For the next generation, the simple, yet profound African proverb “Each one teach one” is one of the fundamental lessons taught and passed down by my father. Often quoted but not widely practiced, we believe that we have a social and civic responsibility to do just that.

As we learn new skills or acquire a measure of success in our personal lives, we should share that knowledge with someone else. We should strive to reach back and help another person gain a step up. By doing so, we ensure the future of our families, communities and next generations.

Professionally, our businesses should do and will continue to do the same. As one business grows, expands and ventures into new markets, it must help smaller firms increase their capability to grow. By partnering with and hiring subcontractors, larger firms can fuel the financial muscle of smaller firms. These teaming/contractual relationships can help small and minority firms increase productivity and capacity, gain access to much-needed resources and generate profit.

ENVIRO’s subcontractor relationships are not just necessary for business, they’re part of our company’s mission to give back to communities where we work. We hire local subcontractors and gives smaller firms larger roles in contracts to help them build their capacity. It’s our responsibility to teach upcoming businesses in this way. It’s our civic rent, and we’re happy to pay it.

We extend this responsibility further by helping to spark the spirit of entrepreneurship and create more small business owners. Through our workforce development program, we provide entrepreneurship and job readiness skills to students in a predominantly minority school district of Columbia, SC, and we recently expanded the program to include skilled tradespersons who receive internships with subcontractors in the Greater Columbia area. We are training these young and unskilled minds to think like entrepreneurs so they can become employers in the labor force.

“Each one teach one” works, because it has worked for us. Before becoming a leading full-service construction management company, ENVIRO was just a local landscape company with big dreams. Larger firms helped us to go after and land private sector, government, education, and military clients, and that’s how we’ve grown over the past 30 years.

As we continue to expand into new markets, we will continue paying the blessings forward to small and minority businesses. It’s simply the right thing to do.

Learn | Lead | Succeed