- 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.

Today's guest is Gary Mann.

He is the CEO of Jafe Analytics.

In addition, he's a board member of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, and I'm so delighted to have him here today.

- Thanks, John.

It's great to be here.

- We want to get to know a little bit about you before you talk about this phenomenal company that you run.

- Okay, John.

Thank you.

So I am born and raised in Newark, New Jersey.

I came up as a kid during the riots.

Some call it a rebellion, but I, I still call it the riots where I found how, how difficult it was to, you know, honestly to be black here in New Jersey and in Newark and in Newark in particular.

- You know, from your perspective as a young guy experiencing that.

And what did you come to know that was all about?

I - Got a lot of exposure, fortunately, unfortunately, to the riots.

You know, not only were, you know, there violence in, directly in my neighborhood and on my block, but my mom decided to actually go out and help the soldiers.

So she actually was given coffee to the soldiers, had me in the backseat.

So I actually saw probably a lot more than a lot of other people, but I also saw a lot of injustices around our people.

- Wow.

So you, you, you were raised in a single parent household, you and two other siblings.

Talk a little bit about your mom.

You know, I lost my mother at 17 and, you know, if I had her today, I'd tell you, man, I'm sure she would be proud of what I've accomplished, but I would be just thanking her for bringing me into this world and, and putting me on the path to be the person that I am today.

But talk a little about your mom and your siblings.

- Yeah, so I was, I was the oldest of three.

My mom, you know, she was a diligent single, you know, single parent worker, actually.

She worked probably two to three jobs and I constantly saw her work and I think that's where I got my work ethic from, was actually from just watching her go from job to job to job all were, you know, low wage jobs.

She, you know, worked at cleaners, cleaned office buildings during the night and then was ready to take me to school the next day.

Don't know who my father was, couldn't tell you who he was if I saw him.

But, you know, my mother basically made sure that she did both roles and she was a disciplinarian, so there was no, no messing around for me.

- Well, I tell you, all right, high school, where did you go?

Did you play any sports?

- Got it.

So, so kind of interesting story.

So the funny thing happened along the way.

I actually got an academic scholarship to go away to school.

So I went to Amherst High in Amherst, Massachusetts, which at the time was considered to be one of the best high schools in the country.

It was funded actually by the Ford Foundation.

What - Was that like?

- It was a completely different world for me.

When I got to Massachusetts, first of all, you know, the majority of of the people that lived in Amherst, Massachusetts were white.

The only, you know, people of non-color that I had ever dealt with up until that point was actually my teachers in, in school.

Sure.

That, that, that was it.

While I was in Massachusetts, though, I did play football, I did play basketball.

As a matter of fact, I was an Allstate first team basketball player and, you know, enjoyed the time up there.

Met a lot of interesting people, much more of a liberal type of environment than most, but still experienced racism while I was up there.

- So Amherst and you, you go to college in the same community, - Was recruited by UMass Amherst Brown, and quite a, quite a few others, but my heart was actually back here in New Jersey.

So instead of going to many of those prestigious colleges, I actually made the decision to come back to New Jersey and, and go to Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

And so when I got to Rutgers, I, I enrolled as an electrical engineering major because of my situation, I had to do work study.

And so in working through various parts of the university, I, I wound up inside of the computer science building inside the computer lab, and that completely changed my trajectory.

And so I switched my major, it opened me up to a whole new world.

And at this time, computer science was still relatively new.

Data science was still, was, was, wasn't even phrase at the time, but I enjoyed working with numbers.

I enjoyed solving problems because again, of my situation, meaning, you know, I came, I come from humble beginnings.

My mother really couldn't afford to send me through through school.

So I had to work.

I made the decision to actually start a company at Rutgers University, helping Rutgers or departments within Rutgers actually automate their systems.

And I, I approached one of the, one of the deans at one of the departments and, and actually asked him if I could see if I can automate them.

And so he said yes.

And so I created a company and started, started doing work for him.

- Please share the name of the company.

- So the company I started, I mean, I was very creative.

It was called Man Associates.

That was actually my very first opportunity, not only to apply what I was learning, but also to understand that I can make money doing it.

- I tell you a story, it it gets more fascinating the more you share.

So upon graduating from Rutgers, what did you do?

- I had a company, I decided to actually sell off the components of that company to someone else, and I actually decided to go work for a corporation inside of, inside of New York City.

That company was Information Builders.

And so Information Builders was actually an up and coming business intelligence data integration company.

Absolutely loved it.

It was vibrant, it was young, it was always moving.

There was always some hard problem to solve.

And so I started actually in, in support inside of Information Builders, fielding customer questions and making sure that, you know, whatever systems they were building with our software were actually working.

I did that for probably about two and a half years inside of, inside of Information Builders.

I, and I should add, I was doing that, but the entrepreneurial bug still, still was biting at.

And so I decided to do consulting work on the side, helping fashion institutes and fashion organizations actually automate their systems.

So I was probably spending anywhere from 12 to 13 hours at Information Builders while also spending another, you know, five to six hours actually building software systems for, for the fashion industry.

But while I was at, you know, information Builders and actually was asked and promoted to a product manager where I managed a data integration pro product there for many years, that integration product was used by thousands of, of, of customers throughout globally.

And I had a whole team underneath me that did nothing but support it.

And so I actually had the honor and the privilege of being a part of the team that, and I might get a little techie here, but we were the first to actually split a query, you know, requests the data requests across multiple machines.

We actually did that in partnership with, with IBM.

And so that was, that was actually a breakthrough.

It was not only a breakthrough for the industry, but it was also a breakthrough through for, for IBM.

They went on to sell and to OEM our software for many years thereafter.

- So what is a query?

- A query is a request.

Think about, you know, you, you asking your bank, what is my current value across all of my accounts?

Here's what you're worth.

While that's sounds simple, it's, it can be a very difficult process on the back end because not only are you dealing with multiple machines or areas, but you could potentially be dealing with multiple applications, multiple languages, multiple databases, multiple ways of connection.

And so it seems simple today, but back then I'm going 20 years ago, that was a very hard thing to do.

- When did you establish Jafe and what does Jafe stand for?

- I actually started Jafe in 2018, and Jafe has a lot of personal meaning for me.

It's actually the first three letters of my daughter's name, Ja, and the le and the first three letters of my, my wife's name, Felicia.

Okay.

And that's actually where I came up with, with, with Jazz Fellow.

It had a nice ring to it.

I decided to go with that.

You know, I, I later, you know, after starting it had a son who came to question me and say, Hey dad, what, what, what's up?

What about me?

So there's a possibility that you could see another entity coming out of Gary Mann.

- You, you had to come through the pandemic.

Did that help or hurt your enterprise?

- We were actually able to do more because we no longer had to spend time traveling to our, to our clients.

We were doing everything via Zoom, and it also allowed us to do more strategic work.

It allowed us to, to come up with new models to create as well for, for our clients.

- For those budding entrepreneurs, what advice would you have to share with them?

- Probably my first advice is don't let anybody tell you what your dream should be.

You know, I, I heard a quote this morning, I was listening to, to, to Mr. Steve Harvey, and you know, the quote there was, I don't have an alarm clock.

My passion wakes me up.

You know, I've got that basketball background as I told you before, and, you know, it's like if you, if you wanna do well during games, you practice hard.

And so that's been my model ever since I started that is to, to, to go at, to go at your dream, go at it hard, go at it smart, put in the work and good things will happen.

- Gary Mann, CEO Jafe Analytics, we're gonna take a break here on Pathway to Success.

We'll be back in a moment.

- 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.

And, you know, during the break you spoke about the value of a small business, even a startup.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Yeah, and I think what we were talking about is in relationship to that, to to, to the query that we, we we did with IBM.

And so, you know, when you think a look, when you think of startups, when you think of small businesses, we can be really nimble in terms of developing solutions, putting them together, executing against them, QAing them, and putting them out to market.

IBM actually realized that functionality within the company that I was working for at the time, information Builders, and they decided to, to, to partner with us because of our ability to innovate.

- No, that's fantastic.

Two part question for you.

Let's hear the mission of Jafe Analytics and also speak a little bit about the future of technology.

- The mission of, of Jazz Fall analytics at its core is to ensure that decision makers as well as people that are working throughout the organization, have access to data that they can use to make decisions to either improve the business, generate revenue, reduce costs, or predict where their particular company and industry should be going.

That is, that's the primary mission.

The secondary mission of jazz full analytics is to give kids of color an opportunity to see what it is that they can be.

And sometimes that's even more important to me than the first mission.

You know, I I, I tell this story, my mom was, you know, she was, she, she cleaned offices as, as one of her many jobs.

She, she often brought me there to empty the garbage cans and you know, she, she, she actually was cleaning an architectural firm in which I discovered the drafting board and that, and that sort of, kind of where, where I started wanting to be an engineer.

But during that time, I couldn't, I didn't see anybody to look like me, right.

In which I can mirror, I specifically base my company in Newark to give kids an opportunity to see what it is that they can be from people that look like, look like them.

- You know, you've shared with me on a few occasions about hiring interns during the summer, this past summer.

How many did you have?

- Yeah, so, so this past summer we only had two interns.

We had an intern from Rutgers University who was a computer science major, a kid of color.

We also had a student from North Carolina, a and t who, Theodore Johnson is his name.

Theodore, I'm gonna shout you out.

So we're currently working with the Newark Data Science and Information Technology School here in which we're actually gonna do kind of like a mini, a mini internship where we've got a class of kids where we're gonna do a six week program and give them real world problems to solve using, using Python, which is the hottest language right now Wow.

On the planet.

We're also working with Rutgers University here in Newark, Nicole Nicole Richardson, in her class to, to identify kids that we can also use in, in our internship next year.

- I think That's fantastic.

So what is a typical day like at Jafe Analytics?

- So a typical day for, for, for me is either being in front of client sites or, or clients or being in front of prospects.

Yesterday we were at an event in Trenton, actually, thanks to the African American Chamber of Commerce, which through a phenomenal event I was there.

So I'm, I'm constantly all over the place.

We like to serve as thought leaders.

So my typical day may include speaking to an executive and helping them understand what, what strategies they should be executing against and how they should be, including the data that they've got within their walls.

Speak - A little more about targets potential clients that, that you serve and desire to serve.

- We, we tend to focus on companies that have a lot of data, so healthcare is definitely a sweet spot.

State and local government is definitely a sweet spot for us and financial services.

- Have you ever encountered, say, a false perception when folks think that you are the worker, not the owner?

And if that has ever been the case, how would you, you know, advise someone how to handle that situation?

- As an executive at a number of the companies that I've worked for, that's happened time and time again.

But here's what I do, you know, to handle that.

I walk in there confidently, shake their hand and, and, and kind of get to work.

You know, I, I don't make it my issue.

I make it their issue if it is an issue, but I'm there to, to, to do the job and that if that's to make a sale or to support the client, that's what I do.

I stay professional.

- No, I think that's a fantastic word of advice for the future.

You know, when we talk about technology, in this case, data analytics, there's always conversation about the digital divide.

- So is there a digital divide?

I'd say yes, there is a digital divide, but there's a digital opportunity as well.

Many, many of our kids, and I mean, you know, kids of diverse backgrounds typically do not have the means to have the software buy the software and hardware or actually even have their schools have the hardware and software to help them progress in getting better with the digital divide.

However, what I've found is that that doesn't mean that our kids still can't learn.

You know, one of the examples that I always use is when I first first put the business in Newark, the Boys and Girls Club of Newark approached me just to say, Hey, can you just have our kids come to your offices just to see what it looks like?

And I said, sure.

But I took it a step further and I challenged them.

I told 'em that we were gonna do a project and that they needed to create an analytics project or a project where they analyze data from whatever subject that they want.

We did that for two weeks.

And John, I was, I was blown away by what these kids Wow.

Came up with.

And, and I'm talking about kids that were from 12 to 16 years old.

The analytics that they did without the, the, the use of a computer was nothing less than phenomenal.

I had kids that analyzed, you know, what was the best fast food that they should go and get from a nutritional standpoint, you know, you know, there's some basketball analogies who's better?

LeBron or, or, or Jordan.

The analytics that those kids did for me was better than some professionals that I had worked with.

There was one kid that actually wanted to hire, but he was too young.

So yeah, there's a digital divide, but there's also a digital opportunity.

And again, it just proved my point of why I should be here in Newark working with these kids.

- So you're telling the audience today that the future's bright as it relates to technology with our youth?

- Absolutely.

It's, it's bright and, and there's many advantages to, to the youth as well.

They're getting, they're, they're kind of used to dealing with a lot of pieces of data and, and what I like to say that is, is really crowdsourcing.

And so one of the areas that I think is an opportunity not only for Jafe analytics, but also for other companies, is utilizing the skillset of our youngsters to actually crowdsource data.

- So Gary, what's the thoughts about ai?

- Look, I think it's a game changer.

So, you know, I'm old enough to have gone through the cell phone revolution and yeah, it was a revolution, right?

- Not a riot.

- Yeah, not a riot.

It was a revolution.

I've gone through the internet revolution.

AI is just as big, if not a bigger revolution than either of those two things in that AI is giving us, from a business perspective, from a learning perspective, it's giving us a co-pilot, a tutor, a partner to help us think better and think faster.

In terms of Jass full analytics.

We use ai, well, not only do we produce AI models, but we also use models in our day-to-Day business.

And if you're not using things like chat GPT, that's, that's the latest and hottest AI application out there, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Wow.

And you're actually behind, - Wow.

You're a board member and, but also a member.

Speak to the relationship with the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

And then would you encourage others to give us an opportunity to be their partner for success?

We're, we're winding down here.

- The way that I came to the African American Chamber of Commerce is that I went to an event in which Governor Murphy was at, at NJ PAC and Governor Murphy actually mentioned you and the African American Chamber.

And, you know, I had been trying to figure out how do I accelerate the development of my company?

So I looked, I, I looked you up, I looked up the chamber and I went to the next event that the Chamber had that I could attend.

What blew me away about the African American Chamber of Commerce was the substance of the event, the level of access that you were giving members to decision makers, either within government or within business.

And then the caliber of business owners that were, that were there.

You provide services to the members that I think are unmatched.

- So Gary, you know, we've had a great, great conversation today and I want to thank you for being on Pathway to Success today.

Thank - You, John.

- Until the next time on your Pathway to Success, this is John Harmon, founder, president, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Thank you for tuning in.

Hello, this is John Harmon, president's message, new Year, new Attitude 2024 and season five for Pathway to Success.

You know, what's exciting about the show, about the Chamber is that it started with a vision.

It started with an idea to push back on the perception of black people in New Jersey and really position us to be a value proposition to make New Jersey truly great, more competitive.

We have coalesced some amazing members over the years and we have our past chairman Stan Prater moving on, and our new chairman, Gary Mann, taking the helm.

These two individuals have been integral to the success of the African American Chamber of Commerce over the years.

And as the founder, president and CEOI tell you, I'm really excited about this incoming year.

You know, we still have challenges.

We're still advocating for black businesses to get their equitable share of the economy of New Jersey.

We're still working to position businesses for resources and opportunities and information that will ultimately contribute to their success.

You know, sometimes, you know, I get a little frustrated with, with policy makers and with some, some folks in New Jersey, but I still love what I do.

I still have a genuine passion, still committed.

You know, we're now in our 17th year and for me 27 years, but we still have a ways to go.

So I'd encourage you to give us an opportunity to be your strategic partner for success.

This is your African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Thank you.

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

Be inspired.