>> Craig Gould: Cheryl McKissack Daniel, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. Cheryl, you are the CEO of McKissack and McKissack which is the oldest minority owned professional design and construction firm in the United States. And you’re the author of a new book about the family business titled the Black Family who built America. The McKissick’s two centuries of daring Pioneers. Cheryl, I just finished the book, and it is such an, amazing and interesting story, not only about your family’s journey, but also your own and how your life has unfolded. Yeah, I want to talk all about that, but, Cheryl, I like to start these conversations with one common question, which is, what are your memories of your first job?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Oh, love that question. because your first job is like a family. my first job was in New York City. I, remember graduating from grad school at Howard University in civil engineering and thinking the only place I ever want to work is New York City. I interviewed at four or five different engineering firms, and, I went to the job that paid me the most. And the reason why is because New York was so expensive to live, right? And I ended up at a company called Weilinger Engineering. And my, direct boss was the founder and owner of the company, Paul Weilinger. Paul. Paul was a very interesting, innovative man. And at the time, he was working on how to fortify and build stronger, military bases and barracks for the Marines, because the Marines had just gotten bombed. And so that was a very interesting place to start having to get clearance, to secret. Just all of that reading about, what bombs were out there and the devastation that they could cause. but it was like continuing in school, really being an intern, continuing in school. and so that first job, everyone I worked with became like a family member. They came to my first wedding.

>> Craig Gould: Oh, wow.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Which was in Nashville, Tennessee, where I am today, from New York City. And so, I just remember that job being so fulfilling, and I didn’t want to leave, but I had to go to, you know, the next job to move in in the direction that I wanted to move in, which was construction. So I left Weidlinger and I went.

>> Craig Gould: To Turner Construction, which sounds like it really opened a lot of doors over the years.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Also, Turner, Construction is, first of all, one of the largest construction companies in America, and they’re international now, of course, but I didn’t realize how much, we intertwined over the years in me building my business for my family. They have been strong supporters and partners for years. they have been ahead of the curve when it comes to minority and women owned businesses and working with them. you know, most, most competitors of ours, they do it when they have to. Turner does it because they want to. and whether an owner has a minority women owned business goal, Turner has its own internal goals that it abides by on every one of their projects. And you see that, you see that in their company and the people that work for them. It’s a very diverse company and that’s why they’re so strong and they have deep roots in our country when it comes to construction and they are a trusted partner to McKissack

>> Craig Gould: You mentioned your first job at Weilinger, but I think in the book you tell the story of you and your twin sister Daryl actually flipping burgers.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: That job, when you said first job, I thought you meant professional job. No.

>> Craig Gould: Well, you know, okay, I’m not going to judge. you know, we, we learn lessons and so do you carry anything from that first job? First job? Did you learn any lessons there?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Okay, so there’s a backstory. So then my very first job was working for my father at McKissack and McKissack And you know, at this time, it was in the 70s, well, mid-70s, and, he was paying us $1.25 an hour.

>> Craig Gould: I don’t think that’s illegal.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Even in the 70s, that’s what he was paying. And so my twin sister and I decided, well, we can go and work at McDonald’s. I think it was 350 an hour or something like that. Whatever. Minimum wage was 375. It wasn’t $4. So we left and we went and worked at McDonald’s. Now McDonald’s, I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun. once I made my way to the register, I mean, you start off in the fry department. That is not fun. It’s hot, it’s sweaty. and you don’t really make it to the grill. The grill is for people who know a little bit about cooking. but if you have a little bit of the gift of the gab and you’re quick on your feet, they’ll get you to a cash register. And so I met so many people. And one of the funny stories that McDonald’s is, we had a busload of like a basketball team or some type of sports team come into the the store one night and they all ordered cherry pies, but we gave them all apple pies, all the pies back with one bite out of them.

>> Craig Gould: Oh, my gosh.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: And one of the cherry pies. So it was fun. It was fun. So my father would come through the drive through where either my sister and I would were, and, he would just laugh. He would come through, get his milkshake, his McDonald’s, and he just laugh. Are you ready to come back to work yet? You know, they ask you to clean the bathrooms. I mean, you do everything at a McDonald’s, and so, you know, it got to be the downside was greater than the upside. So we were like, yeah, Dad, I think we’re ready to come back. So we only ended up working there about three months. but it was fun. It was fun.

>> Craig Gould: If nothing else, it helped you appreciate the rest of your career, right? I mean.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Oh, absolutely. You know, when you. When you see. When you work with adults that have to work at minimum wage, right, because maybe they haven’t decided to, you know, another profession, then you’re, you know, you can see, you’re thankful because it is hard work. You. You have to report in at a certain time. You know, you don’t make your own hours. you. You have a long line of managers above you, and so there’s a protocol for everything. If you mess that up, you know, your job is in jeopardy. And so, absolutely, it makes you very much appreciative of your next steps in your career. And I saw my twin sister posted something this weekend about McDonald’s, and seems like we’re in good company because Kamala Harris used to work at. She posted. She probably posted all these, famous people that worked at McDonald’s.

>> Craig Gould: Well, I mean, they’re. They’re you. You know, McDonald’s, Howard University. You know, you guys are basically long lost sisters, right?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: That’s true. There you are. Absolutely. Yes. I’ll never forget the first time I met Kamala Harris. We were getting an award together. and, you know, she was always destined to where she has, you know, excelled, too. And I remember thinking before we went up on stage, I’m like, kamala, do you have anything prepared? She said, no, not really. And I’m sitting there looking at my sister, my twin sister, because we were getting our word together. We’re laughing. We’re like, we definitely have nothing prepared. And Kamala gets up, she receives her award and pulls out a speech. And my twin sister and I look at each other. They’re like, okay, we have to bring our best right now.

>> Craig Gould: Oh, my gosh. When are you running for office, Cheryl?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yeah, that ship sailed. I think you read about some of it in the book.

>> Craig Gould: The book is really interesting because it seems like you’re really transparent in your own personal life, but just the story of your family is just so intriguing. I guess, a great place to start is where do you start to try to tell somebody who’s a stranger the extent of where your family’s business started and where it is today?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yeah, you know, I have been working on this book or some version of a way to tell our story since 2003. So it’s been over 20 years because it is a very difficult. Because it expands so much time, it’s very difficult to unpack it. And, you know, I finally teamed up with Nick Childs, and he had the secret sauce on just how to unpack something that. So much history, that spans over 213 years. but I have mastered my elevator speech because I can run through four generations of McKissick’s extremely quickly. And I usually start with Moses McKissack the first, who was the slave who came to America in 1790, because his story is extremely compelling. But what we do in the book is we try to, make a case as to how the McKissack lasted for five generations. And it all started with the fact that he landed in North Carolina and maybe not some other states. And in North Carolina, the, slave masters really had smaller groups of slaves. They weren’t the huge plantations. And the interesting thing about the huge plantations is, of course, if you are a white family in the south and you have 300 slaves working for you, you’re in minority. So then you have to keep certain type of rule over those slaves to make sure they don’t overtake you. but that mentality switches when you have only 10 slaves and. And they’re alongside of your family or any other workers that you’ve hired, working in the fields or building or what have you. and so, you know, I believe Moses McKissack the first was endeared by his slave master. and because of that, they developed a relationship. true, he was still a slave, but that was the times. Some slaves, you know, if they. If they left their property and the master didn’t know they were killed in North Carolina, if you killed a slave, you could go to jail or, you know, you could suffer some type of consequence. So it was a totally different mentality, where he was. So, like I said, you could go down a rabbit hole, just. Moses, my elevator speech isn’t working too good right now.

>> Craig Gould: No, no, no. But no, it’s interesting because, I mean, it’s the unfortunate circumstances that brings Moses to this country. But, you know, his master was a building contractor, right?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yeah.

>> Craig Gould: And so, you know, he winds up developing this trade, and I guess by all appearances was really skilled and really trusted at it, and that just started being passed down through the family.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So, Moses McKissack the second, he was a master carpenter, and he was known for his spiral staircases and his gingerbread finishes on homes, which was a really big deal in the south, in those times.

>> Craig Gould: Like the Maxwell House in, Nashville.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Correct, Right. So the Maxwell House, my grandfather was a part of that. So the story goes that, William, McKissack the slave master’s son, William McKissack got married to the Maxwell heir and moved to Spring Hill, Tennessee. And with that wedding, they gave them Moses, McKissack II. So Moses McKissack II was in Tennessee and married one of the Maxwell heirs, slaves, Dolly Ann. and so he also was top of trade of construction. M. And he was able to work on the Maxwell House Hotel that you are referring to where they were in Nashville, Tennessee, where there were five presidents that visited the Maxwell House Hotel, most notably Roosevelt, who said the coffee was good to the last drop, which became, I think, their tagline and branding at, ah, Maxwell House Coffee. What was interesting in that time is, you know, we were. We were going through emancipation, and so the slave masters still needed the crafts that the slaves were providing and services. if it was a cobbler, if it was domestic, or if it was like my grandparents who were builders, and so they helped them start their own business. And, you know, that’s another, to me, defining moment for my family. For the second generation in our family to have a business called McKissack Construction, that’s pretty incredible. but things turned. And as you read in the book, things began to turn after Hollywood came out with the movie, Birth of a Nation and began to paint black people as thieves and rapists and all these terrible connotations. And so, then their white patrons no longer wanted to patronize them. And, you know, that’s when Tulsa was set on fire and, you know, all black establishments were under attack. but somehow we get to the third generation, which is Moses McKissack III. They became what I call good old boys. Truly believe they have friends in the Klu Klux Klan, because how did they. How did they design the, court in the town square of Pulaski, Tennessee, where The Ku Klux Klan started. Okay, wow. How did they navigate all of their construction sites? Throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, black people couldn’t travel at night. and so, you know, they would leave their home in Tennessee and travel for several months to go see their crews in all these different locations. And, I mean, can you imagine today, if we left our crew unattended for two months, what we would find when we came back? But they would do that, and they couldn’t stay in hotels, they couldn’t eat in restaurants, so they would stay with friends and family. and so, you know, I just find all of that extremely fascinating. especially when I came back to Spring Hill to write, to begin to write this book, to stand there and look at the McKissack mansion that, you know, I know my great grandfather had a hand in. And looking at the Maxwell mansion that I’m sure they had a hand in as well. And thinking to myself, my God, how did they make it? And, and then the fact that I made it all the way to New York City to begin to build iconic projects. and for Moses to become the first black licensed architect in America and his brother Calvin to become the second with license 117 and 118. And these license used to hang in my New York office. I have now donated all of our artifacts to the national, mall in Washington. The, mall of African American history. Because I’ve lost them several times, I want to save them in perpetuity, so I’m giving them to the people who know how to do that. but to think that they became the first black licensed architects and had to go apply to take an exam in the Deep south, where there was so much hatred and bigotry and racism and how they were denied over and over again until eventually they were able to get their license or, take the exam and then to pass and have to still fight for their license. It’s just an incredible story. And, you know, when I’m in New York, even today, even now, when I hit an obstacle or a challenge, I think back to these men. I’m like, look at the shoulders I’m standing on. There is nothing I cannot accomplish right now. I can do whatever is in my preview. I can do it. If these men were able to get a license and to build everything that they build in that time. And then the company was passed down to my. To my father, who was also an architect and a builder. he was a very, gargarious, outgoing, individual. and he taught Us a lot. He taught us, you know, how to build relationships, you know, how to care for everyone. You know, how not to have respect. A person. that was exactly who he was. You know, my parents would go to events. He’s supposed to wear a tux. He’s like, I don’t feel like wearing a tux. I’m not wearing a tux. And he wouldn’t wear a tux. You know, he would his shoes. Like, if he had a corn on the side of his foot, he just put a slit right down the side of his shoe and didn’t think anything of it. and so he taught us, you know, to be respectful, respectful to everyone, regardless of their walk of life, and, you know, to understand how we fit in and that we have a place. and then when he became ill, our mother took over. Feisty lady.

>> Craig Gould: I really feel like that was one of the more inspiring parts of the book was how, you know, your father has a stroke and your mother just stepped up to the plate. And, you know, she brought her own strengths and her own capabilities to the job. And it was really intriguing because, it sounded like people. People understood what her strengths and capabilities were. And in that, some people also kind of took advantage of the fact that she didn’t have some of the strengths that your dad had and maybe were kind of doing things behind her back. I. I’m really interested to hear your perspective on your mother, because you would go out with your mom, kind of mirroring her on a lot of these biz dev calls, right? And it sound like she really would work a room.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yes, she definitely works a room. Matter of fact, she’d like to work her way right over to this interview right now.

>> Craig Gould: Should we invite her on?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: No, she’s in a wheelchair. It might be hard for her to access where I am right now, but. Yeah, maybe next time.

>> Craig Gould: Right.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: so the story of my mother is, you know, she’s always had an intuitive sense, and she knew it was time for me to come back to Nashville for whatever her reasons were, if it was time to mirror her and understand what she was doing, or if it was the knocks and bumps of being in New York City, trying to climb a ladder, where I knew I wasn’t going to be able to climb a ladder, whatever it was. She called up my boss and said, my daughter quits today. and she’s starting with me tomorrow. And then she called me and she said, cheryl, you quit today and you’re starting with me tomorrow. And I’m like, You Talked to my boss, and she’s like, I absolutely did. I’m like, what? I’m afraid of him. She’s like, well, I’m not. And so, I was at Turner Construction, and, you know, my boss was. Was very happy for me that, you know, I was taking this chance and going back to work with my mother. And that’s exactly what I did. The following week, I started commuting from New York to Nashville and working with my mother and going on all of these calls with her. We would get in a car early on a Monday. We would drive through Memphis, Tuskegee, you name it, all these places, Shelbyville, everywhere you could think of all these little towns, and we’d be on the road for days and come back to Nashville, like, on a Thursday night. And she was just so good. meeting with the president of Tuskegee University. And, you know, I remember him saying, you know, I really need a nice house for me to entertain in. And mom pointed to this old, dilapidated building called Gray Columns. She said, well, I see you living there. He’s like, huh? He’s like, that is full of lawn equipment. You know, everything in that house is broken down. And she’s like, but no, look at. Look at this house. It’s stately. You know, we can really fix it up. So, you know, mom, at that point, is making her own project. She’s making way for her own project, selling who she is. And, you know, what did I learn from that? I learned that you have to be solution oriented. You have to know your clients well enough, to. To be able to give them what they don’t even know they need already. And that’s exactly what she was doing for the president of Tuskegee University. And he commissioned her to design this building. It was. It became. It was beautiful, stately. And it became the president’s home at this university. But she had a pension for that all the time. If, you know, one time we went to visit, another one of the professors. Like, I guess it was the engineering building or something. We had just finished the work, and mom walks in. She’s so proud of it because we’re now at the ribbon cutting. And so the professor says, you know, Ms. M. McKinsey, it’s a beautiful building, but I told you I wanted operable windows. We are in the middle of Alabama in the summer. It is steamy, hot, and we cannot open a window. Mom’s like, you are absolutely right. I’m gonna get you new windows, and I’m gonna pay for it. And that’s what she did. And, you know, so the next building, guess what? They gave it to her. She would not go into a lawsuit over a project. She made sure that the client was satisfied with the service that she provided. So she is, She was just amazing. I mean, one time she told me, cheryl, today you’re going to do the sales pitch. And I’m like, I am not ready. I, like, I am just not ready for this. And so, we went to go see this guy Gentry crawl from. He, was with the school district for Tennessee, and he was the older white man. and, I mean, his skin was wrinkled, looked like road maps in his face, and his head was down the whole time. And so my mother said, hey, Mr. Crowley, how you doing? And. And so she. She says, my daughter’s gonna talk to you about our firm today. And so she says, cheryl. And so I couldn’t remember my name. Was so afraid of this guy. But, you know, I just start blurting. I just started getting it all out, and I’m like, I’m just gonna say it. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I don’t know if he’s gonna put me out of this office or what. And so at the end, he lifts his head up and he says, can you come over here, young lady? I thought it was like, the big bad wolf getting ready to eat me. He said. He puts his hand out, he shakes my hand. He’s like, young lady, I would absolutely like to do business with your family. And what did I learn? You know, people may not look like you. People may look like they’re not interested in what you’re saying. You know, people just may say. You may think they’re looking at you saying, what are you doing here? You don’t belong. But you can be so wrong with that. The bottom line is to go ahead and tell your story and let everybody know who you are. Define your space. Not letting anybody else define you. You define your space and let them receive it, because you don’t know what’s coming back. And so, I mean, these lessons I have taken through my entire life, when I’m going into a presentation and the room seems cold and, you know, nobody wants to really give you eye contact. I’m like, I’ve seen this before. I’ve seen this before. and I’m prepared, because I’m just going to tell them what I know. They can receive it or they can reject it.

>> Craig Gould: The story of McKissack and McKissack goes from being the story of your family to your story.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yes.

>> Craig Gould: You know, there’s a point where you continue to get drawn to the northeast, New York, specifically. And there’s the point where you decide that you want to take over the business and move it from Nashville to New York. And maybe, maybe you can tell me, but just reading about it, it just seems like a whole new ballgame. Yeah, right.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yeah.

>> Craig Gould: Can you. Can you tell me the motivations, the challenges, the lessons you learned moving that business and turning McKissack into something bigger than what the vision had been before?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you realize that you are now responsible for a company that’s been around almost 200 years, the responsibility is strong. And sometimes it can be completely overwhelming. But once you realize that you are the one that has to do it, you just step up to the plate and do what you have to do. And what I always felt to myself is I was drawn to New York for a reason. And, you know, I want to build this company and build it for posterity. Not just to post what I’ve done, but to build it for posterity so the next generation has something to work with. So I always felt like I wanted to invest, in the longevity of the company and keep it going. And, you know, how do you make that transition from your mother being the president and CEO to you being the president and CEO? And, you know, that that did not happen easily. I had to go out, create and establish my own company, become my own president and CEO with just myself, build a business, and then come back and take over my mother’s company. And so it just so happened that my mother was not well. Her blood pressure was high, and we were very concerned about her health. And a lot of that had to do with the people that she had brought into the business. That had to do with her management style, you know, her ability to press through, the challenges of being a woman in business. I think she was excellent at that. She used everything she learned in her degree, her master’s degree with psychology, she was a master of that. But then the other part of it is managing the people that work for you. And I began to see that those people were taking advantage of her, and that was creating frustration, disappointment. It was, you know, bringing the company down, and she couldn’t manage it, especially if your doctor tells you you need to go home and lay down for a minute to get your blood pressure down or you’ll be in the hospital. And so the first thing I did is I came home And I said, and mom was in the middle of working, and I walked into the office, and I kind of pulled what she had pulled on me. Mom, today is your last day. She’s like, no, it’s not.

>> Craig Gould: Well, I’ve called your boss while she was talking.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: I’m packing up all her stuff. Literally. I want to take the desk from under her to move her out. But mom said that day, when she walked out the office and she started thinking about the fact that I was ready to take over the business from her, she said she started doing leprechaun kicks all the way to her car because she was just so excited that she felt like it was in good hands. And at the same time, she. She was ready to retire. She was ready to just relax and, you know, help me from afar. And as you know, in the book, she continued to work with me in the business and helping me. You know, she joined our board. She made calls for me, you know, with a lot of political people when I needed it, because she still was who she was. She’s Lee McKissack And so, taking her out of that position, was very key. And then it was dealing with her staff, who now had to deal with me as a new boss. And I had studied them well, everyone. Well, I had a full plan. I knew I was going to go to Memphis and shut that office down. I knew I was going to Montgomery, and I was shutting that office down because I knew the leaders of those different offices were taking advantage of Mom. and sure enough, I show up in Memphis. The leader there has his own sign out. Not McKissack He has his last name out. Using all of our computers and equipment and copiers and printers boards and all of our stuff, I’m like, okay, this is over. And I took the next day or so, and I brought in people to pack up that office and literally take it back to New York and put it in a storage room. And then I went to, Montgomery, Alabama, and I did the same thing. And then I came to Nashville and secured it for a little bit longer. But then I started looking at my bandwidth, and, you know, you only have 24 hours in a day. and so do I really want to spend time in a market the size of Nashville, or do I want to spend time in a market in New York? And so I couldn’t do both because I was having children at this point, and, you know, I had to raise my kids. And so, I chose to close the Nashville office and to forge ahead and focus really, just on New York. and as you can imagine, New York is a huge market. I mean, right now it’s what, $70 billion in construction a year. and so back then, though, you know, the projects were probably two or $300 million. Now they’re in the billions. and so we were looking at projects like that as opposed to projects that were 5 or 6 or 10 million that we had in Nashville, Tennessee. we were somewhat an anomaly in New York. There were not other firms that were black, female owned with five generations of legacy. And, you know, I thought that was compelling. Now, some New Yorkers would tell you, well, if you didn’t do it in New York, we don’t want to hear about it. That was sort of the disqualifier. But I didn’t let that deter us in any way. and so building the business in New York was essential to where we are now. And, you know, that allowed me to establish McKissack even more, and now bring it back if I want to Nashville, Tennessee, or like central Florida, where we are now.

>> Craig Gould: One of the big stories you tell is, is about the project at the Barclay center and how your involvement starts and how much your involvement grows. I think is a really interesting story about, I guess we would call it the power of saying yes. Okay, right. You know, getting, getting your foot in the door. And then as the project goes on there, there are continued needs around you, and you’re like, you know, you keep raising your hand. Well, we’ll do it. You know, we’ll do it. But can you talk about the risk of sometimes maybe, I don’t want to say biting off more than you can chew, but, I mean, there are stories in the book where people are saying no to that work for a reason. That. The stuff that you’re volunteering for. And so can you kind of talk about some of the traps? Well, you know, there’s the story with the Barclays center, but there’s also the, the, the story that you tell in the book about the storm recovery. Right. Where there’s another case where you’re like, we’ll do it. We’ll get in there. And then. Not something you had a lot of experience in, and you had to learn really, really fast how to, you know, keep from disenfranchising everyone, even up, the governor’s aunt. Right. I mean, it’s, it’s a. It’s really interesting.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: You can’t make it up. Yeah, you know, I’m a civil engineer, and we’re all about Solving problems. And I feel as though I can solve a problem. And sometimes it’s the only way that we can get a foot in the door is by saying we can do this. And if someone else doesn’t want to do it because they have too much on their plate, then we will certainly make every effort to do it. And that’s exactly what we did with the Barclay Arena. The actual structure itself was being constructed by another construction management company. So the only thing left was the rail yard, and that was moving the rail to a temporary location and then to a permanent location. And it was time sensitive because the rail had to be moved and put back in place by a certain time for the arena to open. now, why people wouldn’t take that work, I don’t know. But, when I said, okay, we’ll do it, and the next week, I’ve got these 500 plans that roll across my entire conference room table. And I’m looking at them, and they look like a foreign entity, like a building something in outer space. I was like, oh, my God, how are we going to get this done? and so I just relaxed in that and began to make phone calls. And I brought in Mike Kalita, who had been at the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which is the transit rail, in the subways in New York City. And he came in and he helped me. But what’s so interesting about that is that’s what started our rail division, right? And so now we have several prime contracts at the MTA. In February, we started the MTA mentoring contract. It’s $120 million contract. and so, you know, these are the successful, where you roll the dice and it works well. You know, the same is true for the disaster recovery, where, you know, now we have a whole disaster recovery department. But I have had the experience where it wasn’t successful. And that is when we decided, okay, we’re going to do general contracting. And it doesn’t even matter what type of project we get. We didn’t look at who the clients were. We’re just going to build and do as much general contracting as we can over the next several years. And we did that. And we had bad clients, we had bad staff and bad projects. And that is a perfect storm for bringing a company under. At the same time, I had bad accounting. we had the highest revenues for those years that we’ve ever had, but we had negative profit. By the time it all came together and I figured out what was going on, we had negative a million dollars in retained earnings. In that moment, I learned that you create your own problem. So if you create it, you can get yourself out of it. So as much effort and desire that took you down that path, you’re now going to have to use all that effort to get out of it. And, you know, I just worked with one of my board members. I, came up with a plan, and I worked that plan. The first thing is call your bank. Let your bank know. Don’t hide from it. Because if they hear it from somewhere else or you miss a payment, you know what banks can do. They put you in that workout, and they work you out of, your business. So, you know, I called my banker, told my banker, gave him my plan. Over the next week or so, I fired about 50, 60 people. put some people on part time. You know, I gave a part of a business away to a senior leader who had messed it up. Okay, you mess it up, you want it, you have it. We don’t want it. We’re going back to our core business. And then I just brute force start selling in New York City, because New York is so big and so massive. That was my recovery plan, was to just start selling as much business as I could. And when your bank sees you get into trouble like that, that’s when they charge you more for the money, and that’s when they bring in consultants to watch what you’re doing. So they brought in a consultant, Tom Coffey, and he was like the best consultant. I could rely on him. And he eventually became our CFO after we got through all of this. But Tom was like, cheryl, you can get through this, but you’re going to have to put your head down and work for 18 months. Like, I’m, calling up vendors, telling them, I’m going to pay you, but I just don’t know when. But I’m going to pay you, but I don’t have the money now. It might be six months, it might be a year. You can sue me if you want. It doesn’t matter. Get in line. And that’s how it played out. I paid everyone. our line of credit was maxed out. We got our line of credit down to zero. It was just a turnaround. and it took 18 months. My bank made me their poster child. They took me on the road, speaking mainly telling people to tell your bank what’s going on from the very beginning.

>> Craig Gould: No, I think it’s. What’s really interesting is, like, I don’t know if it’s like a universal truth in business. And Life or if it’s something specific to your industry, but the need to maintain relationships, you know, whether that’s relationships with your bank, relationships with, you know, your, your employees, your customers. It sounds like you. You learn from one of the best and your mom in terms of nurturing these relationships. But you know what I find when I’m reading the book? It just seems like construction projects take so long, from the germ of an idea to getting it funded, to getting it launched, to getting it completed, that it becomes hard to maintain those relationships. Because maybe the money people come and go, things change hands. Political advocates that were championing, a project, they were in office, but they’re not in office anymore. People die. I mean, can you talk about just what seems like a real juggling act of all these relationships?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Everything that we do is centered around a relationship. you know, let’s just take my employees. you know, they’re out in the field. You know, you can’t be there every day. There has to be a level of trust. You can’t regulate it. These are people. and so you have to build a synergy around what our mission is and what we’re about and what we’re trying to achieve and, you know, what we need to accomplish and what their role is in that. and so maintaining those relationships are key. But then the other complicated part in construction is we’re managing the construction, but our subcontractors are building the construction, the construction. And, you know, it only takes one of them to get upset. And you’re already entangled with a contract, and they can, you know, stop a whole job. They can definitely slow down the schedule. And we’re tied to a schedule with an owner, so you have to maintain relationships with the owners and the managers of all your subcontractors. I mean, which could be anywhere from 5 or 6 to 80, 90, 100 subcontractors. and then, you know, building relationships with your bank. I build relationships with bankers I don’t even need, just in case I need them. You know, attorneys, other partners. We do a lot of joint ventures with other construction companies. we get a lot of work from designers. So then we have to build relationships with, design firms. and so, yes, you are out pressing the flesh.

>> Craig Gould: Well, there’s. There’s always Darrell, right?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: Yes. But she doesn’t do work in New York. most of her work is, you know, D.C. and Texas, so she’s not doing much in New York. so we’ve only had the opportunity to work together on A couple of projects. but architects, engineers, they’re all very valuable to the process of building a business. And so, you have to anticipate what you need before you need it because you don’t want to show up with somebody and ask them for something and, they don’t know who you are. But then you have to be, in turn, you have to be that trusted partner who is helpful, who’s mentoring, who’s out in the community doing what’s necessary. If it’s sitting on panels to judge architectural work, the hours that you’re giving away, that you’re not really working on what you need to work on, but you’re building a relationship is hours of that. like you said, political campaigns, they’re important. The State of New York, our budget in New York is $256 billion a year. You can’t ignore it. And so, we have to advocate for companies like ours. a member of, of the national association of Minority Contractors, the Women’s Builders Council. You know, all these things take time, but it’s all around building relationships. And so, yes, it’s a lot of moving parts and you just kind of have to keep, keep maintaining and building relationships, being the type of person that does what you say you’re going to do, the person who does show up. You know, I tell in the story that the New York Building Congress is like the number one association in New York City. I first went to the New York Building Congress in the late 80s, early 90s. I walked in, with Patricia Nettleship, who at the time, you know, I had worked for and Maybe out of 500 people, there were five or six women and I was the only black person in the room. And it was just this sea of men in suits. So, I look back on that and I’ve seen how the New York Building Congress has transitioned. it’s a lot more inclusive because the industry is much more inclusive and has more people of color and women in it. but to take that thought and to think now I am in the running to be the chair of the New York Building Congress. That has been a, 30 year process, but it happened through relationships. It happened through each one of those people in the Building Congress. That stage, that’s a part of its, of its structure that I built relationships with over the years. That’s how important it is.

>> Craig Gould: You know, what advice would you give someone that is looking at dealing with innovation, reinvention, maintaining a company culture? What advice can you give to, to Someone who is looking at taking a legacy brand, a legacy company, and is charged with growing it, evolving it. What advice can you give?

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: I think you have to understand what you do well, and you have to start from there. It’s all about, okay, what little area or, what. I don’t want to say little, but what area is it that you want to master? Because you do it well, you really bring the value there. And from that, then what people can help enhance that. You know, we’ve lived through this at McKissack just trying to find the right leadership for our company. What I thought I needed to do was to hire a struggle and hides and large salty part to bring in people. It never worked. And it never worked because they did not understand our culture. And then you look around and then you’ve had people in the company now for 15 to 20 years. They understand the culture, they’re committed to the company, and why not elevate them to the next level? And so we’re in a succession planning stage right this minute. you know, I plan to cut back in 2030. And so we are going to name a new president, CEO, coo, CFO and CDO in the beginning of the new year. which, is another component that people forget about, and that’s succession. You know, you got to put it in place because it’s happening one way or another. You may as well plan it. So for me, I feel like doing it now and giving myself, you know, four to five years to work it through so that the company can continue and, you know, making sure our company goes from that family business to the sustainable business, you know, from the entrepreneurial type way of doing things to the top management team. and that’s what I’ll be working on the next several years. But that’s exactly what a company needs. When you have a legacy and you’re re engineering, you got to figure out how to bring on the next generation.

>> Craig Gould: Cheryl, this has been a real honor for me. this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking time to with me today. The book is the Black Family who built America. The McKissick’s two centuries of daring Pioneers. Cheryl, thank you.

>> Cheryl McKissack Daniel: It’s been great Craig