So, I'm involved; also, the Cosmopolitan Chamber of Commerce [Chicago, Illinois], and this is where the clock kind of swings around. In 1972, I passed the CPA [certified public accountant] exam. That's another, I'm one of those stories. It's hard to imagine and it just speaks to how we've been denied opportunity, but in 1972, I passed the CPA exam, November. I was the 68th black CPA in the state, in the history of the State of Illinois. Now, I mean you can celebrate that, but it means, to me it's a tragedy. Now there are hundreds of black CPAs, but at the time we were less than 100, and you know Lester, and [HistoryMaker] Jim [James] Hill [Jr.], they came before--[HistoryMaker] Lester McKeever, they all came before me, but in the history of the state, to be number sixty-eight tells me that there's a problem. But, what happened, and even there it speaks to the whole issue of race, again about Arthur Andersen [Chicago, Illinois], and there's another brother there, Reggie Burton [ph.], who was another black person who started the same as me, University of Chicago [Chicago, Illinois], M.B.A., Roosevelt [University, Chicago, Illinois] undergraduate, very--I wouldn't call it arrogant, but very full of himself. Well, [HistoryMaker] Ralph [G. Moore], he went to SIU [Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois]. That exam should be pretty tough for a year but, you know, you should do, you know, study hard, you might do okay. You might make it through. So, we took the same exam, right. Long story short, the results came out. I passed it the first time and, a matter of fact, it was one of those tests November '72 [1972] test, I look back and look at the statistics, only 12 percent of the people who took it the first time passed it. Reggie Burton, who was, needless to say he didn't pass it, not only did he not pass it that time, he took it another seven times before he passed it, so I was very, that was one of those moments. I said, we partied, but we got a couple things done.$$You said accounting is an exact science, so you know it or you don't.$$You either know it or you don't. But I think the other issue, I mean the reason I go back and tell that story is that just to be an accountant, you know, not to, to be able to use these tools for the betterment of the community really is what makes it so good for me. So, I volunteered, I've done work with the National Association of Black Accountants [NABA]. We formed a group called the National CPA Society [ph.], which were the first CPAs, and is trying to help other accounting students come through the program, accounting programs. So, it's been a number, I've done a number of things in the community.$One of the stories I tell in our training, we talk about the value proposition. We [Moore and his daughter, Avery Moore] were in a grocery store. She's nine years old. Now, your daughter is fourteen. When she was nine, when you turned into the cereal aisle of the grocery store, you lose control. Whatever is going to go in that cart, she's, she already knows what she wants. She, some Co-Co this or something she saw on TV. So, when we got to the, she reached for her favorite cereal, which was from a company that was not doing that much with supplier diversity at the time. I said, "Well Avery, let's look at this. This company doesn't do much with minority vendors. So, if we give them our money, that money's gonna go straight outside the community. None of it will ever come back into the community." Now here's the--Cap'n Crunch. I always thought it was Captain but it's Cap'n, Quaker Oats. "Cap'n Crunch--now here's a product that you love. I've seen you eat it, Quaker Oats does a lot of work in the community and when we give them our money, that money, they give money back to our community and that money floats around and some of that money ends up in my checking account, and that's the money I take you to [Walt] Disney World [Orlando, Florida] with." And she looked like wait a minute! No Disney World, Disney World??? Why didn't you tell me?? She was mad that I hadn't told her before that if we buy products from, in our house there's only good companies or bad companies. The good companies work with minority vendors, the bad companies don't. So, the good companies are the ones we support. Same thing when she goes shopping. Now, you've heard about the Tommy Hilfiger problem, true or false, Tommy Hilfiger doesn't seem to do a lot in my community. So, we don't buy Tommy Hilfiger. That was a tough lesson for her because she was, you know, it was a big thing for her. My only point to her was we have to shop with companies that have, that are members, that are national members of the national supplier, the NMSDC, the National Minority Supplier Development Council [New York, New York]. Nordstrom's is a member, Express is a member, Limited is a member, which owns Express, Bloomingdale's is a member (unclear) stores, so it turned out that all of the stores that she would like to shop at are members. So, now, what's the one that had a Ghettopoly game, Urban Outfitters, they're not a member, and they, and plus after that Ghettopoly mess, we don't give 'em any of our money. But the reality is there's enough good companies out there that we can support, and the things I tell her, if you can't buy from a black company, buy from a black salesman in a white company. And if you can't buy from a black salesman in a white company, buy from a company that at least works with black businesses and minority businesses. So, she's armed and ready. Again, if we could get more people thinking like her, we could turn this around. You have companies like SONY records [Sony Music Entertainment, Inc., New York, New York], and my lawyer told me to stop calling names, probably because it's amazing how people hear what I say, 'cause I speak a lot around the country. But, you have companies like SONY records, who don't do anything with supplier diversity. How dare you take all that money out of our community with rap music and not do anything with minority and black vendors! It's crazy. So, there's another point in my career, after I get to this plateau where everything's working fine. I get the book written, I'm going on a one-man crusade to help educate black consumers, minority consumers, so we can start buying from companies that do business with us. And that's really been, that would be the final chapter of my career; that I've done very well in creating the strategies for companies who get it to do well, but now we have to go after those companies who don't get it.
