Engineering Executive

You were asking me about my history a little bit. I came in the business with Dad [Ralph C. Tyler] after he had heart attack and stroke, and I was trying to buy a manufacturing company and my mother [Mabel Webb Tyler] said, "Well, can you help your dad out?" And I went to the hospital and he said, "Well, I don't care what you do with the company. I had heart attack, a stroke, I just need to calm down in my life and get the pressure off of me, and you can do whatever you want." So I went in with my personal understanding that I'd be there for six months, shut it down, and go back to doing what I had come to find out that I really loved, which was in the industrial manufacturing arena. And this was after, you know, the experience of having graduated from law school [Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cleveland, Ohio] and undergraduate school at Ohio State [The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio], and working for Citibank and then a company called TRW [TRW, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio]. I thought it would be a short term stint and I'd get everything shut down. And the company had actually gone into bankruptcy. And, when I got here, I found out maybe I had something that I was looking for and it was ability to lead an organization, and become successful with that organization. And I had a willing buyer because he didn't make me pay anything for it, and although it was bankrupt and I would subsequently use all my personal resources to pull the company out of bankruptcy, I--$$Or a willing seller you mean, your father, right, he was willing to sell it to you (simultaneous)?$$(Simultaneous) Yeah, he was, he was, he was a seller in a way, because he, he was still willing to mentor me in the business and from a technical standpoint you couldn't have found a finer engineer. And from a business marketing, financial standpoint, you probably couldn't find a better partner in the business. And I had--I'm not--maybe I'm patting myself on the back but at least it was somebody that he could trust and knew that he, they had his best interest at heart. So we started out, of the ten or so people we had, we fired all but two or three and started from scratch, and built an organization now that has a--well over a hundred people nationally, a hundred people in Cleveland [Ohio] and more than that nationally in two distinct corporations, one company that's actually still owned by my father or my father's trust, that's Ralph C. Tyler, P.E. P.S. [Ralph C. Tyler, P.E. P.S., Inc.; Ralph Tyler Companies, Cleveland, Ohio] and RCT Engineering [RCT Engineering, Inc., West Palm Beach, Florida], a company that I own in Florida.$$Okay.$$The experience has been--you couldn't ask for a better period of time of the six or seven years I worked with my father.$(Simultaneous) What was the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome in making this a successful--?$$The lack of financial resources and the ability to secure good talent to work on projects, and get projects done in a cost-effective way. African Americans aren't traditionally accepted very well in professional service arena, and, so a lot of, and in a lot of ways you're, even in today's enlightened market, you still are a pioneer in educating people that you can do services just as well--professional services just as well as anyone else. And we still, even with the accomplishments we've made in development of people and project lists, and resumes, and hist- as to all type of both historical as well as current data that reflects our competence, every day you're still trying to go out and prove yourself professionally. And, my dad [Ralph C. Tyler] use to say, "You know, son, no one's ever gonna ask us to do minority engineering, so don't try to sell minority engineering. Sell the professional services that we have to offer and that you'll do it, and do it right the first time and if you get it, you make a mistake, you're gonna stand by your work, and you're gonna do it right the second time." And, he was very adamant about that kind of thing. And, while there are some good solid programs that are being attacked nationally, we still need to have strong minority business programs that encourage African Americans to become entrepreneurs and business leaders because that's the way you can have the political force and clout you need to have to be successful in this very competitive American business environment.