- [Narrator] Funding for this episode of "?Que Pasa NJ?

with Carlos Medina" has been provided by: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Hackensack Meridian Health, the Engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825, PSE&G, "ROI-NJ" business magazine.

- Hola familia welcome to the season five premiere.

It's because of you, the viewers, that we're able to have a fifth season.

You're in for a great episode with Roly Acosta, the president and CEO of the JAG Companies, Virginia Caamano from the National Association of Hispanic Realtors, Luis De La Hoz, chairman of the Statewide Hispanic Chamber, and their attorney, Marco Gonzalez.

(upbeat music) Thank you for joining our season five premiere.

And don't forget to ask yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, "?Que Pasa?"

(upbeat music continues) Our first guest today is Roly Acosta, the president and CEO of the JAG Companies.

Welcome to "?Que Pasa?"

- Thank you for having me.

- Explain to me the different companies that sit under the umbrella of the JAG Companies.

- So JAG Companies is the parent company for our family-owned businesses, two of 'em based here in New Jersey, one of 'em based in Conroe, Texas.

Northeast Remsco Construction is the original company founded by my father, Juan Gutierrez, a little over 45 years ago and in the heavy civil construction space.

Caldwell Marine is also based in New Jersey with a focus on submarine power cables.

And the last company, Huxted Trenchless, based in Conroe, Texas, as I mentioned, focused on horizontal directional drilling and microtunneling.

- You mentioned your dad, Juan.

Tell me about his journey to the United States.

I know it was very unique.

He was part of the Pedro Pan, as it was called, Flights that took place in the early '60s, brought families, children unaccompanied, to the United States.

- Dad's journey started in 1962 to the US.

You could call it the epitome of the American dream, right?

It's came here unaccompanied at 12 years old to live with an uncle that claimed him in Whitestone, Queens.

Lived with him for several years before my grandparents and my uncle were able to immigrate here and set up.

When my grandparents came, they moved from, you know, they moved 'em over to Paterson, New Jersey.

So the journey to where he achieved his successes took a lotta routes: from Cuba, to Queens, to Paterson, to Toms River, New Jersey, and then ultimately, in Colts Neck.

- Many guests talk about either their immigrant story or their parents.

How did that play a role in, you know, developing your career, seeing that grit determination that he had?

I know many children of immigrants feel that extra, you know, that extra grit that drives them.

- I was born in 1974, so it was right in the height of a lot of immigration.

You know, my father came in the Peter Pan Flights.

My mother and my maternal grandparents on the Freedom Flights.

You know, they all came here, and it was supposed to be a pit stop.

Eventually, they were gonna go back.

So that has an impact on you, positively.

You know, you kinda see what it is to love a country, to love a culture.

So having the opportunity to grow up with that was fantastic.

But you also saw what it took to get, you know, to leave a country, enter another one that welcomed you, and that you had to work.

You had the put the time in.

Seeing what my dad built from, you know, himself and two employees to now, you know, we're touching the four corners of the United States with our work.

We have over 350 employees.

It's pretty awesome.

But then I had the, you know, I was fortunate to grow up with my grandfather, who woke up at 4:30 in the morning every day to drive a truck, and see him come home every day.

And the drive was to he wanted us to be better than that.

So very fortunate to have that drive and that culture to follow.

- So tell me, how does, you know, what's your daily?

Give us a life in the day of Roly running a pretty major corporation within New Jersey.

- One of the exciting parts about my role as president and CEO of the family businesses, I can kinda decide what I wanna do.

I can go to the office.

I can go to one of our job sites.

I can jump on a plane and fly to one of our job sites or even jump on a plane and fly to Texas to meet with our team out there.

Very lucky to have those options.

And a lotta times, I do get stuck in the office, and I have to go outside to remind myself what it is that we do.

We do some very, very exciting projects.

But you know, having that flexibility, being able to work with some of the most dynamic, intelligent, hardworking people I know is a great opportunity for me.

And I follow along the footsteps that Dad laid out for me, which is, you know, a connection to the office and the field at all times.

- Sure, sure.

- So very fortunate.

- So I know you're giving back.

You do scholarships.

You've done things with the Statewide Hispanic Chamber.

Is that something Dad instilled in you in an early age?

It seems like your company's always doing like really unique things to give back to the community.

- If you look at how my parents got here is, you know, Peter Pan was the Catholic Charities.

And then the Freedom Flights was the US government opening up the doors.

So philanthropy was important to Dad, and giving back to the community, especially the Hispanic community.

A couple years ago, we endowed a scholarship at NJIT in Dad's honor, which at that time was the Newark College of Engineering when he tried to finish.

In the latter part of Dad's life, he became highly involved again with Monsignor Scanlan High School in the Bronx, which was the school that opened up their arms to him as a young man so that he could go to high school.

And we gave back there to make sure that a legacy of students could continue to graduate from there.

So there are hospitals.

You know, sometimes you feel like you're just writing checks, but we as a family and with Dad's guidance, we wanted to make sure that what we supported was meaningful to us and it would make a difference.

- You're a role model, obviously.

What do you tell young people that aspire to have a career as successful as you have?

- You know, when you're raised by who I believe is the ultimate role model, (Carlos laughing) it's hard to see myself as a role model.

But I've had the opportunity to speak at Emerging Leader meetings.

I have an opportunity to meet with our younger staff.

I truly believe in the idea that sky's the limit.

You're only limited by your own beliefs, and some of those beliefs are what others have put in your head.

You can break out of those things.

Similar to what Dad had taught us is, you know, the possibilities in the United States of America are far more than anywhere else.

I have tremendous Cuban pride.

I am American, but my Cuban culture is what got me to where I am today.

And I work very hard so that my kids have that culture.

You know, I have a 15-year-old son that plays baseball with a glove that has Cubanito inscripted (Carlos laughing) on the thumb.

You know, I have a daughter that's, you know, that's in a rowboat, crew boat up in Tufts University.

She has a sense of Cuban pride.

And my youngest, she's got the, I think she's got the most Cuban sass.

So that's very important to us.

Our culture really means a lot to me.

- Well, thank you for being here.

It's very important that viewers see success and hear some words of wisdom.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for being a role model, Roly.

Really appreciate it.

- Excellent.

- Up next, we have Virginia Caamano from NAHREP, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

(upbeat music) And up next, we have Virginia Caamano from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

Welcome to "?Que Pasa?"

- Thank you, Carlos, nice to be here.

- Tell me, what is NAHREP?

What do they do?

- the National Associationd, Estate Professionals.

We are the largest Latino nonprofit in the entire country.

We have 40,000- - Wow.

- [Virginia] Latino real estate professionals involved with this organization.

And with that, we have about 100 chapters throughout the 50 states.

- Tell me about, I know you have an interesting immigration story for your family.

Tell me how your parents met here in the United States.

- So my mother was 17 years old.

She was graduating high school, and she was living a beautiful life in Uruguay.

And as her high school graduation gift, her parents offered her either a graduation party or a trip for three months to Newark, New Jersey to visit her best friend who had moved here.

And so, of course, she missed her best friend, and she said, "No, I wanna go see Charo in Newark.

That's what I want as a gift."

And in the meantime, my dad was an orphan his entire life in Spain.

And the reason he was an orphan is because his father was a fisherman, as everyone is in our village in Galicia.

And he died out at sea when my dad was only 11, and his brother was nine.

And so at that time, Spain would send its widows to Germany to work in the factories, basically putting like nuts and bolts together.

My dad and his brother were even raised at separate orphanages, so not even together.

It's a heartbreaking story.

So when my dad finished high school as an orphan, he finally got a letter from his mom that she was able to get a work visa here in Newark, New Jersey.

And she wanted her two sons to come meet her here.

And so he put his, you know, political plans on hold in Spain, came here to work, and you know, gave her all the money he could in that year so that his mom was okay and to spend time with her.

But in that year, (laughing) he met my mom.

And so they ended up dating for those three months that she was here.

She was 17, he was 19, and they fell in love.

And she was due to go back to Uruguay for Christmas, and he said, "You can't leave."

And she said, "Well, I can only stay if we're married."

(laughing) And so they got married by City Hall.

They asked two strangers in the hallway to be their witnesses, and I came along a year later.

- Wow, that's an amazing story, beautiful story.

Now, you started out first in education before real estate, correct?

- Yes, actually, this is my third career.

- Okay.

- My first career was at Morgan Stanley.

But after 9/11, I decided I couldn't live with the survivor's guilt of seeing 3,000 people, you know, pass away that day and continue going after the money.

And so I was young.

I was in my 20s.

But I kind of rebelled against, you know, my capitalistic lifestyle a little bit.

So I took about a decade and just volunteered and said, "How can I give back to this world, since I have the chance to and many people don't?"

And through volunteering, I ended up going back to college, getting a few degrees in education.

And I went into education, but not as a typical teacher.

I was a bilingual teacher, so I had only Hispanic students in my classroom from, you know, all 22 Spanish-speaking countries we have.

And I saw how there was this huge achievement gap in public schools, especially here in New Jersey, between my Hispanic students and your average white American student.

And I decided to play Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds," and I started doing some home visits.

And, you know, the families welcomed me with open arms.

It was beautiful.

I always brought in donations of some sort.

But what I noticed is that our Hispanic families are typically, or at least where I was teaching, living in a bedroom.

So a three-bedroom apartment would host three families.

I'm trying to tell this story without getting emotional.

So my students didn't have a quiet place to think their thoughts, to read a story and have comprehension.

And teachers generally will get very upset with these students being irresponsible.

"Why didn't you do your work?"

And in reality, these children don't have a choice.

This is the environment that life has given them.

And so I quickly realized that the only way I could close the achievement gap in public schools in America is by closing the wealth gap amongst adults through home ownership.

And that's how I transitioned into real estate.

- Amazing.

You mentioned the real estate market.

Tell me about the real estate market.

I know there have been some studies out.

How is Hispanic home ownership?

- Well, that's actually exciting.

We have exciting data.

Let's take 2013, for example, less than a decade ago.

The average or the median Hispanic household had a household wealth or net worth of about $20,000, not much more than that.

That's not the income.

That's the net worth.

And if you fast forward about a decade to 2022, the latest data shows that now, the average Hispanic household has a net worth of about 64,000, much better than 20,000.

However, there's another data point that shows we still have a huge achievement gap.

Because the median white American family has a household wealth of about $300,000.

And so that difference of $220,000 (laughing) is an achievement gap that we're still chipping away at.

And we're gonna do that through home ownership and also financial literacy, teaching the Hispanic community how to invest, how to be an angel investor, why not, how to start businesses.

You know, Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the small business space.

So there's exciting things going.

We just have a long road ahead.

- So what would you tell our viewers that are seeking a career in whatever the field might be?

What would you, from your experience, what advice can you give our viewers?

- First of all, from an immigrant perspective, I just believe strongly that we have to look at what our parents did, you know, the bravery it took to come to this country.

And us growing up in this country with opportunities that are equal to Americans, except we actually have the benefit of knowing the work ethic and the determination and the resilience that our parents or grandparents went through.

So use that to drive you to be better, to chase happiness, because money will come.

And do everything heart-centered.

You know, Mother Teresa once said that, "It doesn't matter how much you give.

It matters how much love you give it with."

And so I truly believe that, if whatever we do in life, as long as we do it our hearts and happiness and, you know, just with all the good intentions in the world, it will work out, no matter what the profession is.

- Great, thank you for joining "?Que Pasa?"

And thank you for all the good work you're doing.

- Thank you for having me, Carlos.

- Up next, we have Marco Gonzalez, attorney for the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Luis De La Hoz, their chairman, to talk a little bit about the new disparity study that the Governor's Office released in January.

(upbeat music) And up next, we have Marco Gonzalez, attorney at law, and the chairman for the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, Luis De La Hoz.

Welcome to "?Que Pasa?"

Gentlemen.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you.

- Gentlemen, tell me your opinion of the new disparity study that the Governor's Office put out in late January.

- Well, there are a bunch of key points that came out of that study.

The first is, they were able to review 1.2 million pages of public records from across agencies and public institutions, over 240,000 pages of contracts, public contracts.

And they found first that there were significant disparities in awarding public contracts to minority-owned businesses, specifically Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans.

And the second thing was that they also found significant disparities in the data with regards to women-owned businesses as well, especially in professional service contracts.

- How has the front office been?

Do they communicate with you prior to the findings being released?

- Yes.

I mean, this was not a surprise for us.

We was expecting that.

We confirmed what we know.

But I think that one thing that I want to add to what Marco said is that veteran business owners and pride businesses are not even part of the study because they was not considered for that.

Which is- - Pride, when you say pride, you mean LGBT?

- LGTB, yes.

That they are not recognized as a minority in the state as today.

Now, we always, at the chamber, we always see things with a spice of optimism.

And we think that this will allow us to start working towards how we can fix the problem.

The communication with the administration, they did release the study, which is the first step to address the problem.

We hope that we can contribute to improve the conditions of our members in order for them to take advantage of the opportunities that can come after they release the study.

- So the last time, I believe it was Governor McGreevey tried to implement this.

What happened?

What was the environment like?

Why wasn't a study completed at that time?

- Well, you have a couple of legal cases that were filed by construction company, the GEOD case.

The principals were white males, and they challenged the, you know, the outreach to minority businesses in public contracting.

And one of the arguments they made was that the statistics, the data was stale.

Now, the court didn't rule just based on that point, but it definitely triggered the impetus to come up with fresh statistics in order to be able to show and satisfy the strict scrutiny analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court when you have for preferential treatment programs, like the State of New Jersey has for minority- and women-owned businesses.

So this study is significant because it shows that significant disparities exist betwand the minority-tors business community.

And so, like Luis said, the question is: What is Trenton gonna do about it now to tailor, narrowly tailor solutions to, well, correct those disparities?

- Sure, what is the next step, Luis?

- I think that we have tools, training, and we have resources that we can offer to our members in order for them to be able to take advantage of the opportunities.

We believe there is other opportunities that are happening around the country that can be implemented in the state, that can improve the results.

We are not expecting this to move from zero to 30%, but we just want that we start at some point and we measure the progress in order for see better results.

-Carlos, the study also pointed out some of the significant barriers that minority-owned businesses and women-owned businesses.

Luis is familiar with the number one reason: lack of access to capital.

That is a big factor.

Another one is lack of resources, insufficient networking so that they could get to know who are the prime contractors, and also bonding and insurance is a big barrier as well.

And those are areas that our chamber and similar organizations can help these businesses in attacking and overcoming those barriers.

- You have a bonding program, correct?

- Yes.

The bonding program is a free class that we offer to the contractors and businesses that can provide services to the government.

And we teach them how they can get access to bonding.

Bonding is a need and a requirement if you wanna do public work, and people need to understand that it's like a loan.

You need to apply and you may qualify for the amount that you need, or you may not.

You need to know how much you can afford and how much that will cost in order for you to apply.

- So Luis, have you had an opportunity, maybe the governor will watch the show, what would you tell him about the study and what the next steps are?

- Well, I would be express our gratitude for having the courage to release the study.

This is the first step.

And having the communication open in order for us to help to address the problem.

We are not expecting miracles.

We know there is work.

But we are willing to roll our sleeves and work, helping our business owners, and helping other minority business owners to get access to those opportunities.

- Marco, what would you tell the governor?

- Yeah, I think the study is significant.

And again, from a legal perspective, in order to show any type of preferential program based on race or gender, there's a strict scrutiny analysis by the Supreme Court.

And especially using current statistics to prove that disparities exist.

So that is a huge undertaking.

This study took five years.

It took a lot of money, cost, people power, people time to do this study, and that should be, you know, we sfor that, certainly.rnor that now is the next step to take action, both in the business community, the minority chambers, the women chambers, and also to bring in, you know, the Pride Chamber and the veterans.

I'm a veteran.

And especially the New Jersey State Veterans Chamber of Commerce should all get together, work together to erase or at least mitigate these disparities.

- [Carlos] There is a loose coalition of diverse chambers.

- Yes.

- Who's on that?

- The Veteran Chamber, the Pride Chamber, the Punjabi Chamber, the Asian American Indian Chamber of Commerce, the Indian Chamber of Commerce, a lot of women groups that are in the state, the Diversity Council from New York, is many of them.

- The African American Chamber.

- The African American Chamber.

- And Hispanic Chamber, obviously.

- Yes.

And I want to say something that is very interesting.

from Latinos in New Jersey is $97 billion a year.

We just want to take a little bit of the taxes that we pay.

We are not asking for a favor.

We are not asking for a handout.

We just want to make part of that pool of money that, I mean, if we contribute through our income taxes, our taxes that we pay to the state, we deserve to get a little bit of action of that money.

And we are 30% of the population in the state.

We are very diverse.

We are in every county or most of the counties in the state.

We just want an opportunity.

We are not asking any favors.

We are not asking.

We are not begging for spare change.

This is the money that we deserve to take advantage of.

- Thank you very much, gentlemen, an important topic.

- Thank you.

- Ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap.

Thank you for joining us for the first episode of season five, in which we heard from Roly Acosta, Virginia from the National Association of Hispanic Realtors, and Marco and Luis talking about the new disparity study that was released.

And don't forget to ask yourself, "?Que Pasa?"

- [Narrator] Funding for this episode of "?Que Pasa NJ?

with Carlos Medina" has been provided by: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Hackensack Meridian Health, the Engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825, PSE&G, "ROI-NJ" business magazine.

Thanks to the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Find out more about our familia at shccnj.org.

This has been a production of the Modesto Educational Foundation.

(upbeat music)