Image: Harris & Ford, LLC via The African Dream
Black Men: The Builders Behind Tim Harris, Todd Weaver, Tony Chase and Tony Thompson
The chemical engineer whose first office furniture was two paint buckets. The cleanup kid at $4 an hour. Ten final builders — bottlers, builders and keepers of sacred institutions.
Produced and Edited by The Bourgeois Society Staff
Part three of our three-part Black Men list: ten founders and owners who built empires in chemicals, construction, staffing, beverages and funeral service — and who treat legacy as something you purchase, preserve and pass on.
Selected on the obstacle climbed, the thing built, and the good given back — and fact-checked line by line, with sources linked under every profile.
The full list: Part 1 · Part 2 · Part 3
Co-founder & President, Harris & Ford LLC — Indianapolis, IN
Official links: Website
Image: Harris & Ford, LLC via The African Dream
Why We're Inspired
Tim Harris started his company in an office furnished with two empty paint buckets the painters had left behind.
A chemical engineer by training — with a second degree in computer science — he had worked his way through the distribution business at Diamond Shamrock and as a sales manager running six branches, even writing the practice and procedure manual for the National Association of Chemical Distributors.
In 1994 he co-founded Harris & Ford in Indianapolis with Joe Ford and Chris LaMothe — turning down, by his account, a $300,000 job offer to do it — in an industry dominated by large corporations, where a minority-owned newcomer had to fight for capital, credibility and contracts all at once. The company grew the slow way: relationships first, reliability always.
The Story
Three decades on, Harris & Ford is a $400 million chemical distribution and supply-chain company serving customers in 53 countries, with nine global warehouses and more than 600 supplier partnerships; its clients include Procter & Gamble and Pillsbury, and Harris reckons its ingredients reach roughly 95 percent of American homes. The building did not stop at business.
Harris founded Turning Point Academy, a faith-based private school on Indianapolis's east side that consistently earns A ratings from the state despite serving a high-poverty neighborhood — the same faith-driven decision-making, he says, that built the company.
Sources
SHOPPE BLACK — “How Harris & Ford Built a $400M Global Supply Chain Business”
The African Dream — “How Tim Harris built a Black-owned $400 million company”
Big Hearted Indy (Listen Notes) — “Rob Wynne and Tim Harris Sr.: Business, Education and Faith”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Ronald E. Hall Jr. · Todd Weaver
Founder & CEO, DGN Enterprise / TW Constructors — St. Louis, MO
Official links: Website
Image: TW Constructors (official leadership page)
Why We're Inspired
Todd Weaver was twelve years old, watching his mother battle diabetes and cancer, when he walked onto a construction site in Hazelwood, Missouri, looking for work. The man who hired him — Bob Clark, founder of the construction giant Clayco — paid him $4 an hour to pick up trash and pull weeds, on one condition: Weaver stayed in school.
Clark became his mentor and a father figure. Weaver studied marketing and construction management at the University of Missouri–St. Louis while playing basketball, worked for engineering firms, and came back to Clayco before betting on himself.
In 2002 Clark lent him $150,000 to launch Legacy Building Group — a company created in part to expand opportunities for minority contractors and workers. Weaver repaid the loan in six months.
The Story
Legacy Building Group became TW Constructors, and TW Constructors grew into DGN Enterprise — a group of five companies spanning general contracting, electrical work, glass and fire suppression, employing 585 people. Much of the recent growth has come from servicing and upgrading data centers for major technology companies, including Google.
The group generated nearly $400 million in revenue in 2025 and, as Forbes reports, is on track to approach $1 billion — a long way from $4 an hour and a trash bag, and a standing answer to anyone who says a cleanup kid cannot end up owning the site.
Sources
Black Enterprise — “Todd Weaver Turned A $4-An-Hour Job Into A Nearly $1B Construction Empire”
Columbus Black — “Todd Weaver Turned A $4-An-Hour-Job Into A Nearly $1B Construction Empire”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Tim Harris · Tony Chase
Founder, Chairman & CEO, ChaseSource LP — Houston, TX
Official links: Website
Image: Frost Bank (Cullen/Frost Bankers leadership page)
Why We're Inspired
Tony Chase grew up in Houston public schools, the son of John S. Chase — the first Black graduate of the University of Texas School of Architecture and the first Black licensed architect in Texas, a man who had to start his own firm because no white architects would hire him.
The son collected credentials the way his father collected barriers to break: a Stouffer scholarship, then honors degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, and a tenured professorship at the University of Houston Law Center. Then he did what his father did — he built his own.
"Anyone who knew my dad knew that he was a man who walked on every level of life: political, professional, civic, philanthropic,"
The Story
Chase started and sold three ventures before his fourth: Chase Radio Partners, which owned seven radio stations, sold to Clear Channel in 1998; Cricket Wireless, whose first three markets he opened before selling to Leap Wireless; and ChaseCom, a worldwide call-center business sold to AT&T in 2007.
He kept ChaseCom's staffing division and built it into ChaseSource LP — a staffing, facilities management and construction firm ranked by Black Enterprise among the nation's largest minority-owned businesses — and he is a principal owner of the Marriott hotel at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport.
And he honored the first generation in the way that lasts: with his wife, Dr. Dina Alsowayel, he gave $1 million to UT Austin to endow the John S. Chase Family Graduate Fellowship and a professorship in his father's name, aimed at bringing HBCU graduates into architecture.
Sources
Houston InnovationMap — “Tony Chase gifts $1M to UT in honor of his father, architect John S. Chase”
Greater Houston Partnership — “Anthony R. Chase” (bio)
The Daily Texan — “Son of John S. Chase gifts UT School of Architecture $1 million to support underrepresented students”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Todd Weaver · Tony Thompson
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Kwame Building Group — St. Louis, MO
Official links: Website
Image: Kwame Building Group
Why We're Inspired
Tony Thompson arrived at entrepreneurship over-credentialed and under-capitalised, the classic combination.
He earned degrees in architectural engineering and environmental design at the University of Kansas, a master’s in civil engineering and construction management at Washington University and an MBA in finance at Webster, then worked as an engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Monsanto and Anheuser-Busch before founding Kwame Building Group in St. Louis in 1991.
He built KWAME as a pure construction-management firm — an independent advocate for owners, dedicating 100 percent of its resources to project management — and made it, per the University of Kansas, the first African American ESOP corporation in Missouri, employee-owned by design.
Three decades on, KWAME has completed more than 6,000 projects and manages more than $300 million of work a year, from Lambert International Airport to a $1.8 billion convention-centre addition in Seattle.
"Kwame has survived and thrived by focusing on its strengths and the company’s role in helping clients. Our job is to represent the owner."
The Story
The building years were not smooth: Thompson survived a $100 million lawsuit fought over four years that cost $6 million to defend and would have bankrupted him personally — and kept building anyway.
Thompson and his wife Kim founded the Kwame Foundation to create opportunities for youth in underserved communities through mentorship and scholarships — a programme that has presented more than $3 million in endowed scholarships to local universities for first-generation and minority students, alongside a high-school mentoring programme, an annual HBCU bus tour and even a music-studio summer camp.
More than 75 percent of KWAME’s own workforce is minority and female professionals. In 2024 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the St. Louis Construction Consortium — recognition, as the citation put it, of exceptional standards sustained over three decades.
Sources
REJournals — “St. Louis’ Kwame Building Group marks 30th anniversary”
University of Kansas, Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering — “Anthony (Tony) Thompson” (bio)
KAI Design & Build — “St. Louis Construction Consortium Hosts Supplier Diversity Day, Honors KWAME Founder Tony Thompson with Lifetime Achievement Award”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Tony Chase · Troy Taylor
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Coca-Cola Beverages Florida — Tampa, FL
Official links: Website
Image: Black Enterprise (Black Men Xcel honoree photo)
Why We're Inspired
Troy Taylor spent his career preparing for an opportunity that might never be offered to him. He rose as a senior executive inside the Coca-Cola system and ran an investment firm focused on food and beverage companies, learning the bottling business from every side — the brands, the territories, the financing.
When the Coca-Cola Company refranchised its Florida bottling operations in 2015, Taylor was ready. He founded Coca-Cola Beverages Florida in Tampa and took on an exclusive territory covering 47 Florida counties.
"The two greatest things we have going for us are the Coke brands and our people."
The Story
A decade later, Coke Florida reports $2.2 billion in annual revenue, employs more than 5,000 people across four production plants and 18 distribution centers, and stands as one of the largest Black-owned businesses in the United States.
Deloitte Private and the Wall Street Journal have named it a U.S. Best Managed Company year after year, with Gold Standard status, and Forbes placed Taylor on its list of Top 25 Black Businesses to Watch.
Taylor is plain about why the recognition matters: when Black-owned businesses grow, they create jobs, build wealth and show the next generation what is possible.
Sources
Black Enterprise — “Troy Taylor” (Coca-Cola Beverages Florida profile)
Power Broker News — “Coke Florida and Sun State International CEOs listed among Forbes’ Black businesses to watch”
Tampa Bay Business & Wealth — “Coke Florida earns top national recognition, for fourth year in a row”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Tony Thompson · Tyrone Burroughs
Founder, President & CEO, First Choice Sales & Marketing; Owner, R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home — Memphis, TN
Image: Memphis Magazine (Society of Entrepreneurs honorees)
Why We're Inspired
Tyrone Burroughs comes from Lane, South Carolina — a small town that produced a national businessman.
He founded First Choice Sales & Marketing, a consumer-products management firm built on expertise in the multicultural personal-care market, and grew it into a company whose counsel is sought well beyond Memphis: he has served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank's Memphis branch, Regional One Hospital and the Memphis NAACP, and chairs the Burroughs Foundation.
Then he did something that defines him as much as any balance sheet: he bought history.
The Story
The history he bought is R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home, the Memphis institution founded in 1914 — the funeral home that prepared the remains of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for public viewing after the assassination. Under Burroughs, it remains a Black-owned landmark, preserved on purpose.
His giving carries the same instinct: Benedict College named its business school the Tyrone Adam Burroughs School of Business and Entrepreneurship in his honor, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has honored him at its Spirit of the Dream celebration — a builder from Lane, still buying, preserving and passing on.
Sources
Business Wire — “Memphis Powerhouses Wilfred Busby and Tyrone Burroughs to be Honored at St. Jude Spirit of the Dream”
South Carolina Senate — Resolution honoring Tyrone Adam Burroughs (Benedict College school naming)
The HBCU Advocate — “Benedict College Recognized in the 2024 Best Business Degree Programs Ranking”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Troy Taylor · Vaughn C. Greene
Founder & President, Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services — Baltimore, MD
Official links: Website
Image: Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services
Why We’re Inspired
We’re inspired because Vaughn C. Greene never separated business from ministry. Every location he opened is measured in families comforted — more than 20,000 of them — and he built the kind of institution a community leans on in its hardest weeks, with a second generation already rising inside it.
“Even then, I felt that this was my calling. Having that role model of entrepreneurship and business management was something I hadn’t been previously exposed to, but I knew I wanted it to be part of my future. That experience truly served as my inspiration.”
The Story
At 16, Greene took his first job at a Baltimore funeral home, washing the fleet vehicles and keeping the grounds. Watching the owner run the business gave him his first exposure to entrepreneurship — a role model he had never had — and he recognized the work itself as a calling.
He earned a mortuary science degree and an honorary doctorate, founded Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services, and grew it to four locations across Baltimore and Randallstown; as founding partner and president of Batchelor Brothers Funeral Services he added two Philadelphia locations and one in Trenton — seven locations across three states, described as a leading African American-owned funeral and cremation organization.
He also serves families as a pastor of Gethsemane Baptist Church, and his daughter Brittney Greene now serves as the firm’s vice president of operations and managing funeral director. His firms’ community work includes anti-drug and anti-violence initiatives and sponsorships across Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Sources
Baltimore CityBuzz — “Vaughn C. Greene Funeral Services: A Ministry of Care”
NNPA / BlackPressUSA — “A Staple in Baltimore’s African American Community”
Batchelor Brothers Funeral Services — Our Team
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Tyrone Burroughs · Will Cyrus
Founder & CEO, Purpose Builder & Developments — Dallas, TX
Image: Will Cyrus via Black Enterprise
Why We're Inspired
Will Cyrus grew up in a single-parent, lower-income household near Pompano Beach, Florida. His father, a local drug dealer, went to prison when Cyrus was five; his mother worked at Winn-Dixie to hold the family together. At six years old, Cyrus was already hustling to contribute — selling snacks and Pokémon cards to pay for his own school clothes.
The boy who sold candy to dress himself grew into a financial-services professional at firms including Fidelity Investments and Northwestern Mutual, and then took everything he had learned about money home to build with it.
"A good idea isn't a God idea, but every God idea is a good idea."
The Story
Cyrus founded Purpose Builder & Developments in Dallas, a Christian-based design-build firm. He began buying land in the city's Fair Park neighborhood in 2016; by 2019 he was constructing ten homes a year priced between $250,000 and $350,000, before pivoting to the luxury market — becoming the first Black developer in South Dallas to build homes valued at more than $500,000.
Today the company builds custom homes priced between $1.5 million and $3 million, and Cyrus speaks of the work the way his six-year-old self would understand: building generational wealth, and opening doors for the Black builders coming behind him.
Sources
Face2Face Africa — “Young Black real estate CEO who has developed millions of dollars in properties in Dallas shares how he did it”
New York Trend — “Will Cyrus: From Financial Expert to Luxury Real Estate Pioneer”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Vaughn C. Greene · William F. Boyd II
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Operation HOPE — Atlanta, GA
Official links: Website · Facebook · Instagram · X
Image: Operation HOPE
Why We’re Inspired
We’re inspired because John Hope Bryant insists dignity is an economic strategy. He has spent three decades proving that the people written off as unbankable are an asset class of builders waiting for a fair first loan — and he puts his own money behind the next generation, including a $100,000 personal commitment to Morehouse College students.
“Persistence and resilience are more powerful than pedigree and raw intelligence.”
The Story
Bryant’s entrepreneurial journey began at age 10 in Compton, California, when a banker visited his elementary school and he decided on the spot to “get rich legally” by making loans to entrepreneurs. At 26, in the immediate aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, he founded Operation HOPE to bring banking, credit and ownership to the neighborhoods capital had abandoned.
It is now the nation’s largest on-the-ground financial literacy and economic empowerment nonprofit, having directed over $4.2 billion in capital into marginalized communities and served over 4 million individuals through hundreds of empowerment centers; he co-chairs the national Financial Literacy for All initiative.
He also founded The Promise Homes Company, the largest for-profit, minority-controlled owner of institutional-quality single-family rental homes in the country, recapitalized with a $200 million credit facility — and has built more than 40 organizations and companies in all.
Sources
Black Enterprise — “John Hope Bryant Is a Champion of Financial Literacy”
Morehouse College News — “John Hope Bryant Receives Candle Award”
Operation HOPE — “John Hope Bryant Recognized in Notable Georgians Listing”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · William F. Boyd II · Amari Ruff
President & CEO, E.F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home — Cleveland, OH
Official links: Website
Image: Teaching Cleveland (Fairfax Oral History: Boyd Family)
Why We're Inspired
William F. Boyd II — "Pepper" to everyone in Cleveland — leads a house his grandfather built out of exclusion.
Elmer Franklin Boyd graduated from Clark's College of Embalming in Cincinnati and opened his funeral parlor in the fall of 1905, entering one of the few professions open to Black people at the turn of the century; because the industry was segregated, he also founded the Cleveland Funeral Directors Association.
Pepper attended Michigan State and graduated from Fisk University, then followed his father into the trade through the Pittsburgh School of Mortuary Science. He has been a licensed funeral director and mortician for more than fifty years.
The Story
The firm Elmer founded is recognized as the oldest African American-owned business in Cuyahoga County, and under Pepper Boyd it is now in its fourth generation: his daughter Victoria manages the East 89th Street headquarters his grandparents bought in 1938, his sister Marcella serves as vice president and chief of community engagement — and was appointed to Ohio's State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors — and the Warrensville Heights chapel houses the family's own crematory.
A hundred and twenty years after a young embalmer opened a parlor because the profession was one of the only doors open to him, his grandson is still holding that door for Cleveland.
Sources
Teaching Cleveland — “Fairfax Oral History: Boyd Family”
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (Case Western Reserve University) — “BOYD, ELMER F.”
More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list · Will Cyrus · John Hope Bryant