John Coe (00:00:00) - So Harold Green, welcome to Icons of DC Area Real Estate. Thank you for joining me today. So you are the and leading Chamberlain contractors now and but you've sold the company correct in your interest and we'll be stepping down later this year at the end of this year to devote full time to your new venture called Global Missionary LLC. Please. At a high level, talk about Chamberlain's business and how you decided to transition toward this new technology and your new venture. We'll dig into details a bit later. Okay. 

Harold Green - Thank you very much. John basically started Chamberlain back in the mid 70s, grew very rapidly. [JC1]We'll get into more of the details. One of the component parts that I looked at is I wanted to differentiate my business from that of my competition. So I was always looking at cutting edge technologies to incorporate it into the business, to to differentiate myself versus the competition. And initially that was in equipment, that was in manufacturing processes. It evolved into the material specifications where we got involved in what was called foam stabilizing base, which was an alternative to conventional hot mix asphalt that had a structural equivalency of hot mix asphalt. But it was environmentally friendly and it also was substantially less cost to manufacture. It was that that was in 2006 that I got involved in that, and I manufactured the material for about 10 to 12 years until about 2018. It was during this time period that when we got started manufacturing the material called foam stabilizing base, there were no quality control, quality assurance components, there were no testing parameters. And so I actually hired my PE to develop the quality control quality assurance programs and develop the testing procedures here for the material. During that process, I became aware of the fact that the manufacturing of foam stabilizing base had a substantial reduction in the carbon emissions as compared to conventional asphalt. You move forward to 2010 and there was a conversation going around the United States called cap and trade, the idea of taxing the carbon emissions that are generated in the manufacturing of a widget, a car, whatever the case may be. While that never took off, I saw that as an opportunity to again differentiate myself from the competition and over the next 10 to 12 years, we created the first transportation specific worldwide methodology to capture, validate, verify the carbon emissions associated with manufacturing, alternative lower cost and environmentally friendly construction products as compared to benchmarking. In this instance, Hot mix Asphalt. And in 2019 we got that patented. We also created a for profit business model. And here in the next two weeks, we'll actually get issued our first two VCs, which are called verified Carbon units for two large projects that we initiated about two years ago. Going through that process, that's really exciting. It is. 

John Coe - It is. So we'll get into those details a little bit later. So, Harold, tell us a little bit about your origins and youth and parental influences. 

Harold Green- I was always a young entrepreneur back when I was in my six, seven, eight, nine years old. I was shoveling walks. I worked at my country club, dragging tennis courts, whipping greens, cutting fairways, playing field, country club in Plainfield, New Jersey, Jersey.  And then at lunchtime, I'd go up and I'd clean the dishes from the night before I deveined shrimp. I always have my Napoleon and my glass of milk. And in the afternoon I went back down and I dragged the tennis courts, lined them, played some tennis, rode my bicycle home about seven miles. And I repeated this six days a week. And so I was a very young entrepreneur. My father was a corporate lawyer and he was an entrepreneur. He was involved in a variety of different businesses. And so he had his own firm, and then he would bring companies public SEC and then he would have an investment in them. He had he was the first person to bring. Cable to the United States in Fort Lauderdale. I brought the first movies on a Jet 707 and 1961 going from Newark to Fort Lauderdale. He had a fleet of oil tankers, seven oil tankers. Pretty successful. So very. So. Very much so. And then, unfortunately, he died in August of 1971 when we were in Greece. We had just dedicated his supertanker, the chemical, and went back to the hotel and he dropped dead. And so but I was 16 at the time, and I had clearly the entrepreneurial spirit. And so I finished boarding school at Choate, Rosemary Hall up in Wallingford, Connecticut. And I had applied to colleges and decided to come down to Washington, D.C. to continue my formal education. And unfortunately, college was not to be to be embraced and everything. And that summer I had come down here to get an apartment and get situated and everything and hooked up with a local contractor to push lines on parking lots and color code tennis. 

John Coe- Where were you looking to go to school? 

Harold Green- George Washington University and and Georgetown. And so I started at GW and everything. And shortly thereafter, I was pushing lines at a parking lot in New York Avenue on Florida Avenue. It was a McDonald's and came and came in to have the hamburger met a gentleman who turned out to be one of the senior vice president of McDonald's, and they were in charge of the drive in window, the creation of the drive in window. So we ended up bidding on a variety of these. McDonald's ended up being successful in this contract. We being myself, me and myself and I and everything. And yeah. And so I bid 26 of these things, got a contract from McDonald's for over a half $1 million, and at the end of four months had completed the work. And I decided that, you know, I just wasn't going to be an educated individual. I was going to go to work. So did you have a team of people doing this? I had basically had two partners. One partner never worked at right from the very start. And my other business partner kind of flailed out over about a three year period and I bought him out. But, you know, so here I am 20, 21 years old, and all my customers were calling me the boy. So I grew a mustache, you know. But, you know, I worked during the day bidding jobs. And at night I'd go out and push lines on parking lots and do and and then weekends, seal code and stripe parking lots and everything and we were very successful, grew very rapidly. 1980 came along and 81 with the significant recession. And we had just gotten an SBA loan. And basically the bank that we were with decided that they had gotten burned by a large paving company. And so they didn't want to do any have any relationship with us. And so they pulled our line of credit and made us pay off our SBA loan that we had just gotten 60 days earlier. And at that point, I swore that I would never be in debt. And it was a great lesson to learn early in life on how to run a business. And I lived on cash, and if I bought anything, I paid cash for it. And so and that's been how I've run my businesses and all my businesses that I have created since that period of time. So was this company Chamberlain at the time? Was that the name of it? Chamberlain Contractors. I started the Chamberlain is my middle name. So so that was how it all started. So we incorporated in September 6th, 1976 is when we incorporated.  We had done work beforehand, but my mother, after she learned that I was not in college after two years, what would your father say was her commentary to me? She made me incorporate. And so we had a family friend here in Washington and a judge. And then Malcolm asked me, got me with one of his law clerks, and they did the incorporation. And we were a legal entity at that point. So he started working with McDonald's Corporation, which is a huge opportunity, obviously. So the reputation grew from that is that I know your business grew. We did well. I mean, we were working with developers, we were working with property managers. Our focus was really not in the new construction arena. It was not at the state or county level. It was really working with customers, property managers that dealt with homeowners association. Stations, condos, office building, shopping centers, industrial parks where you bid the job. You develop a relationship when you're working with the state and the county or new construction, what are you? You're a low bid and I'm not a low bid contractor, so I wasn't necessarily interested in the top line, the volume. I was interested in what I kept at the bottom line. So we managed from the top line to the bottom line and we're very successful. 

John Coe Ð Were you only doing paving, are you doing garages too? 

Harold Green - We basically stayed on the ground, so we basically we didn't do vertical stuff. Later on we got into another company, but I started Hamilton Pacific Chamberlain and we do a lot of federal work, only federal work because we're a service disabled, veteran owned small business. And so we got started in that business. But we initially we were patching ceiling and striping, and then we got into concrete work and milling and then that evolved into the need to find places to dump material because in the late 80s, finding places to dump rubble became very expensive. And that's when I started Global Resource Recyclers that we could take our own rubble, whether it be concrete or asphalt, we would crush it, make usable byproducts that we would use and reintroduce back into our construction process.

John Coe (00:11:27) - So you recycled. 

Harold Green- And so we were cycling and that was the idea. Well, we then expand. How can we use these recycled materials to promote good intentions for the environment, promote those of those issues with our customers? And so and then eventually led to Global Emissionary. 

John Coe- So what what were the biggest challenges getting your business going? 

Harold Green- Equity. I mean, here's a kid who's 19 years old or 20 years old. I mean, I started the business with a Jeep stripe machine, £50, a 50 gallons of paint and $1,500 in cash. And the paving business is very capital intensive with equipment, trucks, manpower, working capital, because you have to go out there and do the work and then build it and then wait to get paid. And so for the first, I think it was seven years, I never took a paycheck. I lived at the office, which was in the building that I was in, and I work seven days a week. And about the only thing the company bought for me was my food and everything.  And I basically I it was all sweat equity because I didn't have while I had a lovely upbringing in my life or whatever. I think it's really important that you go out and do it yourself. 

John Coe- So your classmates at Choate, did you ever go back for a reunion and say, 

Harold Green- Oh, no, I never went to college, and I started a business and I had my I had my roommates. I had two of my roommates. Well, two of my roommates. They went to one went to UVA, the other went to Cornell. Very successful. Sure. I had another roommate the previous year and he went to Harvard and was number two in his class. Wow. Graduation. He, five years later, was working in a bookstore and everything, shelving books and everything. And Bryce and Bob, they basically one was at the bank and another was at the Beachcomber in in Clearwater, Florida. And they had great careers. But, you know, I mean, I was very fortunate and blessed because, you know, within about a 7 to 10 year period, you know, things finally came together and I was then expanding my horizons into other business entities. And I was because I had the resources to do so. And so I was very I was blessed. I really was. 

John Coe- That's awesome. So personnel and and equipment. So it's basically a snowball thing for you. You banked everything you made everything reinvested everything that you had back in the business. Right? 

Harold Green- Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and it really wasn't I can tell you that it wasn't until 1984 that we finally turned the corner and we were making a good bit of money during those intervening years. You know, we basically, you know, 1980 came. We had the recession. It was very distressful for us. We had just gotten an SBA loan. The bank that we were with decided that they got hit by a major paving contractor that went out of business, stuck them for millions of dollars. And so the bank decided that they didn't want anything to do with Chamberlain contractors. And so 60 days after we got our SBA loan for about $500,000 and 300,000 equipment. We had to pay it all back. And so we paid it back by the end of that fall and everything. Thank God it snowed that winter of of 1981. And we and that lesson there taught me that one, you're going to have multiple banks. Two, you're never going to have any debt. And three, you're going to live within your means. And if you want to go out and buy something, you paid cash for it. And while going through that process was very stressful and all and thank God I had a dog and everything. That was my that was my partner who was Colonel, my dog and everything. It was the best thing that ever happened to me because it gave me the discipline to grow, but to grow within your own means and not to leverage yourself. Because I saw too many companies that leveraged themselves when we had the recession in 91, 92, and we had just started Global Resource Recyclers. I was getting bids from contractors to do all the site development work, and they were giving me prices that I couldn't even afford not to take and they were paying their guys and they're paying their fuel and that was it. And, you know, and they went out of business and everything. And so I realized at that point, God, it was great that I had put in place the discipline that was necessary to be successful and not to to work on other people's money. I worked with my own money. 

John Coe- How much do these large I mean, you've got asphalt making machines, all these different. You must have 

Harold Green- $5 to $10 Million in equipment. Yeah. At that time. At that, at that time it was, I mean in the 80s it was probably 2 to $3 Million. So you had to borrow, you had to borrow from that. So literally, I mean, every, every dollar that we purchased that we made, we purchased equipment. So I can remember we bought our first milling machine a work in VC 1000. It was a 40 inch diameter milling machine and we bought it in 1984. And and my partner was totally against it was $136,000 and I said, Dan, it'll pay for itself blooming Well if in seven weeks we had paid for that machine because we ended up doing for Driggs Corporation, they were paving all the intersections on Pennsylvania Avenue for the inaugural. That was in January of 85. Well, guess what? They didn't have a milling machine that could do all the milling, so I charged them. I think it was $7500 or $8000 a day at night. And we paid for the milling machine in six weeks and everything like that right place at the right time. But it was those type of things. So, you know, again, you know, go out if you know you're going to use it and you're willing to pay the cash for it, then you're going to find the way to make the money and to and to keep it busy. And that's what I did. 

John Coe- So not just a milling machine, 

Harold Green- but all the steam trucks, pavers, all of that stuff and everything. I mean, great all's I can remember going there and you know, I see the equipment pulling the yard. I took a picture of it and I wanted to learn how to use it and run it myself because in those days I was still out there pushing lines on parking lots and still coding parking lots at night or weekends when you know, guys would want to have off or do or have some time off. I just basically worked constantly, so I didn't even get married until I was 32, in 1987, because by that time I felt that I was sufficiently capitalized. I had a lot of good people working for me. I had about 60 people working for me at that point. And and I felt my business was a mature business in about 12 to 14 years. 

John Coe- That's great. So how competitive is the paving contracting business and how did you differentiate yourself among competition? Now? 

Harold Green- I would say that in the early years, I mean, one, the barriers to entry were not as significant as they are today. You know, I can remember early years I'd get these little computer cards and everything from the government and everything. What the hell is this stuff and everything? I've thrown it in the trash for a lot, but 18 months turned about to be. This is you had to file for your your payroll deduction, taxes and all that stuff. I didn't know any of that stuff because nobody ever told me that. So of course you learn the hard way. But so in early years, I mean, you people gave you a chance because you were young and all my customers used to call me the boy. So I ended up growing a mustache so that people would understand that I wasn't as young as I appeared to be. But it was in those days, you know, if you if you had a good work ethic, you shook hands and you agreed. And you. Committed to what you wanted to do, you could be successful. And I had one estimator came in many years ago and he said, it's the six P's. Proper preparation prevents piss, poor performance and everything. And I tell you, I've stuck with that for years and and that was really important to me. So in the early years, we were very profitable. We were very profitable even up until the time that I sold the business and all that stuff. And we got a substantial sum for that. But as the as you grow older and things become more complex and the work ethic of the people that you're hiring is different. This is an industry that, you know, you're you tend not to get the well educated, motivated individuals. And so you have to teach people how to work, how to think, how to act when they go on a job site. You don't go behind the bushes, behind somebody's house to go take a leak, excuse the expression, because people may not appreciate that. And so there's a lot of teaching that goes into it. And then, you know, picking up trash or your chicken bones after you pave a parking lot. It's the little things. These guys and all my employees are great guys and everything, but they necessarily don't see the details that differentiate yourself from the competition.

John Coe (00:21:28) - And so how did you manage quality control on jobs? 

Harold Green- Because I was there before, during and after. So I would go out initially and inspect the site, meet with the customer, do a needs assessment, listen to what they wanted to have done. I would then take pictures. I'd write a proposal that was more narrative in that it's it's conversational in its in its proposal type instead of, you know, we'll pave your parking lot and it's going to be X dollars. That doesn't tell the customer what they're going to get. And and so they so you want to educate them on the process. And then once the contract signed, you go through and you do a pre-construction meeting, you also go to the site and you mark out the site, you put up barricades, you put up traffic cones, you do a production schedule so the customer knows in advance of how the job is going to be performed so that they can compare what you say to what you do. And then you make sure you're there when the job starts to go over with the foreman, you get your you communicate to the customer during the execution of the job. You walk the job. When it's finished, you build a job out. Then you call up and you ask for your money and everything. And that's just as important as getting the job in the beginning and all. And so all those component component parts are very important in the success of a business. And if you don't have good people, if you don't have good equipment, if you can't price the job appropriately so that you can make the appropriate return on investment so you can invest in your people, so you can invest in your equipment, that you have profits to carry you through the winter. You know, all of those things are equally important. And if one of them is shortcoming in everything, then you have a real problem. 

John Coe- So in your business development strategy, did you use the shotgun approach or the target or the rifle approach aiming at the quality targets? 

Harold Green- I think I guess how I'm going to answer this is I got to go back and tell you a quick story. In 1981, basically, you know, as as we were going through this issue with survival or whatever, I decided it was really important to have an advisory committee. And so I set up an advisory committee that had my banker, my accountant, my insurance agent, a lawyer, and then three outside people. And we met twice a year for a half a day. And I shared with them basically my budgets. I put together a budget so that we could track a budget versus actual and see what the comparison was. So that was really important to to put in place. And to answer your question, now we re-ask it. I apologize. I forgot. 

John Coe- Well, what basically how did you choose your customers? I mean, did you did you rifle shot you aimed at certain people and I focused on them. Or did you have more of a scattered open market approach? 

Harold Green- It was really referral. I mean, it really I mean, all of it was referral. I mean, so many of my customers are my best friends and everything, and I always ask them for a tomato sandwich or something else, okay, and all that stuff. But it was, I mean, and it was all referral. And so, you know, I never really had to go out. And canvass for things. People in the property management division, people would be there and they might move in a couple of years to go to another company. And then they're taking your relationship there to that new opportunity. And so we grew really by word of mouth, and we did do some really interesting marketing. We had we had a newsletter, the pavement maintenance newsletter that we would send out, and we sent out 3 or 4000 of those every two, three months. We also sent out marketing cards that were really cute. We were the first contractor to do a mailing of a yield sign and a stop sign, and that took a lot of doing because the mail service had never sent something like that. So my marketing company, Rese Press at the time we met with the Postal Service to go through to see that they could in fact send those go through their machinery and send those through the mailing service. So that was really about the only thing we did. And it was really more to reinforce us as individuals. And and it was very successful. But no, it was really all referral was basically how we grew our business. 

John Coe- So what's the biggest job you ever did? 

Harold Green- Oh my God. We did several large jobs. Two of them I can't even talk to you about because our high security facilities. But they were but they were federal jobs. But they were multiple millions of dollars jobs. And one of the small regional mall parking lot, we've done some regional malls, Tysons Corner. We've done various industrial parks for a lot of major property management companies and everything. You know, we did a federal job where we trucked all our foam stabilizing base material from from Forestville all the way down to Warrenton, Virginia, to a high security facility for three months. And it was a great job and the government loved it and everything. So I would say is that I was never focused on the size of the job. I was really focused on the profitability of a job, and most of our jobs were from $15,000 to $250,000 where you can get in and get done in 1 to 4 days. And so you're not a given job for 3 or 4 months. That's the exception to the rule. And it did happen on occasion, but that was a real exception instead of the rule. And that way you constantly had money turning and all that stuff and you were able to evaluate the profitability of your business on a monthly basis. Basically, our business, we basically lost money in December, January, February. We broke even in March, we made money in April, May. We were break even for the year. And so you had June, July, August, September, October, November, where you made the majority of your profits. And then I always made sure that I held back at least 3 to 4 months of cash so that I self-funded myself in the wintertime. So I had what was called a Rock of Gibraltar. And so I never borrowed any money from the banks. I always had a line of credit established, but I self-funded myself with my Rock of Gibraltar. And so whatever my burn rate was on a monthly basis, a quarter million, $300,000, then I'd have a million and a half dollars in cash in my bank account. And I self-funded myself and the line of credit was for an emergency. It wasn't to survive. And so many people nowadays, they survive on their line of credit and they never get out of it and everything. And I saw that in a variety of my paving buddies who I told you that we put together a organization called the Pavement Network at the end of 99, and I was mentoring to a lot of these guys and what I saw is that they were constantly in their line of credit 12 months out of the year. They never got a clean up period. And, you know, and I was like, I was in my line of credit 2 or 3 days a year. That was it. And so but that was how they did their business. And they were always talking about the top line. And I'm like, Who cares about the top line? What do you keep at the bottom line? And but that was how some people talked. They talked about the top line. And I couldn't relate. 

John Coe- And some of them were probably out of business as a result. 

Harold Green- Several of them are. And and I've been friends with a lot of them and several have started other businesses and have become successful the second and third time around. 

John Coe- So you started with a pickup truck and you were striping what really turned you on to say, okay, I like more than this. I want to get into really into the paving and the whole shebang. 

Harold Green- I think it was I mean, it was an evolution of my business as my business continued to grow and I needed to get into recycling. I got the recycling company. GR And then we were making our own crusher run and then I can tell you that then we got into the foam stabilizing base in 2006. I can remember in 2008, I think it was during the Three Gorges Dam or maybe it was 2007 and on all the concrete in the world was going to China for the Three Gorges Dam, and we were doing concrete. And I can remember we were doing a job for commercial condo management down in Alexandria, Virginia, and damn, we had to rip out a whole bunch of concrete. And it was in front of all these storefronts and put it back in that afternoon and everything, and it was 30 or 40 yards and everything and damn, the concrete never came. And so at the end of the day, we're calling up, oh, you know, we'll have it there to you first thing in the morning. So next morning comes and everything, 11:00 comes and nothing's there and we're on the phone and everything and oh, well, the truck broke down and then it's on another job site. And at the end of the day, you know, we're calling up and they promised they'll have it to us the next morning. The third day comes and we still don't have any concrete and our guys are sitting there, so we're not making any money. And by 8:00 in the morning, I'm on the phone calling up because they promised me concrete first thing in the morning and I won't use the concrete company's name, but I will just say that it was a Virginia company. And they called up and they said, we are whatever the name was, we'll send you the concrete when we want to. And I said, Don't worry about it. I said, I'm going to go out and I'll build my own concrete company. And I bought my I bought a concrete plant, bought three concrete trucks, and I suddenly was in the concrete business. And I then didn't wasn't reliant upon the concrete companies to send me concrete day, night, weekends or holidays. Sure. When do you do concrete work for Chick fil A? Sunday when they're closed. When do you do work for people who are an industrial park? Well, inside a warehouse at night or weekends. So. So all these businesses that we started always fed back to other businesses. And that's how I continued then to grow. I got involved in another business called Hamilton Pacific Chamberlain, where a service disabled veteran owned small business. I was sitting at my office on January 1st at 9:00 in the morning when my future business partner called, and he says, I just see you did this big federal job. I said, Yeah, really good. He said, Would you like to do some more? So I said, Sure. And, you know, I didn't know what an IDIQ was or any of these. And, you know, we bid one. We didn't get it, but then we ended up getting a large job for for the Nasdaq down in Millington, Tennessee, went down, did it, and it was great. And we ended up starting a business called Hamilton Pacific Chamberlain. And now we've got about 150, 200 people on payroll. We're out of Waldorf in California and and North Carolina. And we work for the Department of Defense and Veterans and the Army Corps all around the country. 

John Coe- Just that business?

Harold Green- Just that business. And I was there at the right place. I was the I was the cash and the bonding behind the business. And Paul and Griff, my partners, and they are the service disabled veterans. And we've been very and we've been very successful. And it helps me up because I refer them business and they refer me all the concrete and the asphalt work that is in the mid-Atlantic. And then through my pavement network members all around the country, I refer to them to have them do the work so they have relationships in place. 

John Coe- So I was going to get into what really turns you on, but what sounds like to me is your networking and your ability to just build relationships has been a big part of what you're doing. 

Harold Green- And, you know, I don't I guess that's what I mean. To me, it's it's a natural progression. It's who I am or whatever. So I don't see it as anything other than just befriending somebody and trying to help somebody out. If, you know, the more you give, the more you receive. And that's just my philosophy in life. 

John Coe- That's great. So talk about some of the most challenging projects, either because of constant construction challenges, client demands regarding timing or unusual conditions for building whatever reason. 

Harold Green- I mean, I mean, I would say every job has hair on it. And so what you have to do is you have to look at the mechanics of the job. You have to you have to listen to the customer, what their requirements are in terms of noise, in terms of customers, you know, interruption. And then you have to design the project to be to be executed in an efficient manner and a professional manner and on budget so that you can achieve the profits that you want. And so I think. Every job is equally demanding and requires equal inputs to make it a successful job. And so there wasn't any particular job that really stood out in front of it. But, you know, it comes to mind or whatever, because all of them have for me the same sense of urgency. And I literally visit every job. I mean, I'm out seven days a week, you know, even now that I've sold my company and everything. You know, I was out yesterday in Annapolis and then in Springfield and then Gaithersburg marking out jobs for crews that are going out today and tonight and this week to make sure that everything is properly marked, photographed the customer's production schedule. They know what's going to be done when the crews are going to be there. And again, if everything is well organized, there's always going to be the what ifs And, you know, the stuff hits the wall and everything. But that's the exception and the rule. And so, again, you go back to the the the six P's proper preparation prevents piss poor performance. And it is really true. 

John Coe- Did you ever get thrown off a site or tossed on any job at all? 

Harold Green- I don't even I don't even think I've never, never had that happen. I don't think in my life or whatever. I can't say that's great. I can't say that one of my other estimators didn't have a particular problem or something like that. But I don't recall anything having failed or something happened. I mean, sure. I mean, you're going to have issues where the payment fails, where you make if you've done work and under the warranty period, something fails. And even after the warranty period happens, I've had customers call up and I'm like, it's your best marketing. You go out there and you fix it and everybody loves you because what's the. Oh, I don't want to talk to that person during the warranty period because I may have to go back and fix it. It's the perfect opportunity to have a relationship and to establish that relationship and to and cement that relationship for the long term. So warranties are marketing opportunities. They're not something to avoid. There's something to embrace. There you go. It's I guess it's I love it. It's how I see the world.

John Coe (00:37:11) - I love it. That's great. So recently, inflation, supply chain issues and labor shortages have plagued most construction industries. How have you managed through these challenges? 

Harold Green- We were fortunate as that we were considered vital, you know. You know, so we weren't in a shutdown mode. So we were continuing, I would say, during the Covid and the high inflation period of the last three years, our biggest challenges have really been in getting parts for equipment. So if a dump truck went down or a lowboy went down, we had a lowboy down for ten months because we couldn't get a computer board and everything. We had a dump truck down because we couldn't get a particular part for five months. And those are the good news is that we always had excess equipment. We always had more than what we needed so we could pull from our inventory as was necessary. But most companies don't have that flexibility. But manpower has become more of an issue in in the more recent past or whatever. We used to have 22 dump trucks on the road and I think now we have ten because most guys now they want to be their own or owner operator. I think that's great. They should have an opportunity to go out and be an entrepreneur like I have been. But you know, it does make it more of a challenge to then, you know, get the materials where they need to be on the time frame that you've designed the job to be executed in. But we really did not have the significant impact that I think several businesses did, whether it be restaurants or others. 

John Coe- Has the industry or business ever faced the union challenges at all? 

Harold Green- We did not face union challenges. I know of several of my paving buddies. 2 or 3 of them faced union challenges in Saint Louis and Chicago, and it's been a fight and everything. But Washington and Baltimore really was not a Baltimore somewhat was a union town, but the one union paving company, their rotary rods and Sweitzer, they went out of business in 1988, I think it was, or 8 or 9. And so this is not a union Uniontown in Washington. 

John Coe- Interesting. Often in construction situations, there's a miscommunication among parties about what needs to be done and what matter. How do you handle situations where this happens to make parties satisfied to retain customers for current and future businesses? 

Harold Green- Again, I mean, it goes back to the whole issue of warranty. I mean, I spell out my warranty. Very specifically, I always tell people is that, look, we do it this summer. If there's a problem, you know, let me know, you know. And the first thing I do every march and everything before we start the season, we go back and do all our warranty work. One, it gets the guys back into the flavor of thinking about what they're doing to It's good for marketing to take care of all those responsibilities for past performance before you start in the season. And and I think it's just good business practices or whatever. And so to me, warranties are very important. What's your typical warranty? One year, one year on materials and labor from day to completion. But, you know, if a customer calls back and it's a second year, whatever, I'm still going to fix it because again, I'm establishing a working relationship with that customer. Now, you know, in previous years when we got started in in installing a fabric membranes and AMA, we provided a three year warranty because it was a marketing piece, you know, to differentiate ourselves from the competition. In between 1981 when we put down, I guess it was July of 1980 because we put down 36,000 yards of Petromat at Montpelier Shopping Center over in Laurel, Maryland. And it was for Philip, 66. And we took their entire year's run because they were just getting into it and we guaranteed it for three years. And we sold a lot of paving because we were the only contractor put down fabric membrane for about five years. And we were we made a lot of money putting down the fabric and a lot of money putting down the pavement because nobody else wanted to. And now everybody does it. And we don't put down hardly any fabric anymore. 
John Coe- Ironically, that shopping center, it's still there. And not only is it still there at the time that right around that time one of my clients and one of my podcast guests owned the property.

Harold Green - It was owned by Dave Francois Realty at Danish Company. He bought it. My client bought it from them. Oh, okay. In the late 1980s. Oh, okay. 

John Coe- Yeah, because his name was Gary Rapoport. 

Harold Green- Oh. Oh, I know. Gary. Gary. Gary. Gary bought the property. Okay, sure. Yeah. Because. And then he's developed it out, you know, put in that satellite section and everything and 

John Coe- have you done work for Gary? 

Harold Green- I have done a little bit, but not much. And everything for me, again, my estimators handle some of those other accounts. You can only do so much. I got 6 or 8 estimates and all that stuff. But yeah, and in 1980 it was all potholed. We would go in and we'd put 100 tons of asphalt in the potholes twice a year. Wow. And, and Peter Tiling was the property manager for Savage Fogarty out of Alexandria, Virginia. Sure. And we ended up and I said, Peter, I said, you know, we can come in and use this particular product and put it down and I'll give you a three year guarantee. And it was going to be about $450,000. And he was getting bids in a million and a half dollars to come in and rip it out and put it all back in. And so I said, and we can do it in a week's time. And and Nick Roper, I, I haven't said his name in years and Peter Ton, they signed off on it. We went in and did it in July and it was perfect and I sold a lot of fabric after that. That's great. So that was your first big job? That was our first big job with that was the first job with fabric and everything. Yeah, that's cool. Yep. 

John Coe- So geography, geographic coverage, where's I mean,

Harold Green- we've gone to Pittsburgh, we've gone to New Jersey, we've gone up to New York, we've gone down to North Carolina, West Virginia. Now, those are the exception instead of the rule or down to Norfolk, Virginia Beach for various customers, good customers that wish to have Chamberlain contractors do the work. So that may be 15, 20, 15% of our gross sales volume on an annual basis. Most of our work is in the District of Maryland district Maryland and Virginia. Normally, the both the Washington and the Baltimore always and 30 to 50 miles outside. So from a geotechnical standpoint, you go to a place like upstate New York and you're doing paving there. Right. It's a lot different than doing work in down in Washington, DC or South. I mean, one, you have to, of course, transport all your equipment up there, manpower up there. Right, some of your trucking. But you're going to also rent trucking in that area. Your price, your material costs are going to be different. Also, some of the people up there may not like you being there because that's taking business away from them. So you have to be you have to pick your poison where you wish to go and then communicate in a climate climates. The other issue is what else? Oh, oh, yeah.

John Coe (00:44:56) - So when you're subfreezing for about half the. Year. 

Harold Green- That's a whole different situation from a sub. Sure. And that's why a lot of people go south and go down to Florida. You know, standpoint. Yeah, because there's a lot more you have to put down, I would assume. Right. And you have to go a lot deeper and. Well, I mean, yeah, you have the three star cycles and everything and and equipment or equipment, but materials that are specified in Florida. They'll use values porous concrete, or they'll go with brick pavers. Well, that may be good down there, but it may not be good up in New England or where they're putting down rejuvenate ERs out in New Mexico. Rejuvenate may not be as successful in the mid-Atlantic part of the country. So what happens is people say, oh, well, this product works great here and they try to transport it to different markets all around the country. And we have different environments, we have different traffic flows, everything. And so you can't oversell a product. You have to use the product in the geographic region where it's best suited to be used. 

John Coe- So when you go out of market, you have to be very sensitive to where you're going. 

Harold Green- I mean, specifications. I mean, in Florida, you're putting two inches of asphalt over a top of compacted sand or coral or whatever it may be crushed aggregate down there. Whereas in Maryland, you're putting down four inches of binder and two inches of surface. But on compacted subgrade in Virginia, you're putting down normally 6 or 8in of crush or run with maybe 2 or 3in of conventional mixed asphalt. So you have different. 

John Coe- So if you're in Rochester, New York, how much would you have to put there? 

Harold Green- Yeah, you have just different specifications and you have to know when you go. And so you don't go and just say, Oh, we're going to put what we put down in Maryland. You may have to do some coring. You may have to look at specifications of what the what the specifications call for in that given market, and then you bid accordingly. So you don't need additional or different types of machinery for all this. No, no. You just need the same stuff, same stuff and everything. I mean, some of the materials may differ. Like as I talked about rejuvenate ERs or coal tar sealers or asphalt sealers, but, you know, most of that's pretty specific. Yep. 

John Coe- So let's get into your business a little bit. Earlier this year or late last year, you decided to sell your interest in Chamberlain and your Global resource Recyclers business and now focus on global emissions. 

Harold Green- Yep. Basically in 2021, basically I had I went through two divorces. I divorced my wife in 2018 and then I divorced my business partner in 2021. And both of them were very significant, challenging times. But I had I focused on the future. I managed through the difficulties and was fortunate to come out successful on the back end. I was I had sold I had bought my business partner out on August 31st and 2021, and that weekend was Labor Day, and I was on the tennis court at our club and everything playing tennis, and somehow my feet became twisted. And I've been playing tennis since I was 2 or 3 years old. And I fell. And when I fell, the butt of the racquet hit broke four of my ribs and collapsed my lung. Well, I didn't know it at the time, finished the match, won the match, went home, cut grass for 3 or 4 hours, had dinner, took a shower, sat down and couldn't breathe. And so my wife rushed me to the hospital and they found out that my lung had collapsed and my oxygen levels were low and they had to operate on me. And I'm like, you know, it's not in my schedule for the weekend and all that stuff. But I was in the hospital for five days, got out, and instead of going home, I went to the office and I'm sitting in my office and I got a mountain of paper on my desk and everything, and the phone rings and this guy and he says, Harold, are you interested in selling your company? And I'm like, God, I'm looking up at the sea and I'm say, somebody talking to me and everything. And within three weeks, I had had spoken to three equity groups that were interested in buying my business. The paving industry is starting to roll up now, and so we were an early, early beneficiary of this, got three letters of letters of intent, negotiated, hired an attorney, hired an M&A guy. We got a substantial increase in the letter of intent, signed something in the middle of October. And in 61 days, we went through our due diligence process, which, you know, is a very demanding process, seven days a week, 12, 15 hours a day. And I'm like, I'll deal with it at. A high level. But guess what? My focus is on my customers and the jobs. So there were only 1 or 2 people in the office, 

John Coe- Were the buyers knowledgeable about the business. They were knowledgeable. 

Harold Green- They they were the they had selected a company that was a platform business that was knowledgeable and as a paving contractor. And so we were the third roll up in this equity. Now they have merged the two equity companies that come came Shoreline and Tribez. They merged here this spring to to start a company called Pave America. And they have approximately 30 companies and they're doing about $800 Million a year now combined. But early on, they basically had a CEO, Tom York, very good, very professional, was not necessarily knowledgeable in the paving business, but was knowledgeable in roll ups and had done these prior to. 

John Coe- And so you're on a contract right now with them, basically. 

Harold Green- Yeah. I mean, same as what I was before the I sold the business and everything and they have taken it in a different direction and everything and you know, God bless them and they'll be very successful, I'm sure. But I had really, as I told you, I was a strategic planner. And so, you know, I had planned for these for my eventual exit. And when I started the advisory group in 1981, over the years, we had developed multiple exit strategies. I told you when I started the payment network in 99, that was with the intention of possibly rolling up the industry. Two divorces got in the way of that and but I basically was very much focused on the exit strategies. And so I knew at some point that I would be exiting out of Chamberlain contractors and I just can't stay home and cut my grass and and so that was when Global Emissionary starting in 2012 and the evolution of that, I saw that as my really my exit strategy that would allow me to do something that was interesting. Cutting edge the Wild West, learning to navigate through various new systems that didn't exist yet. And to put that and that was my future. And so I was willing to exit Chamberlain Contractors, even though I had started, because I had something to go to. If I didn't have something to go to, I probably wouldn't have sold Chamberlain contractors and I definitely would have still been involved, immersed myself in the businesses I still am today. 

John Coe- So now maybe transition to discussing Global Emissionary in a little bit more detail, if you would, and what that your business platform is for that 

Harold Green- I guess I would consider it the Wild West in today's market. I mean we all hear about carbon emissions and we are fascinated with it. And when I tell people, you know, I'm selling carbon emissions, I mean, they can't grasp what it is and you can't see it, you can't taste it, I can smell it, I guess, or whatever. But, you know, they just don't understand, you know, and this is a business and you can sell carbon emissions and, you know, they think it's, you know, fool's gold or something. And it's it's been really a lengthy journey. As I said, it started in 2012 when we incorporated the first 8 to 9 years. We I had a group of of PEs, scientists, very intelligent people, an IT developer, writing some programs for the panic software. And, you know, we went through a process where we created the first transportation specific methodology worldwide. And, you know, and I always thought, oh, it would be a simple process. And I think, oh my God. I mean, you know, $2.5 million later and ten years in over 60,000 hours, man hours to put it together and everything, it was a it was a very lengthy journey. And I was talking the other day with a company and they are they've gotten into the solar panel business and they are they were trying to to create an income stream to to help fund the construction of their solar panel farms that they're doing down in the southeast United States. Well, I told them what we were doing and they said, oh, that's terrific. We tried to go that route. And because solar panels are are it's not there's not an additionality function into it. It's it's mandated by the government or and utilities. It doesn't apply to the voluntary carbon emissions market. And so they had to go in a different direction in everything. But for us, because this is voluntary and it's additional, it's not something that's mandated or regulated or required to be done in everything. It falls onto those under those rules of additionality. And as a result, we can go and capture these carbon emissions. And so between 2012 and 2019, basically we went through a series of detailed steps where we wrote the method, a methodology. We had to have it independently verified and validated by four different entities, first by Verra, then we first environmental, then with Ruby Canyon, and then finally we have PSCs. And each evaluation took 18 months and about 50 to $100,000. And I kept on thinking, Oh, it's just the next turn of the road. We're going to get there. And there was always another impediment or another challenge to be overcome. 

John Coe- So this is basically taking recycled asphalt and turning it into carbon credits because talk about the process. 

Harold Green- Sure. Basically what we're doing, foam stabilizing base is a is an alternative to conventional hot mix, asphalt, hot mix, asphalt. You're taking quarried aggregates that have been transported to a asphalt plant. You're heating up those aggregates to a specific temperature, 310 to 330 degrees. You're introducing asphalt cement, which is the liquid glue that binds the material together. And you're making a bounded material versus a mortar material, which I'll talk about in a second. It dumps in a truck. You take it out, you lay it. And it's our driveways and our roads and our interstates across the country. Whereas with foam stabilizing base, basically we're taking that old asphalt on your driveway or that road that's all failed and potholed and everything. And we're taking it to a recycling plant, which was global resource recyclers. You crush that material to a very specific gradation and it's usually an inch and a half minus down to a 200 sieve, which is talcum powder. And you blend that material with 1% Portland dust, 2% asphalt cement versus 5% asphalt, cement and water. And when water comes in contact with 330 degree bitumen, basically there is a rapid expansion and you generate billions of bitumen bubbles and they each bitumen bubble has enough energy to attach itself to a particle fine that talcum powder about 200 sieve. And instead of making a bounded material where all the asphalt aggregate is coated, you you make what's called a mortared mix and everything and so instead of a black material, which is hot mix asphalt, it's a slate gray that's a light gray and you can hold it in your hands it's only 70 degrees, but you lay it with the same equipment. You compact it very similar to that of conventional hot mix asphalt. But what's unique is that it cost about 80% less to produce and its carbon footprint is 90% less. And so and it's durability and it's durability is equal. Oh, yes. And has studied this. They've just, I think, recently passed the 40 million standard axles that is the test track down at Auburn in in the south or whatever. And so what we did is we actually created this methodology which has to take into consideration, as you just talked about, the structural equivalency, the durability, the life cycle modeling, as well as the carbon emissions that are that you compare benchmark in hot mix asphalt with that of of your foam stabilizing base and the differential between the benchmark which is hot mix and foam, which is your which is your alternative environmentally friendly product, that differential or difference is the carbon emission reduction that we then put into what's called a project description, which is a mirror of the methodology that we created. It collects all the data associated with the manpower, the equipment and the materials that are used. We then calculate all that data and this can be hundreds and hundreds of pages of data and everything, and that becomes part of the project description. That document then goes to VRA, which is a standard body, one of four international bodies, and they review it for the accuracy and that it meets Exactly. The methodology that we outlined. Once they sign off on it, we then have to contract with a third party verification and validation body. There are only two of them in the United States that are Section seven, Stage seven that are allowed to review the project description. We contract with them. Once they get it, they do a site inspection, they review our data. They actually have to hire an outside auditing firm to audit their compliance, that they're reviewing the technology and the data, and that that takes about 6 to 8 months to do this. So this is not a quick process. And we'll talk we can talk about that if you want to later. And once they do what are called the Do findings report, which they may come back and say, you know, this is not crossed, that I's not dotted or you didn't add in this piece of equipment that has a carbon footprint of X or Y, and you have to respond to those that issuance report. And once those have been confirmed and everything's satisfied, they write what is called a findings report, which I shared with you here before we had our little conversation here. And then that goes back to Verra. Verra has 30 days to review the findings report. And once they confirm that everything that the due diligence is there and that the that the compliance is a minimum of 97 to 98% and everything, they then issue what are called VCUs verified carbon units. And once those carbon units are issued, they are posted on the Vero platform. We then can sell those through various carbon exchanges or we can post it onto our website and sell them directly ourselves. And so we're in the process of working with two exchanges, plus we're also posting in on our platform. And what's unique is, is that our carbon emissions have already been captured, validated and documented, and they've already been created and saved, reduced, whereas most carbon emissions are nature based trees or agriculture or landfills or mangroves or whatever, and those emissions are projected to be captured over the next 30 or 40 years. Problem is, it's a high risk because how do you know that somebody is not going to cut the tree down? There's not going to be a forest fire or developers aren't going to come in and push in that mangrove and turn it into apartment buildings. And so our VCUs verified carbon units have a low risk tolerance but in a high value. And as a result, we've been we're about to get our first two VCUs issued in the next ten days to two weeks after a very laborious process, because these were the first two transportation specific technologies methodologies out there. Verra and the VBS have been very cautious to want to be very complete in the analysis and everything. But with this being a repetitive process, we're hoping that in future, in 2024 and 2025, that the process will become more defined and the time horizon for the whole process will be shortened from what is now in excess of a year to maybe about 6 or 7 months.

John Coe (01:03:41) - I understand you have patents on some of the products. So the form, the foam base is that that process that you created at that time, was that patented? 

Harold Green- We didn't actually create the foam base. That technology actually was created in 1958 and all that stuff by Mobil Oil and Mobil Oil that they didn't want to promote this because in that in that era, asphalt cement is is is the bottom of the barrel and everything. And it was a waste product. And so where did it end up and ended up on our roads and everything? It was great. And it was it was a very cheap material. Whereas now asphalt, liquid asphalt, cement goes between 7 and $800 a ton. In those days it was three and $5 a ton. It was just nothing and everything. And so Mobil oil basically buried that technology until the Germans working or resurrected it in the early 80s. And they then started to promote the idea of foams, foam asphalt, and they created what was called a central plant, a KMA 200, a central plant to take that process, wrap Portland and, and water and asphalt cement and make foam stabilize Base. And then they expanded that to do what's called cold in-place recycling, where you grind up your pavement maybe 3 or 4in of it. You foam it in place and you lay it back down and then you put a hot mix cap over top of it. And the third process was called full dep reclamation, FDR, where you basically grind up the pavement, the granular lag or get below it and soil below that. And it may be anywhere from a 16 to 24 inch cut and you make a stabilize base or you may add hydrated lime, you may add Portland into it, you may add asphalt emulsions into it or foam stabilizing basin to it. And so those are the various processes that are that are available and that is what we basically patented and and now are out to the marketplace and soon to be a for profit business enterprise after 12 years plus. 

John Coe- So talk about the business model a little bit, how this works and what the exchanges and what the values are and how people measure that. 

Harold Green- Oh, a lot there, I would say. I mean, first of all, I guess when it comes to the values, I would say that is about to be determined and all that stuff. It's brand new. The market is so new and all that stuff, especially in this industry, in transportation specific industry. I can tell you in the conversations that we had and we have spent probably the last 5 to 6 months really researching, talking to people all over the world to determine what values are. And it's hard to get a value when it's never been done before. And you're comparing to trees and, and, and, and and and agricultural systems and everything. And so but we've been pretty much assured that our initial value will be in the 25 to 20 $8 to $30 on the top and that's for most of the country. Now, when you get to California, the values increased between 35 and $40 a ton for a single. Yeah, for VCU. And that's basically a metric ton. Now we are in us tons and everything. And so there's a 10% increase in the volume of the materials that will sell. And I'll go on. What's your other question? I'm sorry. 

John Coe- Well, I just want your business, your your business model, your company's business model, global emission. 

Harold Green- I mean, this is not going to be a company that's going to have hundreds of people. We'll probably have between 15 and 20 people when it's fully staffed. And we should be able to do project descriptions. Now, that's an individual customer or multiple customers that may have 20, 50 or 100 locations around the United States, but we'll probably be producing anywhere from 30 to 50 product descriptions annually, which will be writing one project description a week and everything. And that project description may have anywhere from 20 to 75,000 tons of VCUs associated with that project description. So that will be basically what we do. So it's going to be and then what's nice is those project descriptions last for ten years. So then we don't have to do a new issuance. All we do is we come in and update the data for the following year because we're capturing the data for one calendar year and everything. And what's nice is these contractors, they're doing work on a continuous basis. Every year may be a different section of road, but usually for the same state or the county or the federal government. And so they'll be I mean, it's like home paramount pest. I mean, once you have the the product in place and everything, it's an annuity because you're going to get that same workload year after year and that will be nice for us. 

John Coe- Some of your processes patented. So could come could competitors come in and do what you're doing? 

Harold Green- You know, you know, first of all, if they wanted to do, they'd have to If they wanted to try to alter the methodology to make it specific, they're going to have to go through the same processes that I have, and God bless him 60,000 hours later, I mean, 60,000 hours and $2 Million later and everything. And you know, I still learn something new every day about this business and everything. I mean, you know, again, I didn't go to college. I don't have a PE I mean, I'm a practical business person, everything. But there is just a lot of science to this. And it's an evolving science and everything that's really just come about in the last 3 to 4 years. I mean, you everybody hears about ESG, environmental, social governance. And, you know, the federal. The federal government is pushing this to everything from electric cars to, you know, to how we live our lives and everything. And so the market probably, as I have read between 2023 and 2040, will grow by a function of 100 to 200 times its current size and everything. I'll give you another piece of interesting information. Who was the largest seller of carbon emissions in the United States in 2022? 

John Coe- I have no clue. 

Harold Green- Elon Musk. Okay. He made more money selling carbon emission credits than he did cars. From what I understand, he sold $1.78 billion in carbon emission credits last year to two customers. Who were they? 

John Coe- The big auto companies, 

Harold Green- Right. General Motors and Chrysler. He sold all his. And how was it or why is he. Because he's got a combustion engine here. He's got your EV down here and you. Big difference. Big difference. And so that's that's so it's a market. And literally they say less than 2% of the people understand the business model. And you know and I'm still learning I guess I'm one of those 2%. And you know, and it's going to revolutionize how we do business. I mean, all businesses now, all major corporations, they actually have to document and they have to pick up what their liability constraints are in their financials associated with their carbon emissions. And so everybody is going to be corporate 

John Coe- this that's corporate individuals have to do that on their tax returns someday. 

Harold Green- A lot of people now do. I mean, I know I have friends when they travel overseas, they buy carbon emissions to offset their carbon footprint for them. Having traveled to Greece or to London, Well, that's not regulatory. That's it's not regulatory. It's voluntary. But they do it because they want to, you know, reduce their carbon footprint. I think they say that the average human again, this is I get so much data in everything that I read on a daily basis and everything, but I think the average human every year produces something in the neighborhood of 22 or 23 tons of CO2 emissions. That's between driving your car to your house, to what you eat or whatever. 

John Coe- And Americans per capita, probably the highest in the world. 

Harold Green- One of the highest. One of the highest. Yeah. I don't know that for a fact in everything, but I mean, I get I get every Saturday and Sunday there are four newsletters that come out and they are very detailed and I read every word. That's great. 

John Coe- So we met for coffee recently and I referred reference to a book about John D Rockefeller called Titan. And I, you know, and hearing your story, it just reminded me of that book because of kind of a coming up. So I shared some points from the book.

John Coe (01:13:16) - Yep. Some various these are key lessons that that John D. Rockefeller learned in his business practices. And I'll just read them here. 

Harold Green- Oh, you were gracious enough to send it to me over the weekend so that I could so that I could comment on 

John Coe- 1.Obsessive work ethic. Well, the first one, I guess you can. 

Harold Green- You know where I am on that one. 

John Coe- I think you. I think you fit there. Yeah. 2. Ruthless tactics. Now, that's probably not your role. 

Harold Green- I am not ruthless at all. I am very passionate. I think I am compassionate. And and my philosophy, I told you is the more you give, the more you receive. And so I am definitely not a ruthless individual. 

John Coe- So you're not stealing competition or trying to. 

Harold Green- No, I support and, you know, I mean, you know, whether my employee wants to go out and be his own dump truck driver or helping other people out and everything, as I said, I think that's really important.

John Coe (01:14:13) - Differentiate you 3. forward thinking. Obviously, you talk about your planning and your you're really into that. 

Harold Green- Yeah, yeah. I'm definitely there That and even 4. Embraced innovation. I think I think forward thinking and embracing innovation is really one and the same or whatever or at least I see it in everything because I mean as I said, between starting with geotextile fabric membranes to milling equipment to foam, stabilizing base to, you know, global missionary, it's been a progression. And each of the progressions, the barriers to entry have become more significant, which means there are fewer players in the business. 

John Coe- 5. Talent scout is the next one. 

Harold Green- Oh, I would say I surround myself. With good people. And so with GE. I have a great team of basically eight people. They each have an equal say in how we run and evolve the business. And so I think talent is really important. 

John Coe- 6. Long term orientation. 

Harold Green- As you get older, your long term orientation gets shorter and everything in that 68 years old, I think I've got about a 7 to 10 year window. I'd like to be finished by 75 to 78. So, you know, we're you know, I guess long term now is maybe I'm not at the point of not getting fostering younger people to take over your business. Well, the good news is that most of the people are between 20 and 45, and I am the senior citizen at Global Missionary. So at some point when we sell the business or how we evolve the business, they will be there and they will be the the standard bearers for the new business 

John Coe- Discipline, capital allocation while you've never taken debt. 

Harold Green- So I'm very disciplined. Yeah, I think the only debt I have is my mortgage on my farm. That's it. 

John Coe- Contradictions. While a pioneering philanthropy. This is this is from the book. While a pioneering financial philanthropist, he also monopolized the oil industry in ways that ultimately harmed consumers and competitors. 

Harold Green- Well, I don't think that as something. No. I mean, if I think anything I mean, I think that as an environmentalist and as I said, you know, I've always been an environmentalist. I had a I have a farm and I'm big into animals and and growing crops and and and all. So I, you know, whereas I made my money in the paving industry or whatever, I've also tried to look at how I can be more environmentally friendly. So I think that's really important. That's great. Well, those are the, those are the points. And so you're you're close to what Rockefeller did, and I think he's done a little bit better than I have or whatever like that. But he started early, too, and all that stuff. And he had a vision that was 20 years old 20 years ago, this company, you know, and lived to 100 years old, too. He did it, didn't I read the book and I read his book and everything in 100. Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah. Interesting. 

John Coe- So what lessons would you share to young professionals today wanting to excel in the construction industry overall and more specifically in the paving contract? 

Harold Green- And I thought that was a really good question. - And and I know for me I would just say one and I was talking to my wife's son here yesterday and everything. J And he did not go to college. He's now going to go to college, but trade school and everything because he wants to become a carpenter, you know, a specialty carpenter. And I think you need to find, first of all, what the passion is, what do you want to do? But you're going to be able to go to work every day and you're going to want to wake up in the morning. You're going to want to go to work and you want to go to work six days a week. I mean, everybody's got to have a day off unless you're nuts like me. But see, first of all, you have to have a passion. Second, you want to do something that you can see has a future. It's grove. It's not a business that's in decline, but it's a business that is growing and diversifying. And then how can you bring your talent, your specialties, to differentiate yourself and the business that you're embracing to be successful? And then, you know, you have to go and start in business as soon as you can. I mean, I mean, I was very fortunate. I started at 19 years old. If you wait till 30 years old or 28 years old, I mean, one, you may be married, you may have a house, you may have a lot of other things that get in the way. And so starting sooner and immersing yourself into it is really important and all that stuff. I mean, there are just a whole lot of other things that get into it. I'm, I'm just looking here, stay focused, Work six and a half days a week. Oh, I said six. Here, hire carefully. Go grow with confidence. Little to no debt Update strategies for business plans every three years. And I was very religious about that. I also did a budget every year starting in 1981. As I told you, after our unfortunate almost demise of our business. And so, you know, the budget is the discipline. It's the roadmap so that when you have a problem, it does occur and they do come up and everything. COVID- I mean, you know, I had a business plan. I was able literally within 24 hours, I made some tough decisions on the number of people I was going to hire, the number of crews. I was going to work, what the sales were going to be, what the profits. We're going to be. But I had all that information at my fingertips. And you need to have a budget and then you need to live to the budget. And the budget includes sales and marketing. It includes the strengths and weaknesses of your business. It includes basically HR functions and your acquisitions and their diversification. I mean, it's a complete narrative. It's a it's a look at your business that allows you to then navigate through the challenges that we unfortunately have to address in in the world that we live in. 

John Coe- And you had an advisory board 

Harold Green- and I had an advisory board, which was really helpful. And I would always send it my budget out by the 15th of February. And they we would review it on the third Thursday or Wednesday of March and got a lot of great inputs and then I executed it. But my banker knew my accountant, a lawyer. Everybody knew what was going to happen before we executed the the plan. And so if I ever had a problem, you know, if they. Harold, you're on top of it. You know what's going on. 

John Coe- How did you choose your advisory board? 

Harold Green- As I told you, it was my lawyer, my accountant, my insurance agent. You know those. And then I hired and then I had three outside individuals who sat on a rotating basis. And they gave me a lot of great advice and all that. That's great. That's awesome. So all those things are very important considering the challenges today is addressed previously. 

John Coe- Why would you why would you recommend a career in the burgeoning in this burgeoning field and how would one learn about it and be trained? 

Harold Green- I would say in the carbon emissions business, and I've had several people ask me whatever, and I say, you know, and I mean, you know, there are issues of compliance. Do you want to go in and review the project descriptions? And and that's one section of the business. Two, do you want to be somebody who's going to be selling these carbon emissions that you want to work for a carbon exchange company? I can tell you that. JP Morgan. Morgan Stanley, American Express, they are all getting into it and everything, and it's still very new. So getting into this business now, you're getting in really at the ground floor. It's not so much the Wild West because there are starting to become some boundaries and platforms that you can understand and everything, but it's early enough in the process. I would consider it not the Model T, but the cars in the 20s, in the early 30s. That's where we're at in terms of this industry. So there so there's a lot of evolution that's going to occur. And as I told you, the market is going to grow between now and 2040 by a magnitude of 100 to 200 times. So it's so for you who are going who are in high school or in college and everything, and you need to find a niche that you want to embrace and everything. This is a opportunity of a lifetime and it will last you a lifetime. 

John Coe- It sounds like It really is. So relationships are key to our industry and in all industries other than family and colleagues who have influenced you most in your career from the public or the private sectors?

Harold Green- I would say, well, I would say my father, even though he died when I was 16 years old, I learned the work ethic just by observing to him. I would say also my advisory board because I listened to them. I mean, you know, here you are, you're starting your own business and you've got guys who are twice your age and everything giving you advice. You got to take the advice that they give you and you got to listen so you so, you know, you listen and then you talk after everybody else has spoken and everything and so I think that was really important to me. To me also my friends, my customers, you know, they are giving you inputs on a constant basis. I mean, I can remember, you know, talking and it was Peter Tilling interviewing, and I said, Peter and Nick, I said, Why do you call me the boy? You know? And they said, Oh, it's a term of endearment and everything like that. He said, That's your best asset. Is it your youth and everything in your in your energy and your spontaneity and everything that, you know, differentiates you. And so we want to always give you an opportunity. And so when I realized that, I leveraged that in everything and that helped me grow and be more successful in everything. So, you know, it's really important to immerse yourself and to surround yourself with people who can really help you to diversify, grow and become what you want to be. 

John Coe- So I shared a. A link to of a speech. I don't know if you had a chance to listen to it. Which one called a Multidisciplinary approach to Thinking. 

Harold Green- Okay, I did not I'm sorry. Not listen. I did not listen to that. Oh, shit. That's okay. I'll encourage you to do that. Okay. I will. Tell me about a quickly. 

John Coe- So basically he has a philosophy. It's it's basically looking at things from a lot of different angles and uses a the analogy of three buckets in the first bucket being the 13.5 billion years of the universe, the second one being the 4 billion years of the inorganic world Earth, and then the last one being the million years of the human existence.
And he looks at all these buckets and what did we what have we learn from all those different things about things. But his in essence point is that we're all based on mutual reciprocation. So everything is based on the golden rule, right? Everything. And then he also talks about win win and using all every, every possible interaction that you have should be a win win with every person that you're ever dealing with in the suppliers and all that. So this is the group that I manage, a group I created a group of young people called The Iconic Journey. And this is our ethos for the for the group and I built use this speech. It's kind of the platform for for that. And it's a really an important message of learning. And our industry, real estate is a very multidisciplinary industry among one of the most because, you know, you're dealing with physical improvements, the physical side, the interpersonal relationships with everyone. And then of course, the analytical piece, the mathematics, doing a deal, structuring a project, all financial, also looking at lead.I mean. Exactly. Well, now the environmental and environmental aspects of giving back to the planet, all that. So it's just it's a complex industry and therefore you need to have a diverse multidisciplinary approach to things. So that's really what I was. That's the point. Yeah. 

Harold Green- Have you ever did were you ever involved or have you heard of tech? The executive committee was a group of entrepreneurs that would meet 12 to 15 guys once a month, and they always had a world renowned person come in, Peter shoots or whatever for Porsche or whatever, come in and talk about or marinas, max greyness, and they would talk about specific business policies and then they would stay for lunch in the afternoon. You'd have an executive committee where your peers in the room would bring up their own individual business issues. And it was really fascinating. And that I did that for about 12 years in the in the mid 80s through mid 90s or whatever. And it really allowed you to expand your thinking. You know, the old adage is you need to think about what you don't think about, think about it. And that was what really helped me out. And so I would also say to people that are trying to figure out what they want to do, they need to network in and they need to they need to expand their horizons of how they see their business and see their world. And they need to think about what they are not currently thinking about. And that's really I think that's really important. 

John Coe- Well, to me, learning is the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. 

Harold Green- You got that right. And that's what I that's correlation. That's what I'm finding in the carbon emissions marketplace. Whatever I may become, you know, adept at knowing the basics of it in another 5 to 10 years because it's evolving that quickly. Oh, I'm sure it's just exploding in knowledge because even the most knowledgeable people are learning daily of things that they didn't realize before. 

John Coe- Exactly. And how do you measure the planetary? You know, look at I Yeah. And I now. Right. That's that's a scary thought in of itself.

Harold Green - I mean, I'm glad that I am at the end of my life cycle in terms of my career. Hopefully I have a few years in retirement and everything. But you know kids who are in the 20s and 30s, I mean, you know, they aren't going to have it. They're not going to have a job, one job in their life. They're going to be working for multiple people. They're going to have a very different business career and personal career. 

John Coe- Well, things move so quickly now. I mean, I mean, the amount of knowledge gained in the last ten years is equal to practically the entire history of the planet. Well, they said about it. They said your cell phone here, this is more powerful than the computers that were on this show and when they blew, when they. Grew up in the mid 80s. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's what's. That's what's incredible. Mind blowing. I know. 

John Coe- So what are your what are your biggest wins, losses and surprising events of your career? 

Harold Green- Oh, the biggest wins, I would say is Chamberlain Contractors and my various business entities that I've created and I never win is, you know, the relationships that I've had, whether they've been positive or negative and everything, they they, they help make you who you are and everything. And so, you know, if I only had good things, I would never appreciate what they are. It's just like in 1980 when the business was threatened and everything. And it had to, you know, and it was the character and and your energy that carried you through those difficult times and everything. And so I think it's it's it's all of the component parts together that makes you who you are. And if you only had the good and you never had the bad in everything, you wouldn't you wouldn't appreciate what you have in life, of course and all. 

John Coe- What about surprises? Things that came out of left field surprises, good or bad? 

Harold Green- God, jeez. I mean, I don't really think I've ever really been surprised in everything because, you know, even if I get a surprise, you know, I mean, I have resources to deal with the surprises, whether, you know, the positives, you know, 

John Coe- the phone call that you got right after your surgery maybe have been one of the I guess I guess that would.

Harold Green - But I had talked to people. I mean, I had my business partner wanted me to sell in 2015 and everything. And so we had gone through this laborious process and everything, and I kiboshed it because I said, this isn't the company that we can that we can affiliate ourselves with. So I guess because you you do research and you're planning, as I say, I'm a big planner. I don't want surprises and everything. I want to know what's coming down the road before it hits me because then it's too late and all. And so I never really had surprises. I mean, maybe that's really crazy. I never thought about it that way, if you're fortunate. Yeah, I guess so. But then again, you know, you might have missed something. Well, my only surprise is my second marriage, and my best friend and I got married to and everything. And so Laura is it's the surprise of my life in that respect. So I'm enjoying that for sure. 

John Coe (01:32:35) - That's great. That's great.So talk about your involvement in the community a little bit, what organizations you've been involved in, any volunteer activities, strong passions or anything outside of business that you've been involved in? 

Harold Green- I mean, I think I would say this is something that's come late in life. I will say that my passion has been travel and I have been very fortunate. I have actually traveled to over 100 countries, 120 countries. So I started traveling when I was ten years old in 1965. And I have traveled all over the world. And I make it a point where I travel to a a given country. I always bring back a piece of art or that something is unique to that country. Yep. So my house is a is a museum of artifacts from all over the world, from canoeing up the Amazon with blow pipes to chieftain staffs from Machu Picchu, from a Aboriginal park painting from Australia to icons from Russia to Netsuke, from Japan to art from Cuba or from Cuba. I mean, it's just all over the place.

John Coe (01:33:46) - Where haven't you been that you? 

Harold Green- Oh, I oh, there about 35 or 40 countries that I still would like to do and all that stuff. You've been to Antarctica? I have not been to Antarctica and I don't know if I will do that because the trip from the south tip of Chile to Antarctica is about five, six days and the seas are very tough. And I'm not a good person on the boat, on a boat. You can fly there, but I would love to. You can't fly there. Unfortunately, though. I can. Military, military. But I don't know. Can you? I have a I have to talk to you offline because I would like to do an so I 

John Coe- one of my podcast guests. Oh wow. Wrote a book about climbing the tallest mountain on Antarctica. Oh. And he went on a special trip from Chile there on an airplane. And he tells a story in his book. Oh, it's a fascinating story you have. His name is Len Forkas is to give me the book name. Yeah, it's fascinating. Anyway, so that I mentioned that's kind of an exotic trip. He also this year tried to climb out Everest and wasn't able wasn't successful. 

Harold Green- I wouldn't I wouldn't climb. I don't have the needs for it. Right. Right. 

John Coe- But have you been in Nepal? 

Harold Green- I have not been in Nepal. I wanted to Mongolia and Budapest. I would like I'd done. A lot of cruises been all over Europe and Africa, East Africa, South Africa, North Africa, Egypt, the Middle East. I would like to do. Oh, God. In Jordan. Oh, God. What's the name? Bahrain. No, no, no, Jordan. It's the. It's a city that's below ground and everything. Not a mine. No, it's not. It's a no. That's okay. That's in Thailand. Oh, God. What is the name of the goddamn place? I think. Well, and then I haven't been to Portugal. I have not been to Norway or Sweden. I've kind of went through Norway on the way. I have not been to Iceland. I was going to go in 2015 and then I got separated and all. But, you know, and then I've been all over Vietnam and about the Mediterranean. You've been in the Mediterranean for most of it. I have not been to Morocco yet. Another thing in Algeria I'd like to do those turkey been to Turkey. We went to Turkey first before we went to Greece. And that was when my father died. And my father's father was the president of Mobil Oil for the International Division, and he was located in Izmir. So when we flew when we went to Turkey, we went to Izmir. And we actually saw my father's house where he grew up and everything. And and then we and then he was in he was born in Rome or whatever in 1920 and all, and then attended Vatican School until 32 when they came to the United States. Wow. And everything. So yeah, so but yeah, traveling is a passion for me. And when I travel, I usually I always have a private driver, I always have a private guide. And I live with people because you get a greater sense of the country and the people in the passions if you live with them instead of living in a Western language, how do you deal with that? But I have a guide. I have I have like when I was in I have a translator who does it all for me. And it is a wonderful way to see the world. And it may be uncomfortable because, like when I was in Vietnam or Laos and Cambodia or Myanmar and all, I mean, you know, the the living conditions are very limited. When I was in Myanmar, I actually went up to Bagan and it is the largest Unesco site in the world and there are over 4500 individual what's on this plane, which is about five miles wide and about 12, 15 miles long. And you get up at 3:30 in the morning and you go on a hot air balloon ride and you get to see these structures that are absolutely magnificent. They're from the size of a garage to the size of the US Capitol. And they and they range in age up to 1000 years ago. And they're really quite spectacular. 

John Coe- Children have been to Angkor Wat. Okay. I think that's not in Burma or Myanmar. I think that's in in Thailand. In Thailand and then Cambodia. 

Harold Green- You go to go to the what's the God for having a brain fart here, getting old and everything. But to have seen the world and you know, again, it's a it's a great way to it makes you appreciate what we have. If more people traveled overseas, they wouldn't complain about this country because most people we have it so much better than most people. I had a friend who had been my Russian guide in Russia, and when she came to and she immigrated to the states and I remember she came here to visit us in Washington and I asked Irina, we went to the grocery store and she wanted coffee. I said, Irina, go down the aisle to get your coffee.
About 20 minutes later, we've got all that groceries. We're at the checkout and we still haven't seen Irina. And so I walked back and everything to see her and she is studying the coffee aisle and, you know, and, you know, a coffee aisle is good, 50ft long and everything. And, you know, and I asked her, I said, what do you find that you like most or at least about America? And she said, it's the same thing. It's choice in Russia. If you saw Banana, you bought it. If you saw a book, you got it because you may never see that book again. But here in America, you have so much choice when you go to when you go to a restaurant, you don't have 1 or 2 things on the menu. You have 200 things on a menu and everything. And so choice, basically it freezes people. And for her, she froze. She literally could not choose what the coffee type she want. Did she want instant ground, do decaf or Hawaiian coffee? 20 different brands. 20 different brands. I know. And so I thought that was just very, you know, a luminary illumination because I wouldn't have really thought that that was a benefit and also a distraction. But it's it's different people. That's why I say you have to go to different parts of the world to. Really understand how other people think what's important to them. You know, in Vietnam, family is everything. I mean, can I tell you this one quick story? Sure. I was I was in Vietnam in 2011 and then 2012 and first year I went to the market and we would always buy gifts and give them out to kids. Well, we did the same thing the next year and we got 200 backpacks, 200 galoshes and 200 pants because children in Vietnam don't wear bottoms until they're eight years old and everything. And and so we went up to the Northern Territory of Vietnam, up near the Chinese border. And I always had Deng with me. And and every day we went to a school and everything, or we would go to a cemetery just someplace really different.
And so we go up way in the mountainous region. There's a school for kindergarten first and second graders, and there are 122 children in this school. They will walk 3 to 4 hours in the morning, six days a week to school and everything and back. And so we walk up to this mountain. It's about a mile, about an hour and a half, excuse me, to walk up the mountain and we walk into the school and they have never seen an American and everything. So needless to say, school stops, the administrators come out and everything, and we have tea and everything. And I bring in the gifts for candy for the kids and the and the classrooms. And we brought galoshes for certain children and pants for others and backpacks, blue and pink for the for the kids and everything. Spent the whole day there. And I always would bring something also for the school and everything. And I asked Deng, I said, Deng, what can I offer to the school? And they said, Oh, Uncle Ha! And I was on Kaha Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh. So I was Uncle Ha. And they say, Oh, Uncle Ha, you know, they've always wanted a bathroom because now the children, they go out into the fields, the, the not even an outhouse, just. Oh they don't. Well that's what we put in. So I said oh so he said oh yes we'll be been saving money because we would like to put in a loo and everything. And I said oh that's really important. Well how much is the loo cost. Oh it's $40,000,200. Okay. I said oh that is a lot of money Deng. You know that as well as I do. And I, I said, now it's just really going to go for the, for the, for the lavatory. Oh yes. You know, children are the number one asset. And it is true. So of course I gave the money and everything and there was a big party and dancing and everything. Well, about three years later, Deng goes back in about 2015, I guess it was, and he had an Australian couple and they were telling the story and they were up in the Northern Territory and everything. And so they went up to the school and as they were walking up into the schoolyard, they looked over to the left and there was the lavatory and I said I had to go halfway around the world, pay $200 to get a bunch of kids sitting on a toilet and everything. And above the above the doorway is Uncle HaÕs bathroom, and they named it after me and everything. And, you know, but those are the things that bring more joy to my life than anything else. A picture of this. I don't even have it with me or whatever like that. But. But it was. But Deng sent me the thing. You actually, up until about a year ago, he couldn't take any pictures and send it back to the States. You could only send text and everything like that because they still control government. Oh my goodness. I actually just this year got a picture of them. He, his wife and his two kids and everything. And that was and I was like surprised that I got that picture or anything like that. But that's wild. But those are the things that help make life, that enrich your life and give a sense of purpose. And so when I meet with people, I don't oftentimes talk about what it is that they're asking me here to do. I tell them about my stories because I like to tell stories as you tell. 

John Coe- Well, and I've enjoyed this. You answered a lot of what I was going next to ask you your life priorities among family work and giving back. But maybe you can expound a little bit more on that. 

Harold Green- I mean, I mean, I think I've been successful in many ways. I've also been a failure with, I think, my first marriage and my two children that I have not really had a relationship with for a number of years and all. But they're grown and they have to make they make their own choices in life and everything, and you have to accept that. And so, you know, with everything that we do in life, their successes and there are failures and, you know, and you have to measure those and hopefully the successes out, out, out, perform those that are failures in your life and everything. And for me, I think it was, you know, early in the life, I worked seven days a week. And if I wasn't working, I was at the farm working, cutting fields, cutting grass, weeding and fence lines and everything else. And you need to find balance. And I would say that I as I have gotten older and especially in the last 5 to 7. Years. I have found balance in my life. And I think now going forward, you know, with now moving out of my current situation at Chamberlain and Jr and all these others and focusing on GE and everything, I will find even more balance in my life. And that's really important. So that's kind of how I see that. 

John Coe- So what advice would you give your 25 year old self today?

Harold Green- Well, my I fu Yeah, that's a good question. Wow. That's the only one that I me, I don't have a great answer to. And I've been I've usually had all my answers ready for you. God. I mean, I feel like I've had a good life. I really do. I mean, I feel like I've been fortunate. I've you know, when you see an opportunity, you have to take advantage of it. And so if you're 25 years old, if you see something, take advantage of it. Because whether it be that Apple in Russia or that book in Russia or a piece of art or an opportunity to travel or having dinner with that person, that may be just a friend and everything like that, take take advantage of those opportunities because they may not occur again. Did you ever think about going back to college? I did. One time I was going to go either to Wharton or Harvard, and you actually could get a college degree from your years of business experience. And over I think it was a 12 week period. And I looked into it very carefully in the early 90s or whatever. And it was a it was a time commitment of three months or whatever, and I just didn't feel like I had three months to give.

John Coe (01:46:52) - You probably now will have the time next year to do that. But I feel like, you know, you're curious enough to do that. 

Harold Green- I don't know if I could. I was not a great student in boarding school. I mean, I was a C student and everything like that. So I was I usually got more trouble than I was than anything else. But your curiosity, though, obviously going all those countries. Oh, God, yes. 

John Coe- You're very curious. 

Harold Green- I'm a very curious person. I mean, I I'm not curious when it comes to food and everything, but I am curious with people and and buildings and places and animals. I mean that. Yeah, I am. I am. So you have your own education, You have a college education and then some. Well, get different, I think a different type of education for sure. For sure. 

John Coe- So if you could post a statement on a on a billboard on the Capital Beltway for millions to see, what would it say there? Oh, God, you don't have to.

Harold Green - It's a billboard down. Yeah, I know it's a billboard. So I got to be careful about what I say in all that billboard. I think. I think the fewer the words are the best and everything what you put in to life, you get rewarded many times over. And that's through those relationships and just the just the happiness and the joy that you get out of doing things. So, you know, I don't know the specific words or whatever, but that's the feeling that I have that's great and all. And I just, you know, I'm grateful that we've had an opportunity for the last two hours to talk here. So hopefully, you know, and people have people who listen to this and you have a question or you'd love to talk with me. You know, John, I will share my has my cell phone number. I'll be on the show notes. And you're more more than welcome to pick up the phone and give me a buzz. That's great. Thank you. 

John Coe- Well, Harold Green, thank you very much for your time today.

Harold Green - Really appreciate it. I know that, too. And thank you for participating. Well, bless you.


[JC1]Harold Green, Founder of Chamberlain Contractors, a paving contractor in Maryland.  Started it when he was 19 right out of Prep School, deciding not to attend GWU.  Grew business steadily through a crisis in 1980 when his line was pulled.  Formed a Foam Based manufacturer and a recycling company leading to his new carbon capture venture called Global Emissionary.  Takeaways:
1. Early lessons about debt financingÉstay true to your efforts and work hard
2. Success has tradeoffs.  He worked too hard and sacrificed his early family life.  Balance would have been better in retrospect.
3. Enjoys his life after working very hard and having discipline.
4. Second marriage has given him perspective
5. Travel to learn about the world