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Life After Catastrophe

Written by: James Chan

Article Overview: Robert Booker is a successful African-American entrepreneur. He tells his own story on how he succeeded in getting back on his feet by evolving from a business that went under to starting another new business.

Life After Catastrophe

In 1990, Robert J. Booker felt like he was on top of the world. He owned a company that was the sole supplier of a key component of IBM~{!/~}s mainframes. Another product was part of the US Army~{!/~}s bombs. He also made assemblies for General Electric and other large companies. His product line of spare parts was diverse and not dependent on any single industry.

He also felt that he was benefiting his fellow African Americans. His inner-city factory was running three shifts around the clock, and most of the workers were highly skilled black workers whose previous employers had departed for suburban locations. He was considered a leader of the community and was proud to think of himself as a role model who might inspire other African American young people to educate themselves and contribute to the community.

~{!0~}I really thought that life at that point was just a question of bringing in more orders, retiring my debts and then just growing,~{!1~} Robert says.

His first worry came during the summer of 1991 when IBM sent a team of engineers to review the quality and capability of the factory. ~{!0~}They were rude and abrasive, and I thought they were looking for reasons to terminate us as a contractor,~{!1~} he explains. But at the end of a full day of poking around the plant and asking pointed questions, the head of the team told Robert that the visit was occasioned by IBM~{!/~}s desire to increase its order. ~{!0~}He told me that they had to find out if we were as good as they thought we were, and that we had passed the test.~{!1~} The order was increased by 30 percent.

Then, only three weeks after the big new order had come through, IBM told Robert that the company would cancel all its orders. The mainframe business had essentially collapsed, and IBM was left with an enormous and expensive inventory. Robert~{!/~}s business with IBM was over.

Three months after that, Robert got word from the Army that it was canceling all of its orders for military spare parts. The end of the Cold War was forcing cancellation of weapons orders and spurring the consolidation of defense contractors. This was a second, damaging blow.

Less dramatically, but just as devastating to Robert~{!/~}s business, was the emergence of China as a major supplier of industrial components. With their low labor costs, the Chinese could make electronic cable assemblies for less than 10 percent of Robert~{!/~}s costs. The diversity of products and customers in which he had placed his faith did Robert no good. China~{!/~}s cost advantage was so compelling that nearly all his customers disappeared.

~{!0~}I had worked hard during all of my career,~{!1~} Robert says. ~{!0~}I worked long hours. I didn~{!/~}t do drugs or girls. I didn~{!/~}t have a pretentious lifestyle. Then my world collapsed all around me.~{!1~}

He says it pained him to lay off his employees. In many cases, both husband and wife worked at the plant to support their families. He knew that the loss of their jobs would devastate his workers, because in that place and time there were literally no other opportunities. But Robert had little choice. Soon, the business was bankrupt.

Still, he was an entrepreneur, and he retained faith in his basic approach. The success of his previous business was, he felt, his ability to identify a highly skilled labor force that nobody else had recognized, mostly because few had cars to commute to jobs outside of the city.

~{!0~}Opportunity exists where there is either a problem or there is no competition,~{!1~} Robert says. He recalls a football coach who used to tell him, ~{!0~}Take this ball and run it where they ain~{!/~}t.~{!1~}

He spent a lot of time trying to analyze what he should do next, though his current career began more or less by accident. Some friends had asked him to help out with a newspaper they were thinking of starting. Robert was interested in newspapers because he has strong convictions about how African Americans should deal with racism and poverty.

~{!0~}Black people look at government, the law, and politics as the way to remedy the evils of racism, repression and injustice,~{!1~} he says. ~{!0~}Since these types of remediation have never worked anywhere, any time in the history of the world, the faith of black people in these institutions has always seemed misplaced to me. The link between the white world and the black world is money.~{!1~}

So Robert started looking at the economic power of African Americans in the Philadelphia region. He found that the black and Hispanic population living in the city~{!/~}s suburban ring earned $11 billion each year, but that there was no advertising medium directed specifically at them.

~{!0~}Just about every other ethnic or community group has its own newspaper,~{!1~} he says. ~{!0~}Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, even debutantes have their own newspaper. It is well known that African Americans are huge consumers. We save less and spend more than other ethnic groups.~{!1~}

In 1996, Robert started the Suburban Black Journal, a monthly circulated to 80,000 readers. He is the sole proprietor and half of a staff of two. He hires freelance writers, some of whom have views with which he strongly disagrees. ~{!0~}The goal is to stimulate my readers~{!/~} interest,~{!1~} he says. ~{!0~}My sole purpose is to make money.~{!1~}

Robert is working out of his house. He is no longer a powerful industrialist. But he is back in business, looking once again to find an opportunity in the African American community that others ignored.

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Article Tags: african americans, bombs, capability, clock, debts, desire, fellow, general electric, inner city, mainframe, mainframes, pointed questions, role model, sole supplier, spare parts, suburban locations, three months, top of the world, us army, worry



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