The Warehouse Floor to Boardroom: Secrets of a Trade Titan

Machine Operated Script:

Speaker 1 

I couldn’t do it all by myself. Initially, there were many other things that went on to being in commerce. All I knew was the government, and it was a little bit rough. So for three years, I slept on the floor in the warehouse pretty much. And my wife, who is also a USDA inspector, she went ahead and sustained us before

Annik  

we get started with the show. Here’s a quick word from our sponsor, global Training Center. As trade compliance professionals, you want to make sure that your procedures and documentation are completed as correctly as possible to avoid any delays and possible fines, we provide a range of trade compliance courses that will fit your needs, from in person or web training to recorded on demand courses. We can train one or even 1000s on your team through your learning platform or on our portal. We can even customize a private session for your team. Go to globaltrainingcenter.com to find out more.

Lalo  

I guess before we get started in this episode, I do want to make a PSA of sorts. We are our podcast is getting ready to celebrate our 300th episode, and that this episode is actually 298, so our 300th episode will be recording next week, and it’s going to be, we’re asking just anybody that listens to the podcast who has not been on the show and wants to come on the show, and we’ll just talk about the podcast and your experience and anything, whatever you know you know how this show goes. So if you all are listeners, and you’re listening to this podcast right now, which you should be today, Thursday. Give us a The show will be recorded on Wednesday, April 30, so that’s the thing. At 10am Central. If you’re interested in coming on the show, please reach out to me or Andy on LinkedIn. Reach out to our email, which is simply trade at global training center.com and just let us know that you’re interested. So, and by the way, if somebody’s listening to this show randomly, and it’s, we’re in 2025 by the way, so, I mean, we, we have people listening to shows from way, when we first started. I mean, it’s, it’s crazy. I still see hits on the first show, you know. So anyway, so anyway, Andy, I just want to make, wanted to get this out. Okay, so anyway, so that’s what’s going on right now. And I really want to make sure that we get some listeners or fans that want to come on the show and and just chat with us and with Annick and and myself and and with you, Andy,

Andy  

and there’s a lot of folks that we discovered whenever we get to do a public appearance, Lalo and I are so humbled by it. And there’s always, without exception, every single time, there’s going to be some kind of surprise for us, and people will walk up and they’ll tell us stories about the show and whatnot. But what, what really gets us is there are several listeners that their spouses or boyfriends or girlfriends, or whoever you know, their significant others will listen to our show that is in the import, export, you know, trade, supply chain, compliance and all. And they themselves are not but they get they they are listening to us. And y’all we thank you for all that. But hey, if you want to be on the show, please let us know. You know, send us a note or and reach out to us, because I want to tell you that is some, there are some really great stories. So if you want to be on the show, it now’s time step up. It’s wonderful. So

Lalo  

again, you all know that we were at icpa About a month ago in Orlando, and we were at a networking session, and I ran into a couple of folks who came on our show for for trade insight.ai, which is a software that does a classification, of course, with AI, et cetera. So one of the owners, his name is Hal Berman, and he, or one of co founders, I should say he is Hal Berman, and we sat there, I’m not lying about a couple hours, just talking most of the time we’re sitting there. And hell is that. It’s one of those people kind of like you Andy that’s got the gift of gab. I mean, these guys can really, he talks really well, and you can just, he goes story after story after story. Come to find out, 90% of those stories were about his father. So his dad is a licensed Customs broker, but so I said, we gotta have Howard on the show. We’ve got to have your dad on the show.

Speaker 1 

I don’t know if I’m qualified to introduce myself. I’m married. I’m not allowed to make any decisions. So having said that, I. Started in the industry in 1978 I believe, yeah, I graduated college from Kansas State University with a degree in agronomy, and I was recruited by USDA, along with 1000s of other young people to become an inspector inspecting imported cargo. The agency’s USDA, A, P, h, i, s, p, p, q, which stands for animal Plant Health Inspection, service, plant protection, quarantine, and they call themselves the first line of defense for agricultural interceptions. I did four years working for the government as an import agriculture inspector, and they send you off to new office or training school and and you learn a lot of interesting things, things you never exposed to in the academic world, and they send you out there to find books and and we did, and I was fortunate enough to work at JFK airport, which is a very busy place, and You do everything from export certificates to live animals, to fresh cut flowers, meat, meat by products. It just goes on and on, and it’s all under the umbrella of protecting American agriculture. So after four years with USDA, I realized that the government moves it one and one gear slow in reverse, so I wasn’t cut out to be an inspector, although I did notice that at JFK Airport, whenever we found perishables that had a quarantine Significant insect in it, the importer was given the option to re export it at their expense, to incinerate it at their expense, under USDA supervision, or if there was a treatment scheduled to have the insects treated at their expense. And there were no treatment facilities at the airport. There was one in Manhattan, New York, and there was one in New Jersey, at the pier. And being a little bit of an entrepreneur, I said, You know what, I’m going to try this. So I studied up. And at the time, this was 1982 now you were able to withdraw your your retirement money that you put away with the government and spend it. So that’s what I did. I took my $7,000 that I accumulated over those four years, and I opened agri Services Limited, which is a fumigation station at JFK. And immediately I realized that in order to make this commitment, you have to be open seven days a week. So I couldn’t do it all by myself. Initially, there were many other things that went on to being in commerce, all I know is the government, and it was a little bit rough. So for three years, I slept on the floor in the warehouse pretty much. And my wife, who is also a USDA inspector, she went ahead and sustained us and but it was the American Dream for us and my family. And we went from me and I brought on a business partner for a third, who later became a full 50% owner. And we, like I said, the American dream. We went from the two of us to the height before COVID, having 88 people working for us, and we had opened and closed offices in different cities, and we found that our our business model was too hands on. We couldn’t bring in evaluated partners, put them in an office and expect them to have the same level of commitment that Frank and I had, Frank’s my partner, and then when I felt I had earned enough money and the holes in my stomach were getting big enough from all the acid and the headaches, I told my partner, I can’t do this anymore. I told my wife, I can’t do this anymore. And they both said, What are you talking about? You’re young, and you’re making too much money to leave. And I said, If I don’t leave, I’ll either have a heart attack or a stroke. I’m not the type of guy that can let somebody else do it. And my wife said, Okay. But I’m not moving to Florida. So I said, we can’t. We got to stay someplace close to here, in cases, it’s disaster. So we moved to Delaware about a three hour three and a half hour drive, bought ourselves a little format. We’ve got 37 acres here, and a dog or two running around the place, and we have a greenhouse. And I do consulting for international global trade. My specialty is USDA naturally and food and drug, little bit of EPA gets thrown in there. And I’m fortunate that I understand that the whole supply chain, from packing house and the way you item should look all the way to the market and the sales in a grocery store. Two years after we opened the firm doing strictly USDA treatments, we were asked by dole fresh fruit. I don’t know if you ever heard of that little company they own, like airport Hawaii, to put in refrigeration at the airport so we can do a pick and pack for them on their Chilean produce deal, which we did. And we were very grateful to them. They were great clients, and we had a long relationship with them for quite a while, and with them came other people like Del Monte and pandal brothers and dorigo Brothers, and just goes on and on. So fairly rapidly, we became the produce customs house broker at JFK, going to 83 83 we opened fumigation, and in 85 we opened agri services brokerage company Inc, which was just import customs brokerage, no freight forwarding, but all of our shipments got personalized attendance at the airline to do cooperage for the USDA inspectors when they looked at your cargo. And since we were already there, somebody once asked us from London Town, London Park, if we could clear some raincoats and some hush puppy shoes for them. Said, yeah. Why not with customs brokerage, of course. And then it all exploded, because they weren’t used to giving people papers on a Friday afternoon and having a release ready for them. You know, Sunday they would get a back. Then it was Telex. It’s before fax. So, yeah, so we, we did work hard, and we’d still work hard, and the crew that’s there in New York still work very hard. I’m still an owner. I was fortunate enough that I found somebody who could chew gum, think and walk at the same time, and he has a MBA, and he came on board with us, and he became my assistant, and he was an intensive program. One day, I said to him, Corey, you see that couch and that little coffee table across from my desk? Yeah. He says, I want you to have the guys in the warehouse pull it out. And for Monday, I need you to have a desk there, computer terminal, two telephones. He says, what’s it for the accountants or something? It’s going to be cramped in here. I said, No, that’s going to be your desk. And he says, What do you mean my desk? I said, You need to understand everything I do. You’ve been here for eight months. You’re doing great. I got a little surprise for you. What’s that I’m leaving? He says, he says, you’re leaving. I said, Yeah, I’m leaving, and you’re my replacement. And we put together a package for him with equity, and now he has 15% stock in the firm and all the firms as and he gets 1/3 of all the profits, and he’s making more money there than I ever made when I worked there. So he’s, but he’s, he’s a very, very smart young man, and he he works very hard, so yeah, and for us, it was the American dream, and that’s how my my son, Hal, got his introduction into global trade, because he grew up in a customs brokerage firm and with a Father that would leave the work, leave work for work at 630 in the morning, come home at 536 have some dinner. Eight o’clock, go back and like to him, that was a normal life, and I get home 1112, o’clock and do it all again the next day, six and a half days a week, and try to get Sunday afternoon. But it all paid off. It all paid off. So Hal still, my son, he. He was blessed with the very gifted intellect, and I don’t know why it didn’t come from me, trust me, it must have come from my wife, who’s still my best friend after all these years, and and my wife, yeah, we’re still married so so he has great recall. He can read something and three weeks later tell you what, what it was all about. He can watch TV, read a book, and play chess and beat you with chess, all at the same time. He’s gifted. So when he went off to college and his senior year, he said, Dad, I think I’d like to go to law school. I said, No way. He said, What do you mean? I said, Look, you’re fortunate. Your mom and I paid for your college education, plus he had scholarships, so you’re getting out of here debt free. I don’t want you going into debt going into law school. He said, Well, I didn’t intend on it. I thought you paid for it. And I’m like, like, you’re not only smart, you’re spoiled too. And he says, Well, how can we, how can we make this happen? I said, What do you mean? You’re trying to negotiate with me for law school tuition. He said, I guess so. So I said, I’ll tell you what, because I was scared to death. You know, somebody is so smart they can’t do anything, right? I was scared to death. He would come out of school with all this knowledge, and he’d never get a job. So I said, if you get your brokerage license, then I will pay for law school. He said, deal. And I never thought he’d get his license. I mean, he couldn’t bear his socks so but he didn’t take any challenge classes or any training or anything. He called me up one day. He said, Dad, I can’t believe this. I failed a test for the first time ever. I said, was an important test? He said, Yeah, it was a brokerage test. I said, you took the brokerage test without even telling me. Took it up in Albany, New York. He said, But I’m going to get it next time. And I think it was eight months later, calls me up. He says, Dad, I passed. I said, that sucks. And yeah, it cost me big time. And then I was like, flabbergasted that he passed without, you know, taking all these classes and learning all this but apparently he did learn quite a bit when he worked summers and, you know, sometimes after school at my place, I guess some people taught him something I don’t know. So, yeah, so he went to law school in New York City and went to a school that has a lot of global trade background. And after his first year, he said to me, Dad, I’m going to concentrate global trade. I said, Well, why don’t you just concentrate in a little everything? He said, No, doesn’t work that way. Lawyers have to have a specific concentration. I was like, okay, whatever you say. So he’s been doing that, and then they hit this. He’s been working six years plus on this AI project of his with a few different programmers. He finally hooked up with this guy, John, who definitely can chew gum, think and walk at the same time, and the two of them have a really good synergy, and they came out with a product that I still can’t believe. Well, you saw it. So, yeah, he said you wanted to talk to me and hear some of the war stories about growing up in the industry. Maybe I have, it’s going to be a very negative podcast, because so many of my experiences were were difficult. If somebody is listening and they want to get into the industry, one of the best ways I’ll be able to cope with government regulation is to realize that the people that work as regulators or that inspectors, they have no concept of deadlines, of business. Yeah, of trying to make money at what they’re doing other than making their own salary, they don’t understand that when you make a commitment to a client to get his goods from point A to point B before Thanksgiving, that if it’s a day before Thanksgiving, that’s too late. This. Stuff is on the shelves already, whether it’s liquor for a liquor store that has to have it for the holidays, or you might have heard a little company called endotex. They’re the largest firm in Spain. They own Zara, Zara, USA wearing apparel. So there have been a big fine of ours for many years, and they’re extremely diminished, and those people are customs that hold their cargo for insignificant reasons. At times, they don’t understand the urgency of getting this stuff on the truck to the stores, because they’ve never been in that position where the government has trained them so that they can understand how commerce reacts, or they’ve never been in industry. So if someone is getting involved in this business and they really get upset with some of the things, they can’t understand how it happens with the government. That’s the only excuse I can give the inspectors, because I was on that side of the fence and I was never prepared when I came over to my side like all right, this has got to get done. And other inspectors who are holding up the fumigation because they didn’t have their coffee yet, have your coffee after we’d start the fumigation. Why are you holding all this up to me? It was

Lalo  

so. I think I may, I may need to sign off, but I do want to say this real quickly, Andy, and then you can ask your question in their defense, and I will be a little biased here, or unbiased or, I mean, I guess it could go either way. We have had CBP reach out to us over the last four years, and almost every year, we have been fortunate enough that they have asked us to train them to see the importers perspective of the business. So it has actually been very refreshing for that, for us to be able to help them understand that part of the business. We taught them a lot of different things, like like Incoterms, they don’t enforce. I mean, CBP is not really the enforcement. I mean, Andy knows this better than I do, because Andy worked directly for a firm that that that that was related or connected with ICC, but we would teach a Minko terms, just so that they can see why are all these disputes between the importer, the seller, the buyer, and all that, you know, and and forced labor and everything. So I think there might be an effort, you know, I feel like there might be an effort with that. And so I am glad to see that, because, I mean, I have heard also those horror stories, like you said, Howard, but anyway, unfortunately, guys, I do need to log off, because I do have someone waiting for me. But Andy, Howard, I’m 100% sure you two are gonna hit it off pretty good. This episode is gonna be amazing, so I’ll leave you to it. Andy,

Andy  

all right, buddy, not a problem.

Speaker 1 

Andy, if I could just follow up on what he said, Yeah, it’s quite true. There’s a lot of outreach from the executive level of CBP. However, it doesn’t filter down to the inspectional level, and there’s a disconnect there. So the people that are regulating the cargo that we try to move. They don’t understand that it’s costing significant money at times and hurting people’s livelihood.

Andy  

Well, to your point, and this is where I’ve seen my experience with some of it. I’ve seen where I will say rookie inspectors, and when I mean rookie, I’m talking about somebody that’s probably been with the agency, you know, less than 10 years, especially, you know, like five years or less, and they’re they’re out there, and they’re going in, and they’re not very flexible in what they’re Looking at and what they’re doing, they’re very rigid with a lot of the rules and all that, which is fine. But then as time goes on, you have more seasoned people. They they gain some, I guess, perspective in certain things, and that helps. What I’m seeing right now is or and have seen is there’s a significant difference of CBP, and then you have other agencies involved, FDA, you know, USDA used to be by itself. It’s now part. The inspection part has now been merged in with CBP, and there was that transition that made it very difficult. Excuse me for a little while, who’s driving the bus and and some things. So they’ve worked through some of that. But what I see now happening is there are a lot of people that have retired, and so you have a new crew that’s come in. Okay, and it’s been almost disruptive, because, again, they’re back to very rigid. They’re looking at it, having to go through and explain some things to that point, the one thing, I guess, is frustrating. There’s been a couple of agencies, at times when it comes to inspection in the process, they’re so far behind in the way they do things, they think they’re ahead. And so it causes a problem for the importer and everybody else involved, like, you know, like, you just said, start the fumigation and then go get your coffee, you know. Look, hey, I’ll have coffee waiting on you. Just get this thing started, you know, kind of thing,

Speaker 1 

absolutely. So, yeah, you know, people are people. So you’re going to have good, you’re going to have wonderful, you’re going to have poor. Unfortunately, as you have wonderful, they either find a niche in commerce where they can make money, or they’re promoted someplace else, where they are covering up someone else’s mistakes and they’re not on the line anymore. But so, so how asked me to, I was just

Andy  

going to ask, is, like, one of the things I’m thinking is like, alright, so when you come across that first off, as you’re looking and you get into this business. Somebody has been, you know, obviously, around the horn here a few times is you’re learning, just like what you say, you make mistake, you learn, or you’re, you’re hit with a challenge of, I need to try and provide this, you know, hence the adding of refrigeration and what, I’m sure you got into all kinds of extra Oh, well, what do you mean? I got to have a permit to put this in, the inside the warehouse. And who gets inspected? That’s the local guys. And then then you get, as you deal with all that, and you gain knowledge on it. Part of the scenario, I think, is important, is, throughout all those different agencies, the frontline people, the people out there, the on the front lines, to avoid that disconnect, you’ve got to work on developing relationships, do you not?

Speaker 1 

Yeah. So the relationships are multifaceted. You have to have them with your clients who are your bread and butter. You have to have them with your staff who they don’t work for you. You work together. I work with you. They don’t work for me. I always told people when they came on board, we are going to spend more time together than you’re going to spend with your spouse, unfortunately. So we got to get along. If you feel you can’t get along with me, you need to tell me and go get a job at Walmart. I hope Walmart is not listening, and you have to take care of your staff. I was lucky. I was as a kid growing up, both me and my partner, Frank, we were both abused by our employers, and we knew what it was like to be a, I don’t want to say disgruntled employee, but someone that was taken advantage of, and we would never do that to our staff. And if it did happen, it was never intended, it was unintentional, and we would bend over backwards to make a correction. So, you know, but it’s hard to balance. I mean, how much compensation do you give somebody to maintain it being fair? Allow money to go back into the company for growth, allow money to go into your pocket to recognize the work that you’ve done. It’s a juggling act. And then, you know, you have the regulatory aspect. And as you said, You’ve got city, state, county. I mean, depending where you are, you may call it a parish, but you’ve got a lot of different regulations. You know, we went ahead and put these beautiful fumigation chambers in, and one day, EPA came in and they checked it all out. They gave us a green stamp. Go for it, guys. And three months later, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation comes in and says, You can’t do that. You’re kidding me, right? They said, No, you can’t do that. You have to have a New York State clean air permit, you have to document how much effluent is going to go into the atmosphere at how many parts per million at given periods of time and stuff. So I’m trying to explain to them My business is based on what the agriculture inspectors find for quarantine significant insects. That determines how much work we’re going to have. But that didn’t translate into their book. They have a book that says 14 parts per million over a 72 hour period of ethylene dibromide, you know, 930 parts per million of methyl bromide. You. So they didn’t care what volume of cargo I did. So basically you got to think on your feet. And I said, How about this? We’re working on maximum capacity numbers, which we’ll probably never do, and if those numbers fall within your guidelines, give us a permit, which they did, and I had a now, if I hire, what the hell is it? Called an environmental engineer, I think it was basically who did a lot of drawings, did a lot of math, and had to learn my business in order to translate it to what they wanted to see. Yeah, that was good. Learning curves, well,

Andy  

and that’s one thing again, there part of the the scenario in today’s world. Quite frankly, there’s a lot of states that are more business friendly, and there’s other states that are extremely bureaucratic and and it’s costing them, you know, the the issue is, when the you know, local, county, state governments are not really pro business, it costs jobs. And I don’t mean to cut corners, don’t get me wrong, but that’s one of those things. Like you just said, you got to think on your feet. You go through and and all this bureaucracy, and there’s a disconnect. And I think that’s one of the things that’s going on, you know, at the federal government, everybody was talking about, you know, they’re upset with some of the things that are going on, whether you’re for Trump or against Trump, or for Doge, and not against you or against those, or whatever. I’m sitting there laughing about it, because I’m going, you know, people may be hollering, screaming at what they’re finding, but they’re not talking about what they have found. As far as fraud goes and that bureaucracy, we’re going to see a huge benefit. I think that’s going to come out of this at the same token. Are there going to be mistakes made? Yeah. But again, as a businessman, you got to navigate through that. Speaking of this, is that with all this chaos going on, I’ve been telling folks, and I want to get your opinion on this, it’s like, well, we don’t know. All right, we got tariffs now we know. You know, are the tariffs going up? Our budget is now blown, or what’s the impact, or what are we going to and I’m like, everybody needs to calm down. In a minute, relax, let the dust settle. It’s going to change. In Case in point, there was a scenario there where everybody is, oh, the sky’s falling, all these tariffs are jacking up, and it’s just going to be horrible. Then there’s the 90 day reprieve. And now, guess what? There are 18 proposals, apparently, from different countries. Several of them have zero duty on US goods in their countries. You think that’s going to not open up and stimulate a lot of trade? I think it’s gonna be phenomenal.

Speaker 1 

Yeah. So I think a lot of people don’t realize we’ve always had tariffs. We’ve had very favorable programs, like we’ve had GSP, we’ve had the the Indian free trade agreements. We’ve had the, I don’t have to tell you so, but they’ve

Andy  

been reciprocal, though that’s the only

Speaker 1 

you should be reciprocated, because the United States has always been one to support, and it’s just another way for us to prop up and support other governments. So our president has a different view on it. He’s saying, I’m a negotiator. I want to make a deal with you, but I have nothing to deal because we’ve given you everything, so I’m going to take it all away, and then I can be in a position and be able to give it to you again. But people need to understand that we’ve always had tariffs that harmonized book, but wasn’t for that I’d still be working for the government, because the government has to make it so screwed up that an importer has to hire somebody by me to figure it out to let them bring their goods in. So, so it’s the same old thing with the IRS. What do I need an accountant for to do your taxes? Because nobody could really figure them out. But Hal did ask me to to give you a specific of something that will give you a whole stream from Hong Kong to your local pool hall, or or, or, or your corner, your corner saloon. So I’m going to tell you about this company. I guess I could do it. It’s been over 20 years called on echo. So my partner, Frank and I, like I said, we were young in the business. We probably had 1213, people working full time in the office, and a whole bunch of part timers and drivers and warehouse people. But we all of a sudden, we got this one. Account through a freight forwarder called on echo that brought in computer PC boards. Now I’m talking 1987 to 89 now this is back when the IBM at was like a super computer. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Andy  

Well, and that was also during that era where, for the home use, they came out with the IP, the IBM came out with the PC Junior, yeah, trying to break in, right?

Speaker 1 

That, can’t, that was a toy, pretty much. But that came out in 8585 that came out, so, yeah, around 87 to 89 we were fooling around with Unix and Xenix computers for multitasking in our office, communication between US and overseas things, but any event. So this one customer comes up, and they bring it in, these PC boards, computer boards. And every single time he is a shipment, it has to go on what’s called the hot list. So people not in the industry, need to know a hot shipment is something that it needs attention immediately. It can’t sit. Every facet has to go through, check, double check, triple check, and then somebody in your logistics team who’s a journeyman, a team leader, whatever, will ride it to make sure it’s going to get to the client quickly. So we’re doing five, six shipments a week for this person, this company, and to us, that was great, and everyone was highly repetitive, so it was easy to do quick. And because they were hot shipments, we charged them a premium rate. Well, one day, my partner Frank says, Howard, we have to get this shipment out to hot dog Long Island. It’s like a 40 minute drive. He said, I have no trucks. I have no one. Do you mind if I borrow your Subaru wagon and we’re going to put these three cartons in there and drive it out? Said, You know what I need to get out of here. I’ll go with you. Now. This guy would always tell us, bring it to the hot dog warehouse, bring it to the Queen’s warehouse, bring it to the Bronx warehouse, and give us different delivery addresses for our delivery orders to send out. So we get to the hot dog warehouse. It’s a store, your own place. You know where you have a garage door? I’m like, this is a warehouse. What’s going on? We’re giving this guy credit. We think he’s got three different warehouses. So being approval, one i I reminded him he had an open balance. Cut us a check right then, boom, cleaned us up. Wow, that was nice of them. Well, four days later, two, two FBI guys come in to our office, and two, they used to be called agents, CPOs, customs patrol officers. They were called. Two of them had two agents. So we had six people walked in and they want to see me and my partner. Okay, close the door this and that. We want to know about this guy, Chen or plan. Okay, what do you need to know? Well, we want to see copies of all of his shipments. I said, all the shipments, how am I supposed to find them? You have an airway bill? Do you have an entry number something to me to reference it? Say, don’t you have a way to pull them out? Said, I can go into his billing folder and pull shipments out like that. But you know, this is a huge undertaking you’re asking me to do? He said, Well, he’s bringing in these computer boards. They’re all trademark violation. Now, for those people not in the industry, there are licenses you see, or a logo or something where you have a trademark and you apply for it, and you’re, it’s, it’s almost like a patent. Sometimes it is a patent, and that’s your intellectual property. Well, he was bringing in these boards from China that would counterfeit Pac Man games, asteroid games. I wasn’t really into the arcade games, but they were all flown. Flown boards, motherboards, and he would buy old arcade games, refurbish them, and put this new, hottest and latest game in it, and spray paint it, and then put it in a saloon or. In a laundromat or wherever you can make money on it. And apparently the people that owned this product got a little upset about him selling all these great Mark PC boards. So they came to us and tried to find this mess. Well, someone must have leaked it because he went back to China like the day after he got a check to us. Now it looked pretty bad that we just deposited this huge check from him and he disappears, but that’s a full indication of how customs works with FBI and their enforcement, and you could really easily get thrown under the bus, like we had to hire an attorney to represent us, to say, Listen, we just did our job. But, you know, they wanted they couldn’t find anybody, so they had to find someone to blame. So they accused us of facilitating the transaction between international commerce, investing Commerce on behalf of this person who was committing fraud. So that’s just one of hundreds of stories. Well,

Andy  

what that does is emphasize, again, when you’re in a small business or big business, doesn’t matter, the importance of vetting your clients and vetting their products and doing the due diligence and checking things out. And if there’s a question, you need to come back around, because that could really, really really have messed you up, but it could have been shut you down had you

Speaker 1 

this was, this was before there was even a thought of the reasonable care act. You know there was. Now we have certain regulations or requirements that we have to go through to vet these clients, to make sure we know what’s going on, who they are, don’t ship the regulations, etc. So yeah, well, let me ask you this.

Andy  

We’re going to have to do the time. We’re going to have to try and wrap up here. But is there anything, is that somebody getting into the industry, if they’re getting into business or even starting a job. Is there anything that you know? I guess I’d ask it this way, if you could go back and talk to your 21 or 25 year old self, what would you what would you say to yourself in preparation for your career, stay

to work for the government man and relax. What would I said? So I would have said the right things you did were

Speaker 1 

to treat those people you work with the way you wanted to be treated, to do the dirty jobs along with them, not assign them and walk away. And that’s how we ran our business. So that’s positive. And I would say yes, that’s how it’s going to be. And anyone wanting to get into business, you have to make that commitment to realize you’re not the boss. You have 1000s of bosses. When you want a business, every client’s a boss of yours, and to a certain extent, every employee you have a responsibility for, and you have to fulfill those responsibilities to help your business grow. Some things that I wouldn’t do I wouldn’t have financed our own we hindered our growth by not taking advantage of bank money. We were always ultra conservative with our fiscal responsibilities, and maybe that added to our profitability. I know it did, but we missed up opportunities because we didn’t want to extend ourselves financially by using bank money. You know, when we had lines of credit at times, we also probably should have been a little more trustworthy of certain clients or forwarders or vendors that would have allowed us to grow more quicker, because we worked so hard to earn our money, we didn’t want to take the chance to use the expression getting burnt, so we kept our cards close to our chests, and that hindered us in growing in some markets, like in Florida and in, I should say, specifically Miami and the port of Philadelphia, when we had offices opening, we closed them. Kind of quickly, when we didn’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling what was going on, we wanted to limit our losses. You never know. We maybe made the right decision, maybe not. But I look at all these huge firms now that have been bought out, bought in, and back and forth. Who knows what could have been? However, I can say that our firm, I’ll give the plug, agri services, was there a long time ago, and it’s one of this still independently owned firms that are still there. We’ve had many offers to be bought out, but one day you got to examine the growth of ABI and how it beat up the industry.

Andy  

Well, it’s, it’s, you’ve, you’ve got a very good success story, but it, what I’m hearing a lot of it is you relied on your people, and you’re right in there with them. Yeah, you were conservative, but you sounds like you had a good business sense So,

Speaker 1 

and you saw the alchemy in the right place at the right time often,

Andy  

yeah, yeah, which means, I’m sure there’s also a lot of faith in there. That is, you see the opportunity, and those around you, you have a lot of faith that they could fulfill the the services needed. So that’s that’s phenomenal. And the other thing is credit. I see one thing where you’re you have a legacy, not only with your own employees. And you know what’s going on there, obviously, with your son and and his opportunities and all that. So it’s, it’s amazing on how folks you need to understand you have influence on those around you. So, you know, treat people with respect and be encouraging. So I, you know Howard, I can tell you I appreciate your story and appreciate you coming on the show. It’s been been an honor. So thank

Speaker 1 

you, but I gotta just one more plug. I never could have done it without my wife’s love that made the way she does it. It really without somebody watching the home fires, you have no support unit at all. So I was real fortunate with Mary

Andy  

family and spouses. It’s fantastic. So Well, folks, listen, we hope that you’ve enjoyed today’s show. Also will say that again, continue to like us, share us. And, you know, reach out to us. Follow us. The other thing, reach out to us on LinkedIn and whatnot. We’ll have Howard’s contact information, the information about his company on the show notes. And with that, we hope you have a great day.

Lalo  

Thank you very much for joining us. Simply trade is brought to you by the generous contributions of global Training Center. You can follow the show and GTC on LinkedIn or Twitter and other social networks. Make sure you check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today’s show with all the important links. Also make sure that you share this with a friend and subscribe on your favorite streaming platform. We really like hearing from you if you enjoyed the show, make sure to rate and review where we listen to this podcast. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the show or would like to sponsor simply trade, or suggest any topic you would like for us to discuss. Please contact us via email at simply trade@globaltrainingcenter.com or you can DM us on Twitter at simply trade pod. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. Happy trading. Simply trade is not a law firm or an advisor the topics and discussions conducted by simply trade hosts and guests should not be considered and is not intended to substitute legal advice. You should seek appropriate counsel for your own situations. These conversations and information are directed towards listeners in the United States for informational, educational, entertainment purposes only, and should not be substituted for legal advice. No listener or viewer of this podcast should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information on this podcast without first seeking legal advice from counsel. Information on this podcast may not be up to date, depending on the time of publishing and the time of viewership. The content of this posting is provided as is, no representations are made that the content is error free. The views expressed in or through this podcast are those of the individual speakers, not those of their respective employers or global Training Center as a whole. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this podcast are hereby expressly disclaimed you.