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

[mellow jazz] Proud sponsors of "Pathway to Success."

♪ ♪ JCP&L and the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey: working together to build a stronger community for all.

Education drives opportunity.

Be inspired.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

- Welcome to "Pathway to Success."

I'm your host, John Harmon.

Founder, President, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

We're delighted to have you tune in today, and we have a very important guest.

I'd like to just take this opportunity to welcome the CEO and chairman of Milhouse Engineering, Wilbur Milhouse.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

Thank you, John.

It's great to be here.

Great organization you have, and I'm really excited about our conversation today.

- So let's get to know you a little bit.

You know, where you're from, big family, small family, and where were you educated, and why you chose those institutions.

- Sure.

I'm from--born and raised--Chicago, Illinois, South Side, and raised by a single mom up until I was probably 11, 12 years old.

And I ended up having another couple of brothers and sisters.

So our family's fairly small.

But um, went to high school in the suburbs, and then went off to college at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

I got my bachelor's degree and master's degree-- civil engineering.

One of the best engineering institutions in the world.

And that's why I wanted to go there and to be an engineer.

- So let me follow up.

You made some emphasis on South Side.

You know, share with us here in New Jersey, you know.

There's some significance around that.

- Sure, sure.

South Side is where majority--probably 80 plus, 90 plus percent of individuals that live there are African American.

You have various different areas that are very populous, very wealthy, and very poor.

But the South Side is, for us, one of the endearing things that you can say you have the South Side, you have the West Side, you have the North Side of Chicago, and that kind of gives a little bit of detail or color to where you're from and who you are, the kinds of things that you know about, and what baseball team you like.

- Gotcha.

No, that--we just wanted to get a little insight on that.

So what inspired you to pursue the field of engineering?

- Actually, it was my mother who decided that I should be an engineer.

I always tinkered with Legos and erector sets, and all kinds of things like that really intrigued me in my youth.

And once I got to high school, I was very good at math.

Math was one of the things that I really was able to accomplish very well.

And I believe she was told by someone else that I should be an engineer.

So I went off, set off to do that, and learned really what an engineer is.

- No, that's great.

Professionally, you know, upon graduating, you have a few degrees.

Where did you work?

Or who did you work for?

- Sure, sure.

Teng and Associates was the name of the firm that I first started working for, once I graduated.

They're called EXP now.

I migrated from there to a firm called Jackson and Tull.

Then I actually ventured out into my first business that I was part owner of-- 25% owner of-- infrastructure engineering.

The last firm that I worked for, Patrick Engineering, I told the owner of that firm that I'll be here six months or two years, but I wanted to start my own firm.

- Mm-hmm.

- I was there six months to the day.

Then I branched off into starting Milhouse.

- What separates an entrepreneur from an employee?

What led you to make that leap?

- Sure.

Well, forever, I talked about owning a firm, or starting a firm, or doing that, since I was in college.

But I can remember the catalyst.

I was working at my first firm, and I was talking with one of my project managers who I would report it to, and he was very bitter about some work that they-- a minority firm was doing.

One of the things that he said was, "Those DBEs," and said it in such a way that it reminds me of when individuals would refer to African Americans as a not-so-nice word.

- Gotcha.

- I really took that, and I was like, "Well, one of these days, I'm gonna start a firm, "and when I start that firm, no one will be able to say "'those DBEs' or 'those NBEs' or talk down about the service in which they were providing."

That was the genesis and the catalyst, and then over time, I saw a pathway to getting there.

- This is not charity.

This is about competing and demonstrating that our members have the wherewithal to produce excellence.

I think that was, in part, the impetus for you-- the formation of Milhouse Engineering.

So what year did you get started, and kind of lead us through the types of services you provide today, and we'll go from there.

- Yeah, I started Milhouse in 2001, December.

Actually, we just celebrated our 20th year.

- Wow.

- December 12th, to be exact.

The services that we provide are aviation, civil engineering, construction, construction management, water wastewater, power, gas, environmental services, and some architecture services, transportation.

We have a forestry company.

We have a snow company.

And I believe that's it.

We've started quite a bit.

- But can you take us back to your initial contract, and what that felt like?

- It was pretty exciting.

Pretty much a whirlwind.

So the firm, which I was working for previously, or the last firm that I worked for, I think I mentioned them-- Patrick Engineering, they approached me because they knew that I wanted to start my own company.

They said, "Hey, did you start the company yet?

"We have a project.

"It has minority goals to it, and we'd love for you to be able to participate on this project with us."

They had already won the project.

And I crazily enough said yes.

[both laugh] Because I had $2,700 in my bank account, and I wasn't really financially prepared to do it.

But I went out, took that leap.

I made sure we just kept the doors open and kept going.

- So today, how many employees, and do you have any operations outside of the United States?

- Absolutely.

We have about 420 folks today.

We have offices in Chicago, a suburb of Chicago as well, Merrillville, Indiana, Atlanta, New York, New Jersey.

Bermuda, and also Nigeria.

- Yeah, Wilbur, I know you've done a lot of exciting projects.

If we can get you to just share with us some of those projects.

- Sure, sure.

So O'Hare airfield-- we've been at that airport probably for the last 15 years, redesigning all of the shapes of the runways.

Currently right now, we're designing the new global terminal, which is probably about a $6 billion facility that will reshape all of O'Hare related to all of the terminals, and that's a very major project, which we're the lead engineer on as the JV partners.

So that one is immensely exciting for us.

It's been going on a year and a half now, but we'll be designing that for the next six to seven years.

One of the other projects is a project for the Illinois State Tollway.

It's a $300 million project that connects the western access of O'Hare right now.

All of O'Hare, all of the traffic, all of the people accessed O'Hare from its eastern side, and so one of the things that the tollway wanted to do is to give access to the western portion of the two-- of O'Hare, excuse me.

So more terminals and more access to the airport will be able to happen through that side.

Some of the other things that we get involved in is our power institution here, which is Com Ed.

Just like in Jersey, we do all of the distribution lines and the transmission lines, upgrading all of the substations.

So gas and power are very, very high, intense projects that we get heavily involved in today.

- Is there a favorite project that comes to mind that you'd like to share?

- One of my favorite projects is a project that, actually, I get to look at right outside my window, which is Buckingham Fountain.

That one's a favorite because it's a icon, and we were able to do the new pumps and all of the civil engineering for that project.

I really am attracted to, or get into, many of the park or people projects, what I call them.

And I really enjoy those projects because I get to drive by them every day and look at the people enjoying them.

- So any awards that come to mind that you'd like to talk about at this time?

- Sure, I mean, one of the major ones that we were just placed at is being named in the top 500 firms for engineering and design firms in the United States.

So that is a recognition-- I don't know if so much of it's an award-- which is based on revenue, the size of projects, those types of things.

So making that marker is a very big step for us.

Some of the other awards that we get, and we've been very excited to have, is to be named one of the 101 best companies to work for.

We've actually won that particular award 15 years in a row.

- So you should all be proud of that.

So that's great.

So we're gonna take our 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 the "Pathway to Success."

John Harmon here.

Founder, President, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey, and just delighted to have this conversation today with the CEO and chairman of Milhouse Engineering, Wilbur Milhouse.

So this is a great story.

A lot to be taken from this conversation today.

I hope this will inspire other businesses to dream big and pursue those dreams with excellence.

This is now what we call the Post-George-Floyd era.

How's that impacted your business?

- It's affected it more socially than financially.

We've definitely seen many different companies that we hadn't seen before start to think differently about how they spend their dollars and just really having several different business owners talk about what they can do different in our communities.

Many times, and oftentimes, we say, "How many folks do you have working in your firm that are African American?"

And there's a very low number, and I said the best, the greatest thing that you can do is hire us and make sure that we're included in that picture, because that changes everything related to how we're able to financially support our families.

And that is all we want is to be included and have an opportunity to have the American dream.

- You know, one of the things you touched upon in that response was the impact.

When you support a Black business, it is, through that engagement, it's transformational.

In New Jersey, 93% of Black businesses or sole proprietorships, we have the highest poverty, the highest unemployment here in the Garden State.

Our net worth is $5,900 verses 315,000 for whites.

So to give a Black business an opportunity, it's gonna have a tremendous economic impact in the employment of folks who are underperforming, or have been marginalized through the systemic barriers of, unfortunately, of society.

So I think what you've shared is so profound.

But moreover, you know, your mission of excellence in what you do, and the execution of your profession, it takes that conversation or that engagement to a whole nother level because sometimes, the engagement is around charity.

Emotional, social, as you alluded to.

But when they engaged you and they find that you can deliver with excellence, it changes the whole perception of Black business.

Can you speak to that?

- We have to bring excellence in everything that we do.

So we ask ourselves, "if we sat on the other side, what would convince that person to have us back?"

Many times, many times, we've been hired because, "Oh, we have to fill a 30% goal, or this or that," breaking that, or giving an individual that paradigm shift to being able to see that this is not only just good that we met our goal, but it's good to have them here because they present a value proposition to us.

It's how we approach each and every one of our clients.

Many times, we kind of know that they don't really want us there.

- Mm-hmm.

- Many times, we kind of to understand that we have an opportunity, maybe one shot.

Maybe they're looking at us and maybe five other firms would be able to come and participate.

So we look at it as being able to forge our way and open those doors and keep those doors open, because we've built those relationships and tried to crack the code of whatever barrier, or thinking, or misconception that that individual may have.

We've done that in various different locations.

The one I can think of off the top of my head is with Southern Company.

We went in.

We talked to them.

They've had some difficulties in the past with really having great participation, and they were surprised that we even existed-- that were even in the utility space.

We'd get in there and we talk to them, and various individuals have pre-conceived ideas that we're not gonna deliver product, that we're not gonna be on time, that we don't know what we're doing.

We don't have the talent.

We don't understand how to be safe.

We have to break down each one of those myths and barriers, because they always will try to put those different myths and barriers that seemingly will scare individuals off.

"Well, we don't know if they understand our safety."

- Right.

- Or, "We don't understand "if they have the history.

We don't understand if they have the financial backing "to be able to do these kind of things.

We don't know if they have the expertise."

We hear those words said all the time.

A lot of times, we just have to continue to knock on those doors and break those myths.

- No, I'm with you a thousand percent, you know.

Emotion may get you in the door.

But it's the value proposition that's gonna sustain that relationship.

And I think you really delivered that in spades.

But as we talk about--I know we talked about other-- New Jersey, other states...

But New York--you're also working within the region here.

Can you speak to that?

- Sure, sure.

We're at JFK.

We're there as program managers for the new building of several different upgrades of terminals.

I believe, and Terminal six.

So we're looking at the JetBlue facility as well as the Delta facility.

Then we've also started to do some work with one of the utilities there, Con Ed.

And we're looking at some other things.

We're very slow at moving when we move into a new market.

- Mm-hmm.

- And we usually enter that market either in the aviation space or the utility space, and then we start to gain more steam once we figure how to get our footing and then start to roll out all of our other services: water wastewater, transportation, and some of the other things that we do.

- I love it.

So the future--young people.

I'd like to talk about some of the work that you are doing with young people and also any community initiatives that you may be doing around some of the offices that you have throughout the country.

- My wife actually runs that charity.

She's the executive director and the co-founder of the charity.

But we've been philanthropic since I started the company.

I look for ways to inspire kids and young adults to see that they too can do what I've done.

Nothing that I've done is super special besides really kept my head down, work hard, really apply myself, and really, we've had some great individuals to give us great opportunities, and we took advantage of it.

- How has the COVID-19 environment affected the business?

- We've survived well, but that first year, we took our lumps.

I'm encouraged by where we've gotten to, but I'm excited about where we're going.

We've had a couple new opportunities.

We didn't do sanitization before.

It became an opportunity for us to do it in our environmental group.

So we've been able to take some of what has transpired and turn those lemons into lemonade.

- No, that is great.

You know, 20 years now-- and we'll probably close a little more on this-- but source of inspiration for you.

- Early, early on... - Mm-hmm.

- It was Rupert Graham.

Engineer from the University of Illinois.

Used to come down to school and be a mentor.

And eventually, I ended up working for him.

And...that is where I got to see behind the curtain of how engineering firms are ran.

So now I go back to my school and talk to those individuals and those students, because that's kind of the path that he showed me.

And I have to definitely say my mom.

My mom started several different businesses when I was young, and... Janice Pearson, may she rest in peace.

She is the one that put me on the path and said I should be an engineer.

But she's also the one that taught me how to be an entrepreneur.

- I got a call from one of my mentors out of the blue.

His name is Paisel Jackson.

But just to hear him tell me how proud he was of me, it was humbling, encouraging, and exciting at the same time.

As a member of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, what does that mean to you, and why should others consider making that investment?

- It means a great deal.

I mean, honestly, most of all of the things that we're doing in Jersey today is because of the Chamber and the relationships that we've built through there and the relationships that we've been introduced to.

John, I must give you credit, and thank you, and kudos, because you work very hard.

You are added value.

Me and you had this conversation once before.

I've been a part of a lot of different organizations, and not all do all of the work to actually make that impact and make those inroads or open that door or pry it open sometimes.

And I watch you guys, so kudos to you and your team.

But I think it's totally added value, worth every penny, of how you put your time, or we put our time in, and as well as our financing.

It's definitely something we wanna keep on doing.

- Well, we thank you, on behalf of the staff and the board.

A few days ago, you celebrated your 20th anniversary.

What does that feel like?

- I mean, it was fantastic.

We had a big party.

For me, it's a bit surreal at times.

I'm having fun, and I couldn't or wouldn't be doing anything else.

We wanna be one of the largest firms in all of America, and not the largest Black firm.

- Well, it's been my pleasure to have you here with us today, Mr. Wilbur Milhouse, CEO and chairman of Milhouse Engineering.

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.

Have a great one.

- Thank you, John.

♪ ♪ [cheering] - We must never surrender!

America will get better and better!

Keep hope alive.

- I think about Jesse Jackson when he coined the phrase, "Keep hope alive."

You know, Post-George-Floyd, there are a number of corporations and philanthropists and government officials, with tremendous outpouring of resources and opportunities with a goal of getting Black people in a better place, socially and economically.

So my challenge to my Black brothers and sisters throughout New Jersey, and whoever tunes in, is that we must continue to be focused and diligent and resilient, and continue to advocate for our equitable share of the pie.

Now, $1.4 trillion is what Blacks spend annually in the United States.

But Black businesses generate about $200 plus billion annually.

So that equates to about $1.2 trillion deficit in our own communities.

I think we as a people could be in a better place if we start to patronize our own businesses more.

So that is a challenge to each of us.

But we must, first of all, acknowledge that there is a deficit.

We must also acknowledge that we do have abilities to produce quality products and services, and that if we can get more of our people to engage in commerce with us, we can keep hope alive.

Until the next time on the "Pathway to Success," this is John Harmon.

Thank you.

- Keep hope alive!

Keep hope alive!

Keep hope alive!

[cheering] On tomorrow night and beyond!

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

JCP&L.

New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

♪ ♪