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

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

Thank you for joining us today on Pathway to Success.

You know, not only in New Jersey, throughout this country, we are still dealing with perceptions and adverse perceptions of black people, black businesses and all that we've done to make America one of the greatest countries on this planet.

Today we have a living example of greatness.

He's a veteran.

He's a developer, he's a sports team owner.

Wanna welcome Baer Adolfo Wilson.

- Thank you for having me, - Baer.

Listen man, let's, let's hear today.

Tell us a little bit about who are you?

- Who am I?

That's, you know, it is an interesting question.

I first thought about that.

I like to look at myself as a, a father, as a friend, a partner, business person, an activist, an organizer, a spiritual person, someone from the community.

- So I like, I like that response, you know, big family, small family.

Where are you from?

- I grew up in a couple places, mostly in Palace in New Jersey.

But we, I was born in New York City, in Harlem and spent a lot of time in rural North Carolina.

My mother is one of 13, my father is one of eight.

And so I come from a, I have about 51st cousins and so I just grew up with a spending time with them from rural South Carolina to Gullah Country, sand Hills, and North Carolina, New York, or New Jersey, all the way up to Brockton, mass.

- I want to kinda look at the Harlem piece, if you will.

How did that help you shape the personality and the professional that you are and the things that you do?

- Well, I, we were born in Harlem.

We lived on seventh Avenue, hundred 27th Street and spent a lot of time in St.

Nicholas housing projects.

My parents divorced when I was young, but my aunt and my father stayed, you know, still stayed in the city.

So even when I moved to Patterson, I used to catch the bus back in the day to the city.

So there's a bus from Patterson that would take you to the George Washington Bridge, and then I would take another brush, another bus down to Harlem.

So there was a level of independence that I had that say 12 or 13 years old, and that independence and, and allowed me to have a level of confidence about navigating spaces that I think a lot of people don't get.

- You're a US Army veteran.

What inspired you to go into the military?

- I win the Army after high school.

I win the military for economic reasons.

I grew up in Patterson.

I was in Pat, it was in the eighties, and the reduction in the manufacturing sector, there really wasn't any jobs.

So in basic training, I did basic training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

There were five people in my basic training class from Patterson.

And one guy I went to high school with, another guy that lived down the street.

And so, but that was more than any town.

It was more than la it was more than New York City.

It was more than Atlanta, it was more than Chicago.

It was more than Detroit.

So it was more than all these cities that were four or five, 10 times as the biggest Patterson.

And so one day our drill sergeant pulled, called us up and asked us, why are you here?

And we said there were no jobs.

It was a good experience, but it's what, that's what it was.

It initially was this, the lack of jobs in urban New Jersey in the eighties.

- So, so following the military, what was the next step?

- And my last year in the military, I won this competition called Soldier of the Year.

And for the Sixth Infantry, the Sixth Infantry Light Infantry Division.

And I was invited to participate in the All Army competition for Soldier of the Year.

There were nine soldiers from around the world who were invited to participate in this competition.

I opted not to, and I opted to go to college and it was a big deal 'cause everyone felt like I was, you know, making a bad decision.

But winning Soldier of the Year instilled in me a level of confidence that I can do, I could do anything I wanted to.

And I also had the free will to make decisions that prioritize me.

And that was really the, the switch that changed a lot of things about how I approach everything else afterward.

- So what school did you go to?

- I, I came back to New Jersey and I ended up at Rutgers Newark.

- So what did you major in, in, in Rutgers?

- I majored in English, sociology.

I had a minor in history.

I had professors like Dr.

Clement Price, he's, who's passed away, but I had, and Bruce Franklin.

So I had some really amazing professors at Rutgers at that time.

- So once you got your, I guess your ba at the time, what, what did you do professionally or during the time you were going to school?

- Well, when I was in school I was, I did a bunch of things.

I was bartending, mainly bartenders.

I worked at this club called Cosmos in Newark back in the day.

So in Stanford I have, and then I substitute, I substitute taught, which is what I did most of the way through.

But it gave me the flexibility.

So I would do that two or three days a week, take classes on.

So I did a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, took classes Tuesdays and Thursday during the daytime.

And then Monday was, and Wednesdays at night.

And then if I needed to I would bartend.

And I was also in the National Guard during that period of time.

So I had like two jobs and went to school full time.

So it was a pretty hectic period of my life.

- I mean, you're a busy guy that then Cornell and, and University of Penn.

Talk about that a little bit.

- Well, Cornell was the first time I was sort fully immersed in an academic institution.

When I was at Rutgers it was, I had, you know, I was in school but I was also working.

So Cornell was the first time I was really just in a, an environment and Cornell's an Ivy League institution.

I really saw the difference in resources, you know, we would go into, so you went into the, to the cafeteria and you saw, I saw like all the different types of foods you saw, the how the, the difference in wealth and what people had.

But it was also a great institution because today I, some of my best friends from in life have been from that period because I, I learned a lot from them and it was a really great cohort to be a part of this.

So I, it was a, i it was a great experience.

I learned a lot and I was immersed in it.

- Can you recall any time in either of those Ivy League schools where you felt compelled to really draw from your, your competitive nature?

- What I, from the military, what I gained most and what I probably still use isn't necessarily competitiveness, but a level of discipline that I got out in the military.

I'm still pretty regimented about my day.

When I got to Cornell, I probably was just more regimented and more disciplined than anyone in the program.

And by the time I got to Penn, I probably was just more driven than anyone.

- You know, one thing about veterans, they make good employees.

So based on what you kind of shared, I think that applies to you as well.

- It, it was good for me to have done it before I went to college and grad school and law school.

'cause it gave me a level of discipline, a level of focus, a level of tenacity and scrappiness that I think I wouldn't have had.

But for that experience, I spent most of my military career in Anchorage, Alaska at Fort Richardson.

And so I endured all types of cold weather.

Most of our training was cold weather training.

And so we were there to protect the Alaskan pipeline from the, from the Russians, the Soviet Union back then.

And so I, I already had experienced something that was more intense than grad school.

And so being able to adjust to something that wasn't the most intense things I'd ever done was important.

And it gave me, once again, a level of confidence.

I had done something more challenging and so I was able to sort of tackle this, tackle the task at hand.

- And, and now you, you have a law degree as, as well.

So talk about that a little bit and then follow up to that, some goals that you may have set While in the military, - I, I wanted to go to college.

I wanted to go to law school.

And so it was important for me to say when I got in the military that I'm going to graduate from college, that I'm gonna graduate from law school.

And to have done that, it was something that I, it was a goal, but it felt good to, to accomplish such an important goal because not many u us army vectors, I was in a field artillery unit, I was in a combat unit.

There's not a lot of combat soldiers who are graduating from law school to focus on and, and to do it.

I gained a lot of confidence out of it and I, and I'm appreciative of the journey.

- You know, I, I appreciate that because it gets back to my, my opening statement about perception, you know, Patterson, Newark, Trenton, you know, the perception is that the talent does not necessarily exist there or the wherewithal to do greatness.

And, and clearly you are an example of someone that defies all those adverse perceptions of individuals from those communities.

But you set some goals while in the army and now post Army, post-college, talk about some of the other goals that you set for yourself and, and how they've materialized over over time.

- And so I just felt like I had gotten so much outta Newark but now went to school there that it was important to try to replenish what I took out of, 'cause I wanted to be in the community and I had gained so much out of it that I felt like it was important to work in the community.

So I worked at legal services when I first got out and then I worked for this organization called Regional Plan Association.

I was in New Jersey state director.

And then I started and co-founded with Amir Baraka and Theresa Marshall.

This organization called the Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District.

And we built a affordable housing and we did, we created the Lincoln Park Music Festival, we did green job training, but it was all about what, you know, when you take something out of a community.

And I had taken so much knowledge and so much experience and so much creativity and thoughtfulness that I had learned from people at Community Baraka that I felt like it was important for me to put some of that back.

- So you, you've done a lot in Newark, but specifically, can you share a little more about the Lincoln Park Initiative?

- It's a community organization.

Community.

We are community development, sustainable arts organization.

And the goal was to be developed on Lincoln Park coast area.

There was a lot of jazz district, it was a jazz district, a lot of arts artists who performed in the Lincoln Park area back in the fifties and forties.

And then you have CI Hall, which is, I just celebrated his hundredth year anniversary.

So we had these two main figures in the Lincoln Park area, but the Lincoln Park area wasn't getting the type of attention as other neighborhoods in the studio of Newark.

And so we co-founded the organization to really focus and drive the arts, affordability, sustainability, and creativity.

And I did that for 10 years.

So after I finished Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District, I became the deputy mayor and director of Economic housing development for the city of Newark.

It was Mayor Baraka's first term in that position.

I think we did a lot, you know, Newark there was always saying, well, is Newark gonna be the next Brooklyn?

And I say, well, Newark just gonna be the next Newark.

And we did a lot of projects in economic development.

We did Mulberry Commons, we did the one Theater square we did, we finished up Teacher's Village Shaq's first project with re We, we worked on that, the Haynes building, the Whole Fools Building.

I, we did a lot of these large, complicated real estate development projects that had been sitting in the pipeline for years.

We're able to finish those projects and we either get them started or finish those projects.

And I think what they did was it cleared the pathway for the development that you see in Newark now.

The, the mayor really wanted to sort of focus on these, these projects because those projects were projects that if we succeeded in those projects, businesses would see, well, if Newark can get this done, they, we can get these other projects done.

So we really plowed through a bunch of projects that created this wave of act, economic development activity that really moved Newark and moved the needle and set the groundwork for what's happening in Newark now.

- That was a great story, also a great time to take a break.

We're gonna take a break here.

We'll be back in a moment.

- For more information, please visit our website.

- Welcome back to Pathway to Success here with Baer Adolfo Wilson.

This guy has done it all.

So ba Can we talk a little bit about BAW development?

- Well, BAW development started after I left New York City Hall, a similar woman, Sharonda Sumner.

We grew up in the same neighborhood in Patterson.

And she said to me, why aren't you back in Patterson?

You left Newark, what you're interested in doing.

And I was really interested in all of urban New Jersey.

And she said, why don't you come home to Patterson and see if you could do some work here?

You've done all this amazing work with the city of Newark.

It'd be helpful if you came back to Patterson.

And so I started VAW development really as a business that would focus on urban New Jersey.

That would take the lessons that I learned in Newark, being the largest city in the state and being able to apply them to the smaller cities in the state because oftentimes the problems are the same.

You know, we had gone through a lot of challenges in terms of commercial development and housing development, industrial development, but in all in black and brown communities.

So I really started the business as a way of taking the lessons I learned from Newark and spreading it all around urban New Jersey - In Patterson.

Can you elaborate on, on some of the things specifically that you did through this organization?

- BAW development in Paterson is the co-developer and co-owner of LER Stadium.

LER Stadium was built in 1932.

It was a WPA project, it's Portland cast, concrete Art deco and Ula Stadium had been closed for 25 years.

We converted from a 10,000 seat stadium to a 7,800 seat stadium is a national historic landmark because of all the Negro League teams that played there.

We designed and built the Charles JMU Museum, which is a museum dedicated to Negro League baseball, as well as Patterson sports figures.

And so what we did, we designed an exhibition that really tells the story of Jim Crow and segregation and civil rights through the lens of Negro League baseball.

And so the story of Jackie Robinson, the story of Larry Dolby.

And so we made it, we developed a museum so that kids would come to Square Stadium, but at the same time when they come to the museum, they could also watch a watch a baseball game.

And we also built 75 units of housing.

Their project total cost is $110 million.

It's my partner and I, ed Mar Tolio from RPM.

We started working on the project back in 2019 and we finished it in 2023 and 2024.

- No, that's fantastic.

- Before High School Stadium was built, there were these football games between East Side and Central.

So they had 10,000 people attending a high school football game.

And so there was commission to build a football stadium to sort of house it.

They were already playing the games at the location that Hen Club is at now, but they just didn't have a stadium.

So they built the stadium in 1932 and then immediately afterward it was a city stadium and it was a multiuse stadium, really not much different than it is now.

And so it was soccer being played there, football's being played there.

And then in 1933, the Color championships of the Nation was played there.

It was the New York Black Yankees versus the Philadelphia Stars.

The Philadelphia Stars win, but they really put on the map that it was important.

The Hensler Stadium was an option for Negro League teams because Negro league teams, teams in the 1930s couldn't play every place.

The New York, black Yankees and the New York Cubans and even to the New York Eagles played in New Jersey is because these teams needed a place to play.

And so the rich of players playing there was, was built during that period of time.

There are 20 Hall of Famers, Negro League players that play there, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin and Palace's own Larry Dolby.

And I think it's important that we, in even the work that we're doing now, that kids and young people are able to see in their own communities, professional athletes, so that you, the dream isn't so far away.

If you can go down the street or catch the bus or catch the train or drive to something and see somebody doing something that looks like you in your own community, that pathway has been connected, that pathway, you can see how the, how they go that at least it's one step in the many steps that you need to take on how to get there.

I think it's one of the things that made Larry Dolby such an important figure in League League sports and American and Major League sports, is that in his community he was able to see, see a team, and see players and, and be one of those players in his own community.

- Can you share some more intimate stories about those guys and their ability just to play the game at a high level?

- Well, Josh Gibson hiss Clip Stadium is important because Josh Gibson hit a home run in Henchman Stadium.

They said he hit it all the way into the falls and because that's probably eight or 900 feet.

So I don't know if you know, I dunno how real it is, but that's the lure.

It's also interesting to note, even the Negro League games were integrated games.

- You know it, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about current times.

These, these, these DEI conversations where they're looking to abolish DEI.

what you just stated was when you have value, when you have excellence, when you make an impact, people came out to see them because they played the game at the highest level.

But to be a resident of Patterson that had this collection of history and these great structures, the residents have to be extremely proud and excited just to be a part of the community.

- Well, I, you know, I, I grew up in Patterson and one of the reasons why we have des designed the museum and the stadium the way we did, I didn't learn any of these, these, these, this history when I was growing up.

So it's very important for us to have something that the school kids in Paterson, passade County, north Jersey, you could learn about the rich history that's sitting there in their backyard.

And I think it's, it's, it's essentially what we're doing.

- That said, you've had some sports team acquisitions.

Talk about that.

- We recently acquired the rice for the New York Cosmos, the soccer team.

This is the New York Cosmos that Pele and Beckio played on that won NASL championships and we acquired the right to them.

And we are launching United Soccer League League one team in March.

What we also have under contract now is a team, the New Jersey Jackals.

It's in the Frontier League, the New Jersey Jackals play there now.

But we have been under contract to acquire that team this year and for them to continue playing National Stadium in 2026 and beyond, that's a, a baseball team.

They have about 55 home games, 110 games a year.

And that too is to, to make sure that we have more activity at Inco Stadium.

When we did the renovation of Inco Stadium, I wanted for more use, more activity.

It really helps for the economic development for the city of Paris and to have, you know, a hundred events at Hechler Stadium where people come to watch soccer, they come to watch concerts, come to watch baseball games.

It really creates a festive environment and it's something that's important to the local economy.

- Some of your accomplishments, your biggest accomplishments?

- I'm a father.

I think that one, I feel like that's the thing that I really cherish the most.

You know, I have two daughters, but I like the work that we have done in Paterson.

I think it's important eventually stadium and the restoration of it has been a big accomplishment.

It's something that is helping to move the needle in Patterson and it's exciting.

And this sports ac team acquisition is also another big deal.

I was in Newark for, you know, off and on for 30 years.

And so whether it's the work that happened in, in New York City Hall or Lincoln Park, I feel like the needle was moved there as well as challenging as it may be.

What I accomplish in the military was important as well.

- Yeah, I, I love that response.

Some people that may have influenced you or serves, served as mentors to you along your journey.

Can you talk about them?

- I get a lot from friends and family members.

Amir Baraka was incredibly important to me in terms of his leadership.

I had another legal mentor and activist mentor.

Chopik Lumbo used to be the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.

He was really important to me.

Theresa Marshall, she was, was great.

You know, so I've had, I, you know, I I had had Lonnie Guinier as a professor, Regina Austin as a professor James Turner, professor at Cornell.

So I, I've been blessed.

It's not just one, it's like, I don't know, two dozen - Future projects.

What, what's in the pipeline, - The sports teams is, is very much now.

So our plan is to open the, have both teams playing at Hench Lift in the, in the spring and to have its, you know, about a hundred events happen, Hench Stadium and moving forward.

Next on the BAW side, what I really wanna do is focus on veterans housing.

I just think there's an opportunity for the, for us to develop more supportive housing for veterans in this moment.

It's really sad to see someone who's done 20 years in the military and given their life to this country to sit here and be homeless.

So what I wanna do is try to figure out ways to build more veteran houses in New Jersey.

- Well, father Baer Wilson, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thank you for having - Me.

Until the next time on You're Pathway to Success.

Thank you for tuning in today.

Today's message is about perceptions.

I wanna follow up on a number of the points that were made by our guest today.

Baer Adolfo Wilson, who grew up in Patterson, went to the military, then college, and then started a lot of his work right in the city of Newark.

A city, much like Patterson, has perceptions and oftentimes adverse perceptions.

There are similar perceptions about Harlem.

Harlem is one of the most talked about black cities in America, a lot of history, but a lot of the opportunity notwithstanding that blacks populated that city predominantly, they did not take advantage of those opportunities.

And many of them now are priced out of a city that they grew up in.

Brother Wilson has taken full advantage of opportunities in both Newark and in Patterson.

U Jima is one of the seven principles of Kwanza.

It's all about our people using their collective strengths and their talents and ability to realize the greater good.

We are clearly better together.

We have a lot to offer, but again, it's time for us not to just talk about it, but to be intentionally focused about bringing greatness to fruition.

Success is in our DNA and we have the ability to do it.

Let's get it done.

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