announcer: Support fo r this program was provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey... PSE&G, 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.

Investors Bank.

Banking in your best interest.

Berkeley College.

Ed ucation drives opportunity.

Be inspired.

NJM Insurance Group.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

[upbeat jazz music] ♪ ♪ - Hello.

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

And just delighted to welcome each and every one of you to "Pathway to Success."

Today's guest is one of our members, you know, a gentleman who established a business several years ago and is doing very well in the New Jersey-Pennsylvania region.

His name is Anthony Talley.

He is the managing member and founder of a A E Talley Construction.

Welcome to "Pathway to Success."

- Hi.

How are you?

I'm Anthony from A E Talley Construction, where we make construction easy.

And I run a small company who focuses in on construction and development.

- So let's talk a little bit about you.

- I'm originally from Willingboro, New Jersey, and I have a very big family.

It's a little complicated.

My mother was a foster parent.

So we had--I really say that I have tens and tens of brothers and sisters.

- Well, I would say to your mother and those of you throughout our listening audience who adopt children and take--become caretakers for others, you're very special people.

So your mother is very blessed for that.

Tell us a little bit about your company.

You know, how many employees, offices?

And then we'll slowly transition into, you know, some very specific things as it relates to what you do in construction.

But now just a little overview of the organization.

- Sure.

We are based in Camden, New Jersey.

We have a physical office in Camden, New Jersey, and we have another office in Philadelphia.

Also do a lot of work from my home office as well.

We primarily work for other businesses doing construction, a lot of B2B, business to business.

- So I'll come back to that, 'cause we want to drill down a little more about, you know, what it takes to start a business and some of the early experiences you had in the early stages of that business.

But you lost your parents at an early age.

You know, how did that impact your life?

- Well, that's actually a perfect segue into adversity.

Our mantra is really making lemonade out of lemons.

We started the business in 2008.

I was downsized from Fortune 500 Toll Brothers.

I was a general superintendent.

I was making a lot of money, and I hadn't saved a dime.

When they downsized me, it was like an out-of-body experience.

And what I thought was the worst day of my life actually turned out to be the best time of our life.

And that boss who let me go, who had to physically tell me--give me the words, about a month later, he said, "I was down."

So he called me and said, "I was downsized.

Would you build for me?"

And I said, "Sure, I'll build for you."

And I think my first contract was with him, and his area is the Main Line.

And I renovated a property in Gladwyne for him.

And that was actually the start of the larger construction and working for other builders and other developers.

As I said, being downsized, then, by necessity, starting the business, wanting to never be in a situation where someone was going to be responsible for my income.

And being a man of faith, you know, the Lord just kind of mixed it up in there with hard work.

And it really has grown into something that we probably wouldn't believe that it is where it is today.

And we know that it's going a lot further.

- You know, the scripture says, you know, "Faith without work is dead," or something to that effect.

- Absolutely.

- I'm not a preacher, but I--but nonetheless.

- You can hold your own.

- You gotta have some faith, particularly if you're in business.

But also, you know, reading your bio and a little bit about your background, you know, at the age of 19, you know, you purchased your own home and then, shortly thereafter, multiple properties.

What led you to buy your first home?

- I was always able to see family members that were doing well.

The common denominator was, most of 'em had multiple properties.

They lived a good life.

They could do what they wanted to do.

They drove certain vehicles.

They took vacations.

Their kids went to certain schools.

I just knew it was the pathway to financial freedom.

- I think that's another great example of when you have resources, you have options.

And you talked about being somewhat emancipated or free.

Resources could do that for you.

Opens up a lot of possibilities and make you think about a number of folks who have talent, have desire, but they have not put forth the effort to cultivate those talents to make them more proficient, so that they, too, can realize an equitable stake of the American Dream.

So in New Jersey, only 35% of the 1.2 million Blacks have homes.

Between 35 and 37%.

But the significance about owning real estate, particularly a home, you can always leverage that property to start a business as a means to start to create wealth for yourself.

Another statistic in New Jersey.

Net worth for Blacks is $5,900 versus $315,000 for whites.

Clearly, owning real estate, owning residential or commercial real estate or owning land or assets, puts you on a pathway to start to close that gap.

So when you buy a home or buy a property, it could be transformational.

But let's go back again about your career prior to establishing A E Talley Construction, some of the things you did.

Also, you could touch on your military career if you like.

But leading up to the first day you started that business.

- Well, as you talk about the military career, for me, military was just sort of in our blood.

My mother was an Air Force person.

My father was an Air Force person.

We lived in Willingboro, which was a community that was--that was developed for military people.

And it just was in my DNA.

And I just thought that was part of the pathway and what I needed to do.

It was actually good for me because it helped to create and to cultivate some disciplines that I may not have had if I didn't go into the military.

- So, yeah.

I mean, you've worked for a number of large construction companies.

And I'll name them, because we have relationships with many of them.

Gilbane, Toll Brothers, Turner Construction.

These are household names in the construction industry.

So as you transitioned and looking back on some of those experiences with those respective organizations, how did it prepare you in your role today?

- Wow.

That's a very good question.

Because initially, I wasn't prepared at all.

In fact, I don't have a construction management degree.

I was a business major.

And because I started investing, I was able to know that it was actually in me.

Construction was in me.

I worked for a-- I worked for a gentleman named Bill Wilson who was a philanthropist in the Philadelphia area.

- Mm-hmm.

- And he seen something in me that I'd never seen in myself.

We renovated the City of Philadelphia's mayor's office.

And I started out as the superintendent and ended up as the project manager.

And it happened like that because the company owner, which is Bill Wilson, seen that I had-- he called me a general.

He said, "You're just a natural general."

And then it was a little trying, because here he got a young Black guy, and everyone on the workforce was white.

I just realized everyone puts their pants on the same way, and it doesn't change.

Your color means nothing.

And that was the first time I was able to connect with people from other, larger, construction companies like Turner, Gilbane, even Dale Corporation.

And what I noticed was, people would always try to steal me.

They would always try to say, "You know, you could work for us.

You know, there's opportunities here."

And that gave me the understanding that, "You must be doing a good job.

You must have an i-- a general idea."

So then, as I do in most of the things in life, I'm a sponge.

I try to just learn as much as I can.

And knowing that I didn't traditionally come from a construction management background, I just started picking up on all the PMs, all the supers, and it just helped me to create more best management practices.

So let me be a little more specific.

And let's say--like working for Toll Brothers, which was my last company that I worked for, I learned what not to do, but I also learned what to do.

Toll Brothers' model is to pay promptly, to pay their subcontractors promptly.

And I do that as well.

Their motto is to pay subcontractors in 14 days.

I try to pay in seven to 14 days.

And what that does is, that gives me more buying power.

That gives me more ability to-- when I call a sub, they're coming, because they know they're getting paid.

And they know they're getting paid in a timely fashion.

So that's one of the things that I picked up from one of the larger construction companies.

Another thing that I picked up when I worked with Turner, 'cause I didn't work directly for Turner.

I worked for a small minority firm, which was always joint venture.

And I would always be the preferred person that they called to put on a job.

But I actually learned that construction management is way more than swinging a hammer.

It's way more than putting up some drywall.

It is actually managing risk.

It's managing manpower and personnel.

And it really helped me to be able to put all the components together, to be able to understand that that in order to-- it's like making a dish.

You can't make a dish without having all the ingredients.

And that's what it enabled me to do, is just learn all these different components, whether it be procurement, whether it be your insurances, whether it be your licensing and drawings.

It's just--there's just so many different things and so many different aspects that helped me to just OJT.

- It's all about lending value.

That said, we're gonna take a break here on "Pathway to Success."

We'll be back in a moment.

announcer: 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."

I'm your host, John Harmon, founder, president, and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Just want to continue our conversation today with Anthony Talley.

He is the managing member and founder of A E Talley Construction.

So if you could share with us some of your current projects... - Sure.

Right now, we have several projects going on now.

We're actually in the Philadelphia space.

And right now in Philly, multi-family development is on fire.

It's probably one of the hottest areas in America, and we're taking a piece of that.

Right now, we're finishing up a eight-unit building with 27 bathrooms.

We just finished an eight-unit building-- eighth-unit luxury building-- on Girard Avenue.

Prior to that, we did a three-unit building with commercial space on the first floor.

We're in the process of developing a site in Atlantic City, which is going to be another multi-family site.

But this one is gonna be one that we're developing on our own.

At the same time, we're building a 10,000-square-foot home in Newtown Square for my old boss which downsized me, that I have no ill feelings towards.

'Cause we've been working ever since that day, and that's been since 2008.

- It's amazing.

Relationships really matter.

So you've given us an overview of some of your projects, but can you get a little more specific?

I know you work in a lot of different areas.

- We have sort of a three-pronged approach.

We work for developers, and as I just talked about, doing properties such as multi-family properties, but we also work for individual investors who are doing ones and twos, which are basically buying a house, renovating the house, and then either renting the house out or selling the house.

That's a fraction of our market as well.

We also work for mom-and-pops.

You know, sometimes a mom-and-pop will come, and they're looking for an addition or a new home build.

We do new home builds.

And then our final component, which is the one that's growing the fastest, is the development piece, where we're actually purchasing lots and properties and renovating them and/or adding on to them to be able to either sell or to rent it out.

- What does it mean to give back to young people or do community initiatives?

Could you speak to that?

- What it means is that you help someone get to another level.

What it means is, you help someone understand that, "I can do something different."

I think for me as a business, I made it a more of a concerted effort to help my people, to help young people, to help show people that there's another way, to show people that you could start a business.

You know, we--we run a series on--on YouTube.

And that the whole premise of that is helping people to get the best out of life in down situations, helping people that have been hurt economically or emotionally to know that they can do better.

And so, you know, what does that actually mean?

We increased our summer internship program, where we have kids come who want to be architects or engineers.

And then we reach out to others in the community to be able to say, "Hey, you wanna work with us for a little while?

"We'll kind of show you that being a contractor "is more than just swinging a hammer and getting dusty and dirty."

So we really increased our awareness of others that are-- that are just not in the best situation.

Let me give you some real-life examples.

I have a videographer that I work with.

And he came to me.

He came to me divine.

I was working on a project, and I said to myself, "I need a guy who does drone work."

It was a high building.

I literally walked to the window, and there was someone outside doing drone work.

And I went downstairs, and I said, "Look, man, I need you to drone this building."

He droned the building.

And then he started talking about what he wanted to do.

Some of his desires.

I gave him the money for an LLC.

I gave him the money for his insurance.

We did the same thing for another guy who was a guy at my church.

He used to work for me as a general laborer.

And he wanted to start a cleaning business and gave him the money for the LLC, which was--then, I think was $700.

He started an LLC.

Started his business.

So we try to actually, you know, really be doers, not just talkers... - Yes.

- And try to help people to get to the next level.

- Somewhere along the lines for you, sources of inspiration, encouragement to help you go forward even in lean times.

- Wow.

I was just always inspired by the family members around me.

I come from a family of first.

My mother's side of the family, just a lot of first.

My mother, she was the first ambulance driver in the community.

She was the first president of the Foster Parent Association.

My aunt was the first Black teacher in George Washington High School.

I talked a little bit about Bill Wilson, who gave me the opportunity to realize my dream.

Actually, I probably wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for Mr. Wilson.

And he downsized me as well.

But, you know, we communicate.

But he really inspired me to know that you can do better, that you can do more things.

And he actually inspired me to know that you're not as good as you think you are.

- Mm-hmm.

- So-- so continue to learn your craft, continue to study more, to do more.

And I must say, I've been married for 35 years.

And probably one of the biggest impact is my wife and my wife's family.

My father-in-law is 97 years old.

- Wow.

- And I worked for him for quite a number of years.

And I learned work ethic from him.

My father-in-law worked for 45 years and never took a day off.

- Wow.

- Not one day.

He broke his leg and went to work the next day.

So being around someone like him, you know, he really kind of showed me so many different areas of construction.

My father-in-law was a master plumber, a master electrician.

And when I say master, I don't mean just in name only.

He was a master plumber, licensed master plumber.

- Wow.

- He was an HVAC guy.

- Wow.

- In fact, he was the first Black director of the physical plan at the University of Pennsylvania the Worcester Institute.

- All right.

We gotta bring this.

This is great, but we gotta start to wind this conversation down.

You're a member of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, and I can remember our first conversation.

Um, you have thoughts about the chamber so far, and would you encourage others to consider being a member?

- Wow.

I would say the short answer to that is yes.

And I have to say, I'm a no-nonsense guy, and I'm very busy.

I don't have time for a lot of nonsense.

And when I initially called Mr. Harmon, he didn't get back to me for a little while, 'cause I know now because he is a busy man.

When we made that first connection, I said, "This guy is a real deal.

"There's something about this guy that I really do like that he is going to get stuff done."

And from our initial engagement, he's been on the phone, calling people, asking me what do I need, making specific connections.

And I would say that if anybody is thinking about it, go ahead and do it.

It's worth the commitment.

And you will be better, and your business will be better as a result of that.

- Well, we really appreciate that.

25 years and the few weeks I've been doing this, and I've learned over the years the significance of engaging businesses and understanding where they're trying to go and understanding that they have real risk capital on the line, that they have committed to being successful.

And our role is to help be a genuine partner in contributing to your success.

So we're just as pleased as you are to give us a shot to return--give you a return on your investment.

So last question.

Next five years, you know, what's the forecast for A E Talley Construction?

- So in the next five years, we see growth.

We see incredible growth based on opportunities that are currently here right now.

What we see also is an increase in work staff.

We are actively petitioning for project managers, construction managers, lead foremans, and carpenters.

So I just see, on the construction side, an incredible increase in work and opportunities.

Now, again, we are a three-pronged company.

But in addition to that, I actually-- I actually see us hosting a show, maybe on HGTV.

On the development side, I just see the sky's the limit.

In down markets, those are where opportunities are.

So when you save your money, when you are cash strong, down markets, there's always an opportunity to buy something.

And I just really see opportunities opening up as a result of the economy not doing as well as we wanted to do.

- Thank you so much for being with us today, Mr. Talley.

And 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.

[upbeat music] Now, throughout the country, there's a lot of talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

And we have been on the receiving end of a lot of conversations as it relates to those desiring to increase the complement of Black employees, Black representation on their board of directors, Black vendors, and also corporate citizenship investment and programming to strengthen underperforming communities.

I will submit to you that there's no better partner if you seek to improve upon your diversity-equity- inclusion initiatives than the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

You know, the challenge for many businesses or corporations seeking to engage organizations like the African American Chamber is, some of them are-- some of the shame of their past performance, or they don't want to acknowledge that they don't know where to start.

And we get that, right?

But we are here to be of assistance to you.

We're here to meet you where you are very confidentially and map out a game plan of mutual benefit.

I will assure you that working with the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, throughout our membership, we have businesses, men and women that could meet the value proposition, that'll have been thoroughly vetted, that can meet all the prerequisites and come before you with the desire, the commitment to excellence.

All we're asking is that you afford us an opportunity to engage on a pathway to success.

That's what we're all about here.

So feel free to reach out to us.

We are genuinely committed to being successful together.

Thank you.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ announcer: Support fo r this program was provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, PSE&G, JCP&L, Investors Bank, Berkeley College, NJM Insurance Group, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

♪ ♪