Howard University's campus, which is an interdisciplinary research facility that's in the heart of the campus that allows students and professionals and professors to come together to solve real world problems.

We also talked about projects that were addressing homelessness in communities and also providing jobs for people after they have been provided housing.

There are a number of people that have done projects where it was in the community where they grew up and like how rewarding is that where it's like, wow, I'm a part of actually improving the environment or the, the, the, the community where I grew up or where I live.

So really exciting.

I think that because of the nature of engineering, you're able to do what you're doing in many different places.

And so that's what excites us.

- Hmm.

So is there such thing as a typical day?

If so, describing?

- I've been working in the same company for 21 years.

I've worked on hundreds of projects that I can say that I haven't worked on two projects that exactly the same and that excites me.

But I've had projects, I'm thinking in downtown Brooklyn, I had a city block that had six buildings on this, on the block and five of those are projects that my team worked on.

And everyone was different because of the relationship of the building and relation to the underground tunnels.

So it's exciting, but no job, no, no day is typical.

Everyone's kind of different and unique I'll say.

Good.

- Does Lang have a de and I program?

And if so, why is that important to your organization?

- Yes, we have a DEI program that we're very proud of as of the beginning of 2024.

I'm also the chief diversity officer of the firm.

- Can you just describe what a chief Diversity officer does or is responsible for doing?

- In our case, we have a corporate committee that's tied towards focusing in on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And the head of that committee is a Chief diversity officer.

So all things tied back to our actual culture for the firm and how we provide safe spaces so that every one of those 1600 employees could show up as their full authentic self.

That ties back to DEI and we meet to go over how we're doing as a firm with several different metrics as it ties back to our recruitment, our retention, we found pretty early in our journey, our DEI journey that as engineering consultants, we also need to engage subject matter experts to kinda look at ourselves and tell ourselves what we need to be doing differently.

I think that when we look at the history of the firm, we always tried to hire the best and the brightest.

And we've seen that one of our earliest offices in Miami, we had a Latinx young woman that was on construction sites on behalf of the firm leading out what we're doing.

And she was instrumental in starting one of the first employee resource groups at the firm.

And that that employee resource group women at Lang and predated our formal DEI practices as we're doing these things for compliance, we're saying, wow, what can we be doing to actually improve on inclusion?

And when you talk about the murder of George Floyd, that was a a terrible time, right?

It was a terrible time, but it was also a time where a, a number of firms looked at themselves and said, well, wow, what are we doing?

How can we improve things?

And I remember in 2020 was a time where also we had covid.

So we had people that were working remotely and we were still trying to figure that out.

So our DEI efforts were put on pause during that time in early 2020 and after the murder of George Floyd, the leadership of Lang said, no, you, we need to rekindle what we were doing from A DEI standpoint and doubled down.

And as we went through that journey of reinforcing what we were doing from a DEI standpoint, we grew from having two employee resource groups to 10 employee resource groups.

During that time, leadership suggested that we have a scholarship to focus in on black and brown students.

And shortly after that we partnered with nme and since then we've had a program where we provide scholarships to underrepresented students in college studying engineering.

And with that scholarship, we also have an internship because we saw that when we look at who does well at the company, a lot of times it's people that have had internships and have had time to work with the company prior to being at the company.

And so we're very excited about that program that we've had and we've seen it after we've given these scholarships and after the students have done an internship, we have these students returning for another internship.

So we're real, we're really excited that there is a pipeline that we're well aware of, but pa finding strategic ways to tie into that pipeline to make sure that we have a pathway for underrepresented students to become engineers and scientists and geologists to work at companies and to make sure you have a way for them to stay at these companies.

Speak - To some of the awards that you all may have received over the years.

- There are a litany of awards that we've received and I think that the awards that we're most proud of, and it's hard to pick one, but I think the ones we're most proud of are the best places to work.

- So personally or organizationally, what are some of the things you guys do with young people?

- We find that the mentorship is very big for making sure that someone as young as starting with the firm has an opportunity to kind of find their way within the firm or within the industry.

We also are very supportive of professional development.

So there are a number of organizations that have younger member forums.

We support people going to conferences, we support people traveling to those conferences, and we also support people even if you haven't been at the firm very long, if you've on a project to actually talk about that project, - You guys are doing a whole lot internally and externally, but also there's some organizations that you, you are involved in Deep Foundation Institute.

What is that all about?

- I've been very active within a number of organizations throughout my career, and that's something that's been reinforced by my mentors.

They say you work hard but also give back.

So the Deep Foundations Institute is an organization I've been a part of since very early in my career.

But that's, you know, when I'm getting into the minutia of foundation design, if you have a building that's sitting on soil that's not very stable, a lot of times you have to have a foundation that goes deep into the earth to kind of stabilize it into something that, that's more stable, like rock or, or or something like that.

So the Deep Foundations Institute is a collection of engineers, consultants, constructors, contractors coming together to find out what are the best ways to do these things.

- So COVID-19, how did it affect Lang's business model?

- Being a part of the leadership during C was definitely some of the hardest things that I've had to, to deal with professionally.

My wife as a, an internal medicine doctor, so we saw what that looked like from a front lines perspective and being a leader of a firm that, you know, we're not just in offices.

I'd say probably 40 to 50% of our, our workforce we're on construction sites.

And a lot of what we're working on these hospitals, these educational facilities, a lot of them were deemed as essential projects.

And so it was very important for us to make sure that we were not putting anyone in harm's way.

So we put together a COVID-19 task force that studied, you know, everything that was available at that time that kept continued to change, but everything was available at that time.

We tried to see, well what does that mean for our people?

What does that mean for our business?

How do we make sure that people are kept safe from a business standpoint?

We continued, right?

There are some firms that didn't make it outta covid.

We, we continued our business, we came out stronger, we came out caring more about each other.

Shortly thereafter.

We, we really focused in on wellbeing, employ wellbeing and mental health.

That's something we made sure that folks had the resources necessary so that they can show up.

- So sources of inspiration.

- When I came to New York, it was tumultuous time for me personally.

And I think that my grandfather was kinda like that stabilizing force of just showing me what it looks like to be a man.

He worked hard, this guy would work on the way to work because he was just always working and he really stressed to me that, you know, I gotta get this education.

You say you work with your hands all you want, but you gotta get this education, you'll be able to make more opportunities for more people.

So I think that that, you know, my grandfather, he definitely was, and still is.

He has since passed, but he's still my source of inspiration.

- I think that's great.

Next five years - We're working for a lot of different clients that are still trying to do new things and we're, we're trying to make sure that we're able to provide those services for them.

So we are growing what we're doing from, from a discipline standpoint, from a technology standpoint, from a knowledge based standpoint.

And I'm excited to say that I think that the next five years is gonna be a lot of growth.

- I think that's fantastic.

And those within your organization should be excited because you've, you've painted a picture of an upwards trajectory that they should embrace and take the ride.

Like for you to speak to the significance of Lang and being a member of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey and, and could you all potentially be an ambassador, encourage others to consider giving us an opportunity to contribute to your success.

- We've been a part for, for some months now and the, the programs have been excellent.

The, the networking has been great and I think most importantly the partnership has been meaningful.

We live in a world where there's so much opportunity and sometimes your next business partner might be just sitting next to you and you don't realize it 'cause you don't have the opportunity to be in the same space.

I think that the Chamber provides opportunities for people to be in the same space.

And I think that that's something that really excites me when I think about some of our goals at, at Lang when we talk about DEI and we talk about some of our supplier diversity goals, especially, you know, being headquartered here in New Jersey, there are a lot of opportunities for us to help the bottom line for businesses here in New Jersey of, of, of African Americans in New Jersey, African American business owners in New Jersey and entrepreneurs.

So we're excited about what we're able to do through this partnership.

And, and John, I gotta say you're a hard person to say no to.

So if anybody's listening that has any interest, if you talk to John, get ready to say yes.

- Well, thank you so much Jared for being on today.

And ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jared Green pe, he's the principal and chief Diversity Officer of Langan and thank you for being on Pathway to Success today.

- Thank you so much and thank you so much for your leadership and all that you're doing - Until the next time.

This is John Harmon, founder, president and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Thank you for joining us today.

Well, today's message is all about accountability and reciprocity.

We turned to elections.

It was the black vote that tipped the scale that made the difference in many instances.

And New Jersey, 94% of our vote went to our governor here, who I would say has done some things that made life better for a lot of people.

He's definitely been helpful to the African American Chamber of Commerce.

But when you drill down in the numbers, our disparity study that was recently released, it showed that blacks in some instances got less than half percent of the opportunities.

And when we took a look at the major contract opportunities that are led primarily by the trades, were pretty much non-existent.

But no one wants to talk about the holy grail.

And that means that the trades in New Jersey are not sharing in the participation of opportunities and therefore it creates vast inequities.

That's why we have such high poverty and such high unemployment and such a low net worth because we're not participating in economic opportunity that's transformational, that get people in a better standard of living give you the resources to send your kids to college or to purchase a home, to leverage that home, to start a business.

It is time that we call this state into account and it starts at the top.

The governor, our state legislators, everyone has to pay attention to people who are enabling them to win.

And that's black people.

And black people are now saying it is time to respond to our needs.

Dr. King said that there's a check that's been returned for insufficient funds.

It's time to honor that check.

They're asked to us.

We've delivered.

Now it's time for you to deliver back to us.

Thank you.

- Support for this program was provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Berkeley College education drives opportunity.

Be inspired.