- 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.

I'd like to welcome you from tuning in today to Pathway to Success.

Our guest today is Chris Caruthers.

He is the president and CEO of FCC Consulting Services.

They provide a multitude of services to the federal government, to school districts, to large corporations, not only here in New Jersey, but throughout the country.

And we are delighted to have you here today, Chris.

- It's great to be here.

John.

- So let's start with the, your upbringing.

You're from the show me state and I, I met you here in New Jersey and I assume you were a New Jersey guy, but let's talk a little bit about your upbringing.

Alright, - Great.

Well, as you mentioned, I'm from St. Louis, Missouri.

I grew up in St. Louis.

My family is six members of my family, three brothers and three sisters.

My father was an entrepreneur.

He was the first master plumber in St. Louis city and county.

So he has that distinction.

So I come from a family of, of athletes, at least all the children were athletes.

The mother and father, they weren't, but they were bowlers.

So, so, okay.

You know, we were from the Midwest and there are bowlers in the Midwest.

And so most of my family, my brothers and sisters all went to college on athletic scholarships.

So that's, that was a distinction that we had.

You know, I grew up in the city.

My parents were together until I was about 10.

They divorced.

And so I had this dual life of, my mom was still in the city.

My dad had moved out to the suburbs.

And when I was about 10, I also wanted a scholarship to go to one of the most prestigious schools in the state, which was St. Louis Country Day School.

And so they both agreed that education was important and so they made sure I was able to attend, attend the school.

And that's where it all really, really began for me, that opportunity of living in the, in, in, in the city, but going to school in the rich neighborhoods of Ladue, Missouri.

So it kind of formed who I am and the confidence I have and just living in both worlds.

- So let's talk a little bit about your arrival here and Mercer County or in New Jersey - Actually, I won the scholarship, both an academic and athletic scholarship with Ryder University.

I had to choose where I wanted to go and I had, my choices were Yale, Ryder, Boston College, and then Washington University right.

In St. Louis.

But this was the best fit for me.

Ryder had a great business school and then it was a division one school, so we got a chance to play all the top programs, you know, Kansas taxes.

Wow.

So I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for me to come to the East Coast and, and see what I could do.

- Any sources of inspiration for you?

- My dad was probably the biggest inspiration from about five years old until 13.

I worked with him every summer in the business, even when I can only just pick up tools to go to a job.

But I got a chance to spend the time with my father.

And I think that was the biggest thing for me.

We woke up at five 30, so you can imagine as a little five, 6-year-old kid getting up at five 30, going to work and doing that for, you know, eight, nine years.

I spent all that time with him, with his colleagues, seeing customers, all kind of situations.

And I think that that gave me that discipline to wake up early and also showed me how to get the job done.

Right.

I mean, my dad wouldn't leave a job unless it was done.

Right.

Wow.

And that, that, that gave me that, that quality control.

I, I remember one time he said it was late summer night, a hundred degrees outside and in somebody's yard the, the septic tank burst and we had to replace the pipes, you know, and it was, you know, seven o'clock at night.

And I said, well, can't we just go home and then come back tomorrow?

And he said, well, put yourself in their shoes.

Would you want to use the bathroom tonight?

I said, we got a point.

And so we stayed out there till about nine 30 to make sure that family had working water.

And I always remember that, and that's how I run my business and run my life is like, you stay into the job is done right and people will appreciate it.

- So upon graduation from Ryder, what were some of the next steps in your life?

- I graduated with a, a BS in Information Technology, but then I went back to get my Master's in business Administration.

And so from that point I started my business career working with Gmy Squibb, which was right down the street from Rider University as a developer, technology developer, and then as a business analyst, a senior analyst.

Then I went to work for Merck JM Hubbert Corporation, which was a huge diversified manufacturing company.

And then I went to work in New York for a consulting firm because if I wanted to start my own business, then I wanted to be able to know, you know, what, what this consulting business is all about.

So I worked about 10 years in corporate America.

Then in 1999 with a colleague of mine, we started another company called Millennium Consulting Solutions, and we had that for about five years consulting, we sold it.

And then in 2007 I started FCC consulting services and I'm the sole owner.

- You worked for various corporations and, and then ultimately you went out on your own.

But how did you arrive at that decision?

- What really gave me the entrepreneurial bug was working with the consulting firm.

It was a black owned consulting firm at the time in late 1990s called Johnson McLean Technologies.

And, and being part of their senior team and, and being part of the business operations really gave me insight into how to run a professional consulting organization.

And I, I remember flying back to St. Louis to talk to my dad about doing this, you know, since he had been, he had done this for 30 years and talking about the downsides and, and what if it doesn't work and, and things of that nature.

And his, his advice was, well, you have the experience, you have the background, that's why we sent you to school.

And the worst thing is it doesn't work and you can go work for somebody.

And he said, and you're young enough to take this chance.

So he told me to take the chance and I took the chance and it was difficult.

It was not easy, but it worked out.

- The thing that really struck a chord with me to hear you talk about your dad the way you have in society today, the black man has been marginalized in a lot of respects.

So if you could just elaborate more on your dad and what he meant to you in shaping your, your future trajectory.

- Yeah, so I would say, is he, not even just my dad.

I think the one thing that I always tell everyone, the male figures in my life growing up, completely different than what you hear in the stereotype that you've heard in the past.

Like, my dad had his own business master plumber, my uncles, he has four brothers.

They were all trades folks, they were electricians, plumbers, and all I knew that men was supposed to do was take care of their family.

They get up, they go to work.

You know, they weren't out drinking and doing drugs.

They were actually providing for their family.

So you can imagine as a young boy growing up around that, that's what you see men do and you want to be like them.

To me, that environment was what was important and doing things the right way.

Now, I would say my mom was no slouch either.

You know, she was the disciplinarian and she taught me how to stand up for myself and it would be critical and would push me.

So I like to think I'm a product of both of them, the best at both of them.

Wow.

That's, that's always how I proud myself.

But he was without a doubt, my number one supporter to hear this story.

I think this is the one that really encapsulate, you know, as, as I said, I went to Country Day School and it's a day school, so there was no bus transportation.

The school was 25 minutes from our house.

And so my sophomore year there was an issue, I'm, I might had to withdraw from the school 'cause I couldn't get the school and couldn't pick up.

My mom worked for the government and she had to be at work at seven 30.

My dad, as I said, you know, he had to be, he left the house at 5 36 o'clock, so I had no way to get to school.

So he sat down with me and said, he said, son, well I know this is important.

We want you to stay in school and you're doing so well.

So for a year and for one year, I took the cab to school every day.

You know, I had the same cab driver, we worked out a deal.

He would come at the same time, but for entire year.

Wow.

He had to fund me that until I was able to get a car the next year.

And Wow.

That showed the, the commitment to children, to, to, to wanting to see me do well.

And so after that I couldn't say anything.

My job was to go do well, do my best of my abilities because my dad was dependent on me to do what I was supposed to do.

So that, that, that, I'll never forget that, that that's, that's something you just, you don't hear enough of.

But that was a commitment they had to me.

So, - So Chris, I tell you the, the story was a little, little touching when you got into the depths of the relationship you had with your father and your mother really playing a substantial role in, in also your upbringing.

Each, each person played a different part of making it work.

But when I look at you, Chris and I look at so many other kids that may have the same potential, but lack the support that you had, you know, what are your thoughts about that?

Because we, we deal with that all the time.

- Yeah, I think that's the, I think that's the challenge, which I think, and I, you you mentioned all those things and I tell about everything now that I accomplished, but I didn't do it by myself.

And, and it just showed that if you give people in in particular children the right environment that they can exceed.

My favorite uncle, uncle Anthony used to say, failure is not an option.

And I took that to heart.

I put that pressure on myself.

And so that's why, you know, I coached a little league basketball, that's why I'm volunteer at my kids' school when they were in elementary school to see, so they can see role models of, of black men, frankly, of doing positive things in the community.

- So your first contract opportunity, how did you feel?

What was that experience about?

- It was a $500,000 contract.

It was a year contract.

It was six, six consultants.

I remember sitting down with the family and wife and said this, this is why I did this.

So that we can start to build something more than just, just getting by.

- Chris, you really underscored the ability to leverage your village.

We're gonna take a break here on Pathway to Success.

I'm here with Chris Caruthers, president and CEO of FCC Consulting Services.

We'll be back.

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

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

We are your strategic partner for success.

- Welcome back to Pathway to Success.

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

You know, I'm just enjoying this conversation today with one of the members of the American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Mr. Chris Caruthers, he is the president and CEO of FCC Consulting Services.

And, but let's talk a little bit about this company you've built.

- So FCC consulting services, we are a IT professional consulting firm.

We provide technology services.

We, we use technology to help solve business problems and being able to explain it to business folks or this is how technology will help you improve efficiency, make you more effective.

So that's, that's kind of what what we do.

And we do it in different industries.

We cover several geographic areas, primarily the northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and the Midwest.

But we do perform services in taxes in California.

We have three core competencies.

One is professional services, which involves doing IT audits, IT program and project management, cybersecurity audits, evaluations, technology evaluations.

A second core competency is technology services and this is your traditional it.

So we provide network, local area, network and wide area network design.

We do wired and wireless design.

We perform managed service opportunities where we run entire IT operations for our school districts or cities.

So this is your traditional type IT services.

And then our third core competency, which is what I like to call the entrepreneurial part of the business.

We like to develop solutions for a particular customer - Or - Industry.

And right now we have two solutions.

One for the construction industry and one for utility compliance.

We are certified New York, New Jersey as A-S-B-E-D-B-E and NBE.

We're certified with the federal government as an eight a company.

And we're certified with the National Minority Supply Diversity Council.

So we have all the certifications and I would, my, I I should add that we're certified in 20 other states as well as A MB and DBE.

So that was a focus advisor to make sure in the places that we thought we would do business, we had those certifications.

So - Let's, let's go back a little bit because when you talk about the various certifications, I often view that as positioning your organization for opportunities.

It's just in essence, your ticket to the dance.

You still have to perform.

But you mentioned the eight A, that's which is a federal designation.

Talk about the benefits of having an eight a certification, - The eight a certification program.

Think of it as a program that government is set aside so that they could take firms who are traditionally disadvantaged and give them an opportunity to partake in federal government procurement.

And now we've won three large projects with the federal government and particularly with the Army as a result of this certification.

And, and the key, the key thing with the certification is that the procurement managers can direct source projects to you up to $4 million.

- Additionally, this enables you to scale and grow and build the capacity.

And then after a certain time, you graduate from this program.

Is that correct?

- That is correct.

It's a nine year program and the whole goal of the program is at the end of the nine years, you should be able, you, you wanna be in a position to be a prime.

And so that's the point.

The point is to build capacity.

That's what you're trying to do is build capacity throughout the program and partnerships.

So - What's the typical day like for, for you or FCC?

- So number one is most of my employees are out on company engagement.

See, because if you're in the office and basically I'm probably losing money.

So, so, and that's the, that's the consulting firms.

That's the way it works.

You know, you have your back office staff, but you want your high powered consultants to be out at customer sites, billing basically.

And so, so we, we have a few people in the back office that's usually at the office, but most of our consultants, they're out and we have our virtual meetings.

So we meet either late at night or in the evening or we meet on the weekends as a company to discuss strategy and things of that nature.

- You know, as an athlete, how does that mindset apply to business?

- I think it's, it's, it's, it's a microcosm of business.

It doesn't matter if I like you, it doesn't matter if we hang out on the weekend, but when we're on the court, we're all brothers, right?

And we have a common goal that we have to achieve.

And that's how I approach, you know, business.

- You know, you, you're a black man that runs a business that has done relatively well and you, you may have encountered a situation where the, the customer, they may have been under the impression that you were the employee and not the owner.

- Yes, I've been through that, that happened more in the beginning.

So young, I'm a young looking person, right?

So you can imagine 20 years ago, you know, being 25, 27 and still looking like I'm like 17 or 16, and then going to at and t and the procurement folks, men who are 45 and 50 and say, Hey, you should hire us to do this work.

And it's, you know, a million dollars worth of work, you know, and everybody's sitting around the table like, yeah, I, you look like my son.

I I don't know if I want to give you that opportunity.

I needed someone to gimme credibility in the room.

So then I hired a couple more seasoned individuals who were, you know, 40 in that same range as some of the people we were meeting with.

And then we de we devised a plan so that when we went to meet these guys wouldn't look at me.

They would look at them.

And so what I had my guys do is say, when they do that, you say, well, basically something to the effect, well that's beyond my pay grade.

We gotta ask the boss and then they point to me and that start to change the whole situation of, oh, if these guys are listening to you, you must be all right.

- But let's talk a little more about being a young board member at Rioter University.

- I was elected the youngest board member to the Riot University.

And I had a great relationship with the president as President Bart Lutkey at the time at Riot University.

And so when he approached me in 1999 to, to join the board, you know, I had no idea what that was and what that meant.

But you know, on the board we had people, presidents of Fortune 500 companies, you know, all this experience.

And here I am, I ain't even started my business yet.

So you, and then I was the only, I was the only one, I was the only African American on it.

And so at a lunch, the president sat down with me and he said, do you know why I chose you?

And I thought you, you should be on the board with us.

Well, we wanted to diversify the board, number one, he said, and get younger and get more thought.

He said, but the main reason I chose you, because over our four years I watched you and you asked questions.

Hmm.

He said, you asked questions and you, and you, you, you kind of challenged the status quo.

And that gave me the confidence to say, oh, okay, I belong.

I can fit in.

Being - An advocate in the boardroom is very significant though.

Technology in the community.

How important from your vantage point, is it that the community be more aware of the benefits of being connected more to the grid?

- I think the more we embrace technology, technology to advance our agenda technology to, to educate our kids technology, to have them be the new leaders, the new designers of software, the, the new implementers of software, the new leaders who think outside the box about technology and how it can apply to everyday life.

The more we can get our kids from a young age involved, the better off we're all gonna be.

They're gonna be able to do things.

We can even imagine.

- I've known you for a long time, you know, you know, how has the Chamber been of value to you and would you recommend others consider getting strategically aligned with the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey?

- I'd like to answer that question this way by saying my top two strategic customers were introduced to me through the Chamber of Commerce at two separate chamber events back in 2016, and now they're my top strategic s revenue producing customers.

That's chamber value.

I would say my top three suppliers are all members of the Chamber of Commerce.

And over the last three years I spent over about half a million dollars with them.

That's chamber value.

All I met them all from the chamber, African American Chamber of Commerce, my, my in back office, Woodham Smith and Brown, one of the top accounting and tax advisory firms are, are now representing FCC consulting services.

And I met them through the chairman, Marcus Dyer, who's a member of employee of Woodham Smith and Brown, and then the banks, my bank, both banks that we use as an organization.

And I would recommend you have a couple different banks that you use are both members of the Chamber of Commerce.

Hmm.

And so for me, our success has been inextricably tied to the chamber.

And I think just sharing that story with folks gives them an idea why the chamber's important.

We attend all, you know, about 60% of the events that, that are going on because John puts on a lot of events, can't go to everything, but there's enough every month for, there's enough networking events or special events that you can network meet folks and build that relationship.

'cause at the end of the day, people like to do business with people they like and they know, and you only get to do that if you're constantly in contact with them.

And so I think for me, the chamber's been been great.

And by the way, I also met my wife at the chamber too as well.

So that's a little side note.

But - My last question, can you share with us, you know, what's on tap the next five years for FCC consulting services?

Where you going man, - Long term, say by 2028, really what I want, just from a revenue perspective, I want to have, I want this to be a $10 million it consulting firm with, with, with our, with our mix about, you know, 30% federal government, 70% private sector.

We we're gonna hire probably this year another six new people.

And over the next three years, probably another 10, we have two niche software products that we, for the utility industry as well as construction, that we want to really grow strong.

We have a couple of partners and we want to double that, that base.

I - Thank you for the kind words you said about our organization because we come to work every day trying to give each and member a return on their investment.

So Chris, I wanna thank you Oh, thank you for joining us today and we want to continue to build on our mutual success.

And for those who've tuned in until the next time on your Pathway to success, this is John Harmon, founder president, CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

I just want to thank you for tuning in today.

So as we embark on year 2024, I wanna talk a little bit about some of what I think keys are success for black people in New Jersey.

There's 1.2 million blacks in New Jersey, over 88,000 black businesses.

One of the first keys is we have to be more unified.

At the end of the day.

We need to have a common focus on how do we get in a better place as the people Strategic partnerships I think are critically important.

Our consumer spend, according to Nielsen is $1.8 trillion, which positions us from A GDP perspective number 10 in the world.

But our inability to coalesce all those assets, if you will, and get some reciprocity, I think is critical as we come into this new year, how do we be united as a people that get our issues heard?

There's a lot of votes that's being taken by legislators that are not in our, and in order for us to get those individuals more accountable to us or get this relationship more as reciprocal, we have to be more united because their strength in unity.

I will offer up the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey as one vehicle to get in alignment with through the chamber.

We, we do put forth a policy agenda to represent black businesses, black people.

So give us an opportunity to get you more in line with us and we more in alignment with you.

But at the end of the day, I think that's critical to our mutual success.

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

Be inspired.