Here’s the second installment in the Client Spotlight series. It’s a really long interview, but I’ve decided it works best to keep it together in one post.

I’ve known Brad Newman, Executive Director of Yavapai EXCEPTIONAL Industries (YEI!) here in Prescott, for about 15 years, and we teamed up to work together nearly ten years ago. YEI! is a program that provides meaningful work and volunteer opportunities for developmentally disabled people who live in Yavapai County. An outgrowth of the antiquated term “sheltered workshops,” YEI! is a thriving hub of business enterprise, a household name in my town, with locations in Prescott and Prescott Valley, and a long list of business partnerships.

Interestingly, on the day we met to conduct this interview, The Arizona Republic featured an article titled, “Non Profits Run Like Businesses.” The focus of the article was that in today’s economy, many non-profits are for the first time taking stock of where they stand financially and calling in consultants to help them create a sound business model. In the article, too, Allison Rapping, CEO of Phoenix-based Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits, comments that she has seen non-profits move toward increased business planning with creativity and innovation.

And, that segues nicely into today’s interview with Brad Newman. Even though we see each other regularly, I hadn’t ever had the chance to just sit down and ask him about his approach to his work. We talked about that and more over some really strong coffee at Prescott Coffee Roasters recently. Listening back to the interview, recorded on my iPod, I hear a very cool jazz CD playing in the background, along with the other voices of folks conversing over java. Might have worked great as a podcast, especially when Brad would spontaneously burst into song, but that’s going to have to be in the future. For now, ya have to read it.

ktcosmos: Brad, you’ve had this job for over 30 years now! Is your approach to management any different today as compared with 30 years ago?

B. Newman: Well, when I told our Industrial Services Manager, Bill Loughney, that I was sitting down to talk with you about my management style and how it’s different from thirty years ago, Bill said, “Your management style right now is different than and hour ago!” So, there you go.

I like to think that, going way back to my youth—19, 20, 21—when I worked at Easter Seals Camp I learned the power of sincere enthusiasm. I’m not making up my passion for the guys at YEI! It’s a real and powerful thing that I think comes through. Once I reached my illustrious 25th anniversary with the gig, I think I became even more aware of the payback in this kind of work. It was probably always there, but it’s about YEI!, not about me.

I ask myself and others, often, “Do you want me to RUN YEI! or do you want me to DIRECT it?” You know, do you want me to buy the toner? Or can somebody else do that? It’s all about empowerment and surrounding yourself with really good people. I love that people figure out good ways of doing things at work that I didn’t know anything about. Or that someone comes in and shows me a new form they came up. Or when someone who’s responsibility it wasn’t, ends up answering the phone and making some sales.

Today, I know that my job is to sell the ideas to the CEO or GM of the company we’re partnering with. You know, Brad and the CEO or GM, we talk and come up with the concept. Then I turn the execution of the project over to Bill, the Industrial Services Manager, who figures out exactly how we’ll do it and makes sure the job gets done on schedule and on budget.

Integrity and Spontaneity are what makes it all work today. We have the tight job descriptions, we have the organizational flow charts, we have the C.A.R.F. accreditation, showing that we choose to put ourselves up for evaluation even though it’s not required by the state. You can have the spontaneity if you have integrity.

ktcosmos: So, do you advocate formal business planning and goal setting, or is that more of a spontaneous thing for you? (ok�I already know the answer, but go ahead!)

B. Newman: Yes, I’m obviously very instinctual and spontaneous and even though that has changed a little over the years. Look at our new project – Grandma Lamure’s Spice ‘n Slice (a food product company YEI! has recently acquired). A local guy, Tom Cantlon, is writing a book about long time executives of area non profits. I saw his chapter on me and I laughed out loud: “very spontaneous … does more than he thinks … says more than he does … doesn’t really think about it … gets a gut feeling and goes.” And that’s very much how I am.

Here’s an example: I’m walking into a Rotary Club meeting one day to make a speech, and of course I had no idea what I was going to say. I saw a smashed aluminum can on the driveway, and I picked it up and put it in my coat. When it was time for my little speech, I pulled out the can and said, “We used to think this was waste. Something you throw away. Now we know a little applied technology that’s available to us in this modern age, and we see it as reclaimable material. Old thinking: Disabled people? Throw them away. Now, with a little more applied technology, they can be contributing members of the economy and community. Which way do you want to go? Overflowing landfills and institutions or recycling and rehabilitation?”

ktcosmos: To follow up on that, what fund-raising strategies have you found work best?

B. Newman: I’m not trying to pretend to be a student of marketing or anything like that, but let’s go back to some of Steve Forbes’ capitalist tools. (Brad is a huge fan of Forbes – in his office is an autographed picture of Brad and Steve). It don’t pay unless it sells. There are no unsold goods; there ARE a lot of unsold bads. Not every “good idea” deserves its own non profit agency with a paid executive director.

So, that said, you have to have a good idea and I think YEI! is a very good idea. There is just no arguing the OTHER side of YEI! For example: “No, these people should be in institutions, away from the general public and virtually hospitalized.” There’s no supporting argument for that, so therefore, we win. That’s it.

Second of all, a guy I know well told me a LONG time ago, “You know, Brad, people fund people.” Along those lines, then, why do I do volunteer work for Steve Forbes? Because I like him. I met him. I like HIM. I work for him.

As another example of this, I called the regional manager of Arizona Public Service (APS) because I heard they bought ten acres out at the airport. I could sure use an acre of that land as the site of our next plant. The answer I got went like this: “There is no organization we’d like to help more than YEI! There is nothing in town that works as well as YEI! Nobody has a better reputation.” And of course, he’s telling me no, but he’s also telling me things I love to hear and you say, “that’s what we’ve worked to build for thirty two years.”

So, good stewardship seems to just attract support and donors.

ktcosmos: How exactly does YEI! attract business partners?

B. Newman: I get the chance to travel around the state and talk to other groups about how we get our projects going. Whether I’m describing our picnic table business or any of our other activities, it comes back to this: It’s a good deal. AND it helps handicapped people. You get a better product for half the price you’d pay somewhere else.

Another of our business partners tells us that when clients find out that the cremation trays we supply were made here, families love knowing that. Nothing sells itself, but our products are good and our projects do make people feel good.

ktcosmos: Can you share any hunches you followed through on that worked out great?

B. Newman: Well, I’m thinking of some of the software solutions we’ve come up with. I don’t know anything about programming, but sometimes I’ll get an idea, or spot something like, when I went in to sign one of my kids out of a program for the day, and there was a computerized sign in and sign out system. I asked around and was told that “one of our parents. Mr. _______ is retired executive from Microsoft. He designed the software for us.” What a wonderful, sweet, talented guy he turned out to be!

So, we brought him in and he developed the same software for us, and he charges us nothing for support. All I had to say to him was “make it do this.” So that, when Janie downstairs says, “I made a Ruger clip,” it charges Ruger, it records a payment to YEI!, it reports to Linda that Janie got that done, when I head over to Sharlot Hall with Josh to clean the windows, it says I was in community service for an hour and a half, when I sit down with Mona to learn how to make lunch, it shows I was in instruction for an hour.

Now we’re not chasing everyone down all day to write down who’s doing what where when. At the end of the month you push a button and you have a report that accounts for everybody’s whereabouts, activities, broken down by employment, instruction and community.

And then, I’m a hometown guy. I think it’s all about relationships. When we put in a new heating and cooling system, we always use the same guy. When we start a new capital building project, we use the same builder. That hunch worked out very well for us. It also means that when we start a new project, we know exactly how much material we need, how long it will take, who the subs will be, and that saves us a lot of time and money. Of COURSE building the second group home is easier than building the FIRST group home.

ktcosmos: And what about the flip side of that question?

In 1977 I lost big. This was a very big learning experience for me.

In fact, last week I was confronted with that mistake when I walked in from Prescott Valley and Linda (one of our employees) said, “Bill ______ was just here!” Bill _____ was working here when I first arrived in town, back when our place was called Yavapai Rehab Center.

When I came for my interview in October 1975, Bill _____ and I met and shook hands and I immediately thought to myself “he’s gotta go!” I looked around and saw that all the YEI! guys were assembling printed electronic circuit boards for Global Wulfsberg. 14 workers, dark room, cold old building. I remember an employee sitting, working with a client at that table looking up at me with hope in her eyes, as if to say, “help us out!”

This was a $4000/month task: a very sophisticated—overlay cards, color coded training, each circuit board worth about $2000.

I show up, and the former Easter Seals camp director in me says, “What we’re gonna do is have different activities every period, and, by the way, what we need do is light up the place, get some music, paint a mural on the wall, etc. etc.” I ended up being ROUNDLY criticized for my action, not so much for bringing in a radio, but for not accepting the value of the work that was being done then. In my camp director mindset, I basically fouled up that entire contract with Global Wulfsberg and a year later it was gone.

Another thing I did that precipitated the end of that contract was this: I came home one night after I’d been in town for about three months and read a headline in our local paper that said, “Prescott City Council to Endorse Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant.” Essentially, APS had a little resolution/proclamation they were circulating throughout Arizona, just to get support from the various cities. I went down to the city council meeting and made some public comments against that proclamation. The mayor kind of scolded me from the podium, but another town father ended up making a motion that the matter be tabled.

The next day, the big headline in the paper was: “Rehab Director Pans Nuclear Power Plant and APS.” Right then, a truck pulls up, and the GM of Global Wulfsberg comes into my office and says, “You know, Mr. Newman, some the businesses on the Global board disagree with you and we want nothing to do with anything you have anything to do with.”

Then, Bill _____ (yes, the same guy who walked in here last week), said to me, “You know, contracts have dropped, quality has dropped, delivery time has dropped” and then he basically just stomps out of the building.

At our next board meeting, two members said, “Look, this Bill _____ guy has to go, right now.” I said to them, “Look, here’s what happened, here’s what I did and what I’m going to do about it.” I pretty much felt like that was the end for me, but within three months Bill ____ was gone and somehow I was still around.

So when Bill showed up in town last week, he was going around asking what had happened to the Rehab Center. Finally someone over at Sharlot Hall Museum told him, “No, it’s called YEI! now–those kids are so nice! They come over and wash our windows and yada yada,” and gave him directions.

After missing me the first time he stopped in, Bill comes by the next day. I got the chance to say to him, “I am sorry that I didn’t figure it out sooner. You’re a father, you’re a coach, you know” … it was neat … “you know that when you teach, the lesson doesn’t often land for ten or fifteen years. Today we’re rootin’ – tootin’ – salutin’ productive and I’m just so sorry I didn’t figure it out. I KNOW what you put into that Global job and I know I goofed it up and I’m sorry.”

Then HE said to me, “Thank you for taking such good care of what we worked so hard to build. It’s obvious that what you’ve done here — there’s no way we could have accomplished that much.” Wow.

Another mistake I have made is in keeping people around longer than I should; in the earlier years, I am sure I allowed people to take advantage of me because they saw me as the nice guy. I am a very slow burn, and I hate the idea of ending someone’s employment because I always want to believe that “I can change you and you’re gonna come around.” But, I know this has been hard for the organization.

I really believe in my heart that a friendship doesn’t overcast my responsibilities to the organization. It’s been very helpful in the aftermath of some difficult staff decisions to be able to clearly recognize that FIRST comes the comfort and safety of the YEI! guys, NEXT comes the obligation to the organization, ensuring that it survives, and LAST is the relationship with staff. I love the staff, but I can now easily look someone in the eye and say something like, “This is starting to sound like a former co-worker of yours.”

ktcosmos: You have a boatload of talents: on top of being an award-winning executive director of an established successful NPO, you’re a local celebrity. You’re an actor, public speaker, comedian, musician, a river guide and an athlete. What fuels those pursuits?

B. Newman: Well, advocate means to speak for, and I can speak for what some of our people’s lives would have been if not for this organization. There are many in this town who’ve done far more for handicapped people that I ever have. I’m just the clerk and cheerleader. But, could I do as much if I were a senator or congressman, or working for some state agency instead? I don’t think so.

So, you could say that I am branded, and I know that. A former board member was actually very critical of my appearances at other organization’s events but I always believe that everything I do, every appearance I make, benefits YEI! If I cohost Arizona Morning, or cover Steve Blair’s radio show, perform at Coyote Joe’s, Olsen’s Grain Ad, it’s then all about YEI!

ktcosmos: How are you able to combine all those activities and make it all work?

Henry Dahlberg, a close friend of mine since I was 16, was watching me open the mail one day. He noticed my “process” was like this: “Oh great! Oh good! Wow! Oh great! Oh great! Oh no! Oh great! Oh no! Ohhhh! Oh Great!” Then, not right away, but a week or so later, he referred to me as an example of compartmentalization. It’s kind of a joke, but you know, if someone walks up to me when I am performing and says, “I’ve heard all about YEI! and I would like to work there.” I’ll answer, “That’s great, but that’s a different Brad.”

I also really like Steven Covey and the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” and I try to re-listen to that while I’m on the Stairmaster at least once a year. One of the things he says is, “If you want to give yourself some free time, schedule yourself tight.” So, you know, on my way here I had a call from Patricia at the office reminding me, “Don’t forget, you have an appointment with Katie at 9:30.”

Too, I’m just a very lucky guy. I get a lot of goodies at work, and I remind myself of that every day.

ktcosmos: What about mentors? Heroes? Spirit Guides? Who made a difference in your life?

Henry’s ten years older than me, and has had a huge influence on me since I met him the summer I was 16 and he wa 26. That same summer I was re-introduced to my Uncle Tom Bradley, who was the same age as Henry. I got sent out to cowboy at his family’s horse farm on the east coast.

I had the benefit of a Jesuit education. If I had to pick one guy out of that experience, I’d pick the Vice-Principal, Father Hanley. A former marine. I remember him telling me, “You are a total loon. I don’t want to curb that enthusiasm, but I gotta redirect that behavior.”

ktcosmos: And you heard that?

B. Newman: I would say I’m STILL hearing it. Brophy College Prep Graduation. Ninety-three guys graduate. You know, Tom Rusing (an doctor in Prescott), Kevin Kapp (Superintendant of Prescott Unified Schools). I’m the only guy not enrolled in college already on the night of graduation. I’m also the student body president, the English and Drama award recipient, and the person who also served more detention time than any other student, there I am. Then I went off to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

Then there’s Speed Richardson. He’s the cowboy that liked to say, “Between Mary Newman and I, we raised every goddamned kid in goddamned Paradise Valley. And he did! Not only in horsemanship and cattle, but he was a real guy’s guy. You can see him in a lot of artwork depicted in my home and office. He was just the real deal. You know, you’re five years old and venturing off … the next place over from your house is his stables, which were a mile and a half away, all eight of us kids rode all day long, especially my sister Annie and me. For eighteen years. Everybody rode, but not everybody was totally absorbed by it the way I was.

So, Speed, Father Hanley, Henry, My Uncle Tom, The Easter Seals Guy, Dennis Allmon—we’re still in touch… that enthusiasm and humor of his was a big influence. These guys were all about 26 years old when I met them and they were just so hip! I mean, they listened to the Beatles. Or, actually, they’re not Beatles people, they’re Peter, Paul and Mary people—beatnik people. Little did I know that two months before I met Henry, a very good friend of his committed suicide. Henry told me thirty years later that “Martin closes the door and then you walk in.” Now, they were contemporaries, and I am the student to Henry’s master, but that’s it. A lot of very important influences.

ktcosmos: Thank you, Brad.

B. Newman: See ya, Katie.