Defining Hospitality

Dan Ryan: guest is a defender of civil and human rights who works within the intersection of social and environmental justice. She is a true change maker who makes lasting impacts in her community as the leader of B Corp.

She's had her work recognized by Fast Company, Inc. Magazine and Beyonce. She's the host of the School for Disruptors Podcast. She's on faculty at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She's the c e o and founder of Grant Boulevard. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Kimberly McGaugh. Welcome, Kimberly.

Kimberly McGlonn: Thanks for having me. Hey everybody.

Dan Ryan: It's so good to have you.

And also, just so everyone knows, you're the first doctor I've had on, so thank you very, very much.

Kimberly McGlonn: You. Well, we are elevating, defining hospitality, right? I'm here for the

Dan Ryan: you are Ian and Elevation. It's the, it's the double E today. I'd also like to give a little color to how we first met, where it's also that, um, I think it's a, making mistakes is, okay, so we first met, it was my first time MCing an event ever. And it was an independent lodging congress event in Los Angeles, and you're from Philadelphia, so you traveled all the way across the country to there, and they had these like, I don't know what they're called, comfort monitors or they're like these teleprompters, but they're down on the ground.

And so I went through everything. I thought I knew how to say everyone's name and company. Um, but Grant Boulevard is Grant, B L V D. So I said, uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh, for the next presentation is. Kimber Lee Lonn from Grant B L V D. And then you came up and then I realized as I was sitting down, I felt so terrible that I didn't say Grant Boulevard and it was like a massive mistake, but I learned from it because now I just make sure that there's every, every single thing.

Whenever I do an event, I have to make sure and I double check. I trust and verify that I know the name and how to say it, and also the company. So thank you for helping me grow.

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, no, I'm here for that. That was my first live keynote. I had only ever, I. You know, the keynote that I gave before that, crazy enough, it was for the epa, the Environmental Protection Agency, um, for like the entire epa. And then I was, then, I was out in LA a couple weeks later for that one. And so I was so, um, not fully prepared.

I, I like memorized my. Keynote, which was 13 minutes long through a mnemonic device that I created on the flight over from Philly. And so you saying that was just like the perfect, like

eh, it's all fine, whatever.

Dan Ryan: Oh, okay. So now I'm intrigued by a lot of D things you just said there. Um, but first fill us in on, and the listeners on you and Grandpa Levard and like what you're passionate about.

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, I, I'm really passionate about preserving a sense of optimism about the future of the planet and the future of the country. And for me, the vehicle that I've found some cadence with doing that through is fashion, using fashion as a form of activism. So I began that journey. Well, I guess I've been an activist for a longer time.

I was a, a teacher for 20 years. Y'all. I was a high school English teacher for a good long bit. And so, you know, teaching, you know, loving on other people's children, supporting them. I mean, all of you, you, I'm sure you've had horrible teachers, but I'm sure you've had remarkable ones too, and remarkable teachers, you know, they, they do a really beautiful job of, of showing up the way you need them to show up and of, of counseling you and inspiring you.

And so, That was really good to me for a long time. And then in 2016 I decided I wanted to kind of venture out and about a bit, so I started wandering and wandering. I went to East Africa alone and I was spending time with women who were HIV positive and a nonprofit that was supporting them, and another nonprofit that was supporting Elephant.

Populations through some conservation efforts, and I came back to the States and I saw ever DuVernay's documentary 13th, which if you haven't seen it yet on Netflix, you know, as we think about the future of of our democracy, right, through a lens of looking backwards and forwards, I think 13th is really important viewing content.

And so I saw it and I was like, wow, this is crazy that we as Americans make up 5% of the world's population and yet we. Hold in some system of, of criminal, um, control 25% of the entire world's population. Most

Dan Ryan: so fucking crazy to

Kimberly McGlonn: it is, and most of those people are disproportionately black and brown. And that, that we got there, not overnight at all though.

It, it's been a really quick shift. We didn't really have a system of mass incarceration until after Abraham Lincoln. Worked out the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And in doing that, you know, he had to really do what clever leaders do, which is to make some compromises.

And you know, Abraham Lincoln had evolving feelings on slavery and abolition, but what he did to preserve the union was that he ended slavery. He abolished it in the United States, but he allowed for provisions in built into the Constitution Were people. It could be reclaimed as labor if they broke the law.

So you get this proliferation of these municipal movements, borough at the borough level, at the city level, at the town level, where they essentially criminalize life for black people. So it's like you're out after a curfew, you're standing and you don't have a job, you don't have your driver's license.

You're, you know, you're out in crowds too big, you whistled at a white woman. So all of this life becomes criminalized. And what happens is once these people are. Are convicted of a crime, then they can become lease labor through the state. And so we still have, you know, low wage work in United States, prisons, people making, you know, 25 cents an hour, 50 cents an hour to work for corporations.

Um, but that, that way of, of figuring out how to balance the economic needs of the country on the backs of black, um, Of black bodies and of, of suffering and, and, and essentially poverty is, it's kind of baked into the cake. So I saw that. Long story short, sorry, y'all. I saw that and I started thinking about how I could maybe show up differently given how I don't have a lot of biases around people who have broken the law.

I have never been arrested. I've never been convicted. I've never been charged. But I mean, come on now. I've broken the law. Most of us have broken the law. We were underage drinking. We, you know, we broke some other rule that we didn't even know was a rule. Some law, that was a law we didn't know was a law.

We're all, we're all mostly and, but I think we have this hierarchy that people who have been convicted and charged, that they are less than us. And I just wanted to challenge that. So long story short, I started pitching to my friends and I wanted to build a company that would create work. For people who were perhaps, you know, criminally involved, not exclusively, but you know, really trying to be intentional about that.

And I decided the way to do that was not through traditional design, but through sustainable design. Um, because, you know, we live

Dan Ryan: Okay. So I wanna, I wanna get into that. So I would, I would, I would push back on you and say teacher to activist, but then I think you're also still, and you still are a teacher, so, and I think you've always been a teacher, right? So as a teacher and impacting. All the people like myself and all the people in that auditorium when I fucked up your introduction, uh, you have this power and ability and gift to get people to listen to you and pay attention and so that you can impact them and using that.

And I, I want to go into a lot of the things that you mentioned. A minute ago, but like, when you think about being able to captivate an audience, um, and of, and the title of this hospitality, defining hospitality, like how does hospitality tie into that and what does hospitality, how does hospitality influence and what does it mean to you?

Kimberly McGlonn: For me, hospitality is about creating a sense of, of comfort and safety and belonging. You know, it's comfort. Hospitality is about replicating a sense of home, and, uh, and that is a very human desire to want to feel like you are going to be, you know, held hospitality is about creating space to hold people as they are and being generous with your resources as a way of replicating.

Your own experience is home so that someone else can have access to it. That is what it means to be, um, hospitable. That's how I define hospitality.

Dan Ryan: And how do you take that idea, and I know you said home, but like in a classroom, in a stage in your business, like how do you take what you just said there and, and use that so that you can leave an imp a lasting impact on people A as and and I, because something that resonated with me that you said, I don't remember exactly how you said it, but about remarkable teachers like I.

I read something very depressing once that in the course of a student's high school or no grammar through college, they maybe have four or five remarkable teachers, as you said. I love how you used the word remarkable. Um, I feel like I was really lucky. I had. Like six or eight. But to me, for all the teachers we all have, that seems pretty crappy.

Uh, like do, uh, pound for pound that we only have that many remarkable teachers. So how do you think these remarkable teachers like yourself use these like old tenants of hospitality to leave a lasting impact?

Kimberly McGlonn: I think that's a beautiful question. Um, you know, I think, I think of the classroom or the hotel space, you know, the, the food and beverage space as these opportunities to create something that actually feels really sacred. And that's through a lot of thoughtful architecture. It's how are you arranging seating in a space?

It's who are you placing? Where, how are you positioning people? How are you using tech to tell stories? How are you using, you know, tonality to tell a story? How are you using color to tell a story? Right? Decor becomes a part of the staging of an experience, whether you're in the classroom or you're in the lobby of, of a, of a really compelling.

Um, hospitality experience. And so in those ways, I think it's just for me and I, when I think about how I approach design, it's just another lens for thinking about how are we creating destinations and really how are we creating experience? And for me, costuming a space by way of what a server wears or what front of housewares or what, you know, backup, housewares, all of that is still a story of how are we.

How are we, how are we aspiring to anchor people and in a moment and to hold them there? And, and that hospitality moment, that, that moment of feeling received is what I think we're all seeking to do in the ventures that we build. I.

Dan Ryan: okay, so then when I think about that and kind of having that, it's like set and setting to leave an impact in anything. Um, I dunno, I just go back to the, the thought that okay, if, if, if everyone has like four or five remarkable teachers in their learning tenure, like what do you think is a driving. Force of that and like how, what's a good way to help make a change there?

Kimberly McGlonn: In terms of improving the quality of of education.

Dan Ryan: Yeah.

Kimberly McGlonn: I, I mean, quite frankly, I will say this, you know, uh, one of the major things that we have not committed to is that we don't believe that the, that our best talent should find themselves in the classroom. And if we did, we would offer a salary that aligned with.

The value add, we, we believe that teachers can give to someone's human experience. And I think we've been conditioned to completely undervalue how important it is that people who have a passion for curiosity and for learning and exploration and for self-discovery, how important it is that our children are placed in the care of people who are able to offer that.

And when people aren't paid well, when they're always fighting for, you know, a cost of living increase, when they're fighting for healthcare, when they're fighting for. The freedom to talk about, you know, what it, what it actually takes to maintain a democracy. It's really hard to convince smart people, hardworking, creative people, that that's the place where they should land, even when in their own internal compass, they wanna be there.

There are listeners here who have thought about teaching. It's definitive. Y'all are listening. There's someone listening right now, and either you were a teacher or you thought about becoming a teacher, or it's still in your plans for like a next chapter kind of thing. And I love teaching. I had such a fantastic do time doing it, but I'll tell you this, I made six figures as a teacher.

Dan Ryan: Wow,

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, I made

Dan Ryan: that's unusual.

Kimberly McGlonn: is highly unusual. It's highly unusual

Dan Ryan: So, actually, actually that's an, that's a really great segue into something cuz I Okay. Making six figures as a teacher in,

Kimberly McGlonn: as a high school English teacher.

Dan Ryan: that's amazing. So when I think about that, I think about that school or community, wherever you were teaching, um, however you got to that position, um, they saw you. As a stakeholder, not necessarily a shareholder, but a stakeholder in that community and with those students. And going with that theme of what you said of just like reevaluating priorities.

I think that that's a really great segue into and also leaving an impact. So this is all kind of flowing together here on what a B Corp is, and I know you're like a really passionate champion of B Corp. I know that I have a lot of friends that have. Uh, either converted their businesses to B Corps or started B Corps through the pandemic.

Um, how does that kind of reevaluating your priorities? And, and instead of, I guess you're, you're looking at shareholders, but that it's kind of like that tension between shareholder and stakeholder. Right. In e s G, like you said before, there's. There's shareholders in these big, huge companies. But now the e S G movement is trying to put in other stakeholders that, whether it's the environment, the community, um, the employees, all these other people who are not traditional shareholders, where a company's drive is to return to shareholders, maximize return to shareholders.

How does that reevaluating of priorities. Relate to stakeholders as it pertains to B Corp. And just, I guess, tell us like what a B Corp is from your perspective and your experience and why this is, maybe ties into that a hundred thousand dollars salary you may have received as a teacher

or rhymes with it.

It's not a direct, it's not a one for one correlation, but I, I think that they're all rhyming together in, in a, in a story of change.

Kimberly McGlonn: It, it, it is, you know, for, you know, BCOs are companies that are, are, have joined, uh, a larger movement, social movements, environmental movement, um, impact movement, which aspires to. Recalibrate design and function and to bring in a greater balance of people and planet and profit and for me, purpose to the work of, of business building.

And so, and, and so all of that is about how are you thinking about impact? How are you measuring impact? How are you communicating impact? How are you aspiring to greater transparency with your. Your stakeholders and for those companies are, are public, publicly held. Your, you know, your, your, your, all of the other people who are holding shares are holding power or who are, whose interests are aligned with profitability.

Um, and so I, I decided, I built a B Corp before I even knew what a B Corp was. You know, like the beginning, the certification, which took a year of commitment. It was like just me submitting the receipts for what I'd already committed to inwardly, um, and what my team had already committed to. So in that way, you know, we were already in it for the long haul. Um, can you hear me okay?

Dan Ryan: Oh yeah. You're

Kimberly McGlonn: great.

Cuz

Dan Ryan: I do hear there is some background music.

Kimberly McGlonn: my businesses are both are all in Philadelphia, but I live in a suburb of Philadelphia. And this is a side note, but it's really loud today because there's this tradition called Color Day. And on Color day, when you first come into this community and you, you enroll in school, you become a red or blue and on color day every year, the entire town comes out to watch kids compete so that we can see if the reds are gonna win or the blues are gonna win.

So it's, it's like a big deal and today's the day and so like everyone is, is alive. Sorry about

Dan Ryan: I love it.

Kimberly McGlonn: I didn't know

if you could

Dan Ryan: sounds good. actually, I think it ties into just this whole idea of, of community, right? Yeah, a hundred percent.

Kimberly McGlonn: So yeah, So,

VCO is a community and VCO is those of us who have decided to, to be pioneers. That's what I think of us. As you know, consumers are growing in their consciousness and their demands for transparency, for ethics, for sustainable design, and we are the business, you know, thought leaders who are leading what might be a new table of options for what that can look like.

Dan Ryan: Mm. And again, and, and am I, is my, do you think my understanding is correct in this idea of like, not just shareholders, but kind of making a, a wider circle around the shareholders to also include the stakeholders? Is that.

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it is about, it's about a balance that's shifting. You know, people are, are growing, very critical of people who. Um, they're just growing frustrated with the nature of the economy and with the growing wealth gap and, you know, the disparity people are growing in their awareness and, and I think that as corporate leaders, we have to figure out how do we communicate stories of our values?

So that people feel like they can trust us. And I think that as you think about, you know, how your, how brands are thinking about partnerships and collaborations, um, those are opportunities to tell really beautiful stories. You know, so much of businesses narrative, making really beautiful stories about what you care about and what you're invested in.

And, and so I, I, when I think about the companies that we've partnered with from the Marriott Hotel Group to. Lalo Coffee, um, or food co-ops in the city of Philadelphia. All, and, you know, I'm producing aprons and uniforms for them. Those are all opportunities where they said, you know, we want to, we wanna be able to tell a story to our consumers about what our values are.

And Kimberly Grant Boulevard, can you help us do that? We wanna, we wanna help you employ people, and we want to make sure that we're able to tell a story that that really reflects who we wanna be, who we are.

Dan Ryan: if we go back in time to when we first started, um, and talking about criminal justice and how, I guess it's more of like how we can help ex convicts or convicted felons or who are, who are now out to, you know, kind of reenter the workforce. Right. And um, It's like incarceration versus rehabilitation.

Like what is that? And I'm really intrigued by, you just got about, I don't know, a quarter million dollars of funding. Um, why don't you just tell us about that and how it relates to the criminal justice system and hopefully how it's changing for the better.

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah. You know, like it is about this. So we've been, we've been pursuing this work. We started with a beta in 2019 before, so. Uh, COVID kinda entered into the landscape of our lives where we were teaching people who were criminal assistance, impacted how to sew, and, and that's always been a driver for me.

I've always wanted to figure out how do we. How do we get ever more intentional in using business as a force for good? Right? That's what b cores are about. This, this idea of business as a force for good. And so, um, we, we, we've been working at that still. We just secure, like you said, a quarter million dollars to launch this fall a.

A, a, a pilot that will allow us to teach 30 people who are criminals and impacted how to sew. And then my, my charge as c e o is to employ 80% of those people at a living wage. Once they, once they complete that, that training module, so that, you know, it's a, it's a 14 week, it's a pretty intensive 14 week.

Um, course of studying and how to and how to navigate life. The goal is to give them yoga's exposures and wellness exposures and these, these skills. So that is what we'll be doing this October.

Dan Ryan: That's awesome. So these are, uh, people who are recently out of prison that are looking to enter the, the workforce, correct.

Kimberly McGlonn: That will be some of the people who I imagine will be in that cohort. It may be people who, you know, when we talk about being criminal systems impacted, it's really recognizing that in these pockets of communities across the country, but particularly in Philadelphia where we have the highest percent of poverty of a large city in North America, I think it's 26% of Philadelphians live below the poverty line.

That's low. It's a high number and that that margin for what it takes, the poverty line. I think it said if you're make a family four, making less than like, 28,000 a year. So 26% of the city lives in in that situation. What that's resulting in, not just in Philadelphia, but in cities across the country, is these really high crime rates, and we have these really high rates of what's called recidivism, which is where people get convicted of a crime.

They go to jail, they come home because they can't get jobs, they can't get housing because they can't get housing, they can't be reunited with your kids, with their kids. So our goal is to create a model to experiment with, a model for re for challenging all of that fallout. And that might include training people whose parents are currently incarcerated.

It might, who are, you know, they're young adults and their parents are, are, have been away from, from them. It might include, um, you know, people who have been convicted and spent time away who are coming back to. To us, right? That we are all neighbors. So coming back to us, to our neighborhoods, um, and trying to slow down some of the fallout of what is really just a lot of lives that were filled with a lot of trauma.

And so it's, it's, it's a charge that I can't really actually do alone. You know, we'll have a team here in Philadelphia, but the idea of, of really figuring out can this be a replicable model? Can we tell a story of, of partnership and collaboration and. And, uh, and the role of the hospitality space to, to accommodate, you know, some of this job creation is, it's gonna take me partnering with other companies who are like, you know what Kimberly, we really think that that is a story that we wanna, we wanna amplify, that, we wanna, we wanna figure out how do we, how do we do that together?

And if we can get that and we will, then we'll be able to, to do the work that we are, we've set out to do.

Dan Ryan: Okay, so let's fast forward to the fall. You get a check or a wire for $250,000. You're gonna be training people how to cut and sew. You know, we have a really great audience here and a rabid audience from the hospitality industry. Like, what are these folks gonna be cutting and sewing, and how can this audience, how can you plant a seed in this audience's head about like what they're gonna be cutting and sewing, and how they might be able to help, how can you impact them as a remarkable teacher? There we go. Look at, like, I run all the way

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, no pressure. Go. I think, I think what I, what I'd like to do with this project is to continue to offer an invitation, not an indictment of what you haven't done, but an invitation to imagine that. As you create spaces for consumers who are coming to your, your restaurant group or you're to your, the, the hotel locations that you manage, that you want them to understand that there's a degree of safety that you're creating that extends beyond what they can see in the walls that they are gonna exist in.

And you're gonna do that in a way that on the forward facing side looks really good in the form of. Of tailored uniforms that are aligned with the color story and decoration of the space. Where the, where the bodies who will wear them will will be with table linens that will also be bestowed and handcrafted and tell a story of, of your care for what you're producing and, and aprons, if that's something that you're interested in.

That will also continue to elevate the dining experience. You know, when I walk into dining experiences and I see a wait staff or a hotel space, I see the wait staff and there's no sense of. Of cohesion or of really intentional design where it's like they're all left to their own devices. My, my impression of that space, and it's, and it's attention to detail, it collapses and the veneer that I'm in, I'm being held in a, in a new world, it, it falls away from me and I think that that's a missed opportunity for people in the.

In the food and beverage space, but also in the hospitality space in terms of what's happening at, at the front desk of hotels across this country. And so I'd, I'm really excited as a, as a, as a woman owned business, as a black-owned business in hospitality and, and industry, that's really, I think growing in its commitments and its understanding of the importance of, of really.

Widespread belonging that there are, there are listeners right now who are thinking about, you know what, you know what, we do need to do a different job. Or there is an opportunity for us to, to reco our space and there's an opportunity for us to tell a really en engaging story, whether it live on social media or lives on our website about our commitments.

And that's what partnering with Grant Boulevard in this work is. It's about aligning commitments and aligning values and. And, you know, really showing a dedication to attention, to detail and, and community. So I, I think it's a, for those companies that are thinking about, you know, what are your, how are you achieving your ESG goals?

I really, I'm excited for Grand Boulevard to, to support you in that work

Dan Ryan: And so the products will be everything from table linens to uniforms, to aprons to

Kimberly McGlonn: Textiles, for the, for the, for open space. So we

have, you know, It could be drapery. Yeah, it definitely, that's a, that's definitely a thing that we can, we can easily pull off our, our manufacturing studio is right here in Philadelphia, so I think that for some companies who are thinking about, you know, made it America, we're here, we, we are, we have to shore up American manufacturing and, and you know, this idea that in cities across this country that we're gonna, we're gonna improve the quality of life without attending to poverty is a myth.

These, this is work we're gonna do together and, and hospital or hotels, excuse me, and food and beverage space. The hospitality industry at large is gonna get more beautiful through these kinds of intentional strategic design decisions.

Dan Ryan: So just also to make this granular so people can visualize this, like for instance, my wife, among many things, she, she'll go and she'll help a restaurant or a hotel concept their uniforms and develop their uniforms mostly for retail. They'll, she'll go and find things from retail that are kind of off the shelf, but curated so that, you know, it can look like not a uniform, but within a hotel also.

And, and on the project she's working on, there's a lot of people in that hotel that need an actual uniform from a durability and everything else. So like in the case of her, when she needs to do a uniform part of her work, um, how could she interface with you? And then hopefully as you, as you share this like other, it'll connect the dots in other people's brains.

Um, as far as like how they can help get that ball rolling or get that snowball growing.

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, no. You know, when I think about, let's give you an example. The idea of what we did with the W Hotel when they Landon in Philadelphia. They reached out to us and asked us to come in. Um, and this could have been done virtually. We're just here in Philadelphia, so we did it in person and to look at the space and then to design uniforms for their food and beverage team, for their, you know, just for the food and beverage team.

So we did, for them, they wanted, you know, one of one button up work shirts that were in alignment with the color story of the space, so that when, when guests come in, it's like they're walking into. They're walking into a party. And that's what, that's was the vibe they wanted to give. So for us, it's, you'd reach out, you'd come to our website, www.grumbleofour.com, and you would take a look at our link that says Home and Hospitality.

And then you'd reach out and you'd say, Hey Kimberly, we wanna, we wanna out outfit, um, our baristas with aprons, which is what alone wants us to do. Or we wanna outfit our, our back of house with something that. Is durable and something that is wearable, and we want you to help us design something that fits us.

I think that that's the, the goal is to make spaces feel really alive in unique ways by, by really designing for things that feel in some ways site specific, city specific, vibe specific. So, you know, that's just a matter of, of collaborating and then figuring out, you know, what makes your team feel excited about the garments, what do they need and what's the story you wanna tell through, through, through fashion.

So,

Dan Ryan: That's awesome. You know, I've also been very intrigued by like, trying to up my gifting game and um, you know, kind of doing some personalized, um, gifts that are not necessarily like, About me defining hospitality or my other companies. Um, but just like to personalize something for the person I'm giving the gift to.

And as you're saying aprons, I'm thinking, wow, that would be actually be really cool. It's, you know, we're coming up on Memorial Day, July 4th. Um, it would be a cool like barbecue gift and you can put the person's name on it. Is that something you can do as well,

Kimberly McGlonn: Um,

Dan Ryan: or are you

Kimberly McGlonn: hadn't thought about it. The goal for us is we wanna, we wanna, we're, we're, we're scale. It's scale. So those, the individual things are not really what our, it's not our strategy right now. Our strategy right now for, you know, we're gonna have, we're gonna have nearly 30 in people that we need to employ.

And that I think we're gonna employ just through, just again, through scale. Um, the, the, the ambition is, is that, you know, I don't know who's listening today. I don't know, is a standard hotel listening maybe. You know, it's like, who are, how are these, right?

Dan Ryan: you dropped standard there. Like who are some, and again, you're not, this is not at the detriment of others, but like who are some other like, dream um, customers that you could think of or dream accounts that you could think of?

Like a standard

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, no, probably like, I, I really like the Kipton. I feel like that's a, that's, they're doing some really cool, fun, fun stuff there. Um, soho House Fit Club here in Philly, um, Gosh, you know, all of those, the, the Viceroy Hotel Group, all of those, those of you who are in the hotel space, who are really thinking about an elevated experience or you are a B Corp aspir and to be a B Corp, um, or you, you align with the values of the B Corp and you wanna be able to make that a part of your storytelling to your consumers.

You are who we're looking to partner with you. We wanna

Dan Ryan: you know who? I think this could also be cool for. Is someone like at graduate hotels too, like where they're like in all the, like, cuz they're like, they're in college towns. Those, and going back to those remarkable teachers, like, you know, in a way, if they could tell a story around that in these college towns, you know, they're impacting people at the very beginning of their career that are going out into the ether.

That could be really neat

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah. You know, I, I know that as we look at, I look around at the world and I think like, While we're, of all the things we're struggling with, one of the things we're struggling with as a species is this crisis of optimism. I think it's really sometimes hard to look out and see, you know, you hear climate, news, the, you know, all the tensions in the political landscape and what that means for, for, you know, our, our differing notions of progress and regression.

And I think that if we can figure out how we can be more strategic about making our guests in our retail spaces, in our, in our restaurant scenes, in our hotel spaces, feel a sense of, of real optimism. I think that there's a win there. You know, joy and happiness and safety are about feeling optimistic that, that you're gonna be taken care of, that things are being taken care of.

And, and when I think about the work that I'm aspiring to do with Grant Boulevard, Um, that is really what it's about. It's about I really wanna use my, my life and the work that I'm doing in the fashion space and in the manufacturing space to shore up this deep human longing we have to, to feel like all is not lost.

And that's work I can't do alone. So, thanks for having me on. I really, I'm really enjoying this conversation with you.

Dan Ryan: Well, I am too, and I'm, I'm also an eternal optimist. I don't know if that's like, somehow I. From all of the, the Irish ancestry where they're just like all, I didn't know any of them from Ireland. I'm just American. But like I feel like the Irish people are like always super optimistic and really funny and I dunno, my, my dad would always say stuff like, you're the eternal optimist.

Or, I dunno, just something like that. So it really resonates with me as far as opt being optimistic. And there's a lot of things like you say, that are, that can. Turn up the volume, so to speak, on pessimism. But I wanna, I want to go back to when you were in East Africa and you watched that documentary called 13th.

It was 13th. It's called 13th cuz I've never heard of it, but I'm actually very intrigued by the 13th Amendment because Steven Spielberg did an Abraham Lincoln movie and I thought it was freaking awesome cuz it really got into the nuance of how he got that 13th amendment passed with. I think he had to get like, I forget the dude's name, Thaddeus Stevens or something.

He was like the, the big abolitionist from somewhere up north and he had to get the huge, the big abolitionist who I think was played by, who was that guy from Texas? Tommy Lee Jones or something. But it was really about like how do you get him to compromise a little bit so that they could bring the southern states in and that they could start this reconciliation.

Or reconstruction or whatever they called it. So I think it was like, it's, it's a story of compromise. But I also think a story of missed opportunity, because I think in that idea of reconciliation, like if you go, like, I just hear these stories of like Rwanda, after the, the Rwanda genocide in 1994, they had like this big, I think they called it their reconciliation or something

Kimberly McGlonn: and

reconciliation.

Dan Ryan: Truth and reconciliation. I feel like we never fucking did that here after they passed the 13th Amendment. But really where they got all these Tutsis and Hutu,

Kimberly McGlonn: Yep. You got it.

Dan Ryan: and Hutu, Hutu and Tu okay. Where, where for years and years after 1994, they all, they went into and relived all of the horrors of burning down people in churches and killing people and, and just all this tribal stuff where all this tribal stuff was just like some.

Kimberly McGlonn: Bullshit.

Dan Ryan: I don't know. It was bullshit. That was like labeled on them from, I guess the Belgians

Kimberly McGlonn: you're right from The, Belgians.

Dan Ryan: uh, see, I read shit cuz I had remarkable teachers and then, um, but then, but it was, so it was this construct of these two separate tribes. But they, my point is they went through and they went into that horror and just kind of,

Kimberly McGlonn: set

Dan Ryan: with it, and now they don't.

They sat with it, they explored it, they lived with it, and I feel

Kimberly McGlonn: Grieved it.

Dan Ryan: yes, they grieved it. They didn't. And now if you're there, I've never been. But I hear, I have, uh, family and friends that have been there. Like people don't talk about Hutu and Tutsi anymore. They're just, they're Rwandans. Right.

And I feel like the missed opportunity after the 13th Amendment was passed was, we didn't. Go in there. We didn't live it. We didn't grieve,

Kimberly McGlonn: No, we didn't. We didn't acknowledge that. When you, we didn't, we didn't choose. And I, we, even when we say we, I still feel like that's a little bit of a euphemism because it, it's, it's a permission giving to not. Be truthful about who we're talking about, right? Black people at that point have been enslaved for over 300 years.

That's like six generations of people who were never allowed to own themselves, to own their children, to own land, to learn, to read to, to move around in any way, to control where their kids would be, like basic human stuff. And so when we say we didn't talk about it, You're right. We didn't talk about it because those who were in power and those who were in privilege, and those who were in comfort, and those who were in ease, they didn't wanna be, they didn't wanna be made to feel uncomfortable.

They didn't wanna experience emotional discomfort, so they, they continued to, to act on it. We just didn't talk about the horror of it, and we didn't talk about the horror of it because so many of our systems. We're were designed to be supported by the horror and, and to talk about the horror would've meant to have, to redesign, to do the work of redesigning systems.

And, and there was some effort, you know, like during the era of reconstruction, right after the end of slavery, there was an effort to figure out how to integrate neighborhoods and schools and the legislator. And it didn't last very long. It lasted for like 12 years. And then there was the, then the KK came, came through, and then Jim Crow became the new status quo.

And those were things we didn't need under slavery. So there was an opportunity to redefine the country. But the Redefinition Post, the Emancipation Proclamation was to figure out, okay, owners, masters, plantation owners are not gonna be the people of the police black bodies and lives, so what's gonna be the new apparatus?

And it was the kkk. Who became the sheriffs, who became the mayors, who became the judges, who became the teachers. And, and we didn't get, we didn't get radical change. We got this, we're doing better and isn't that good enough? And now we're at a, a stage where it's like, Yo, like our poverty rates are a reflection of that era.

Our criminal rates are a reflection of that era. The fact that we don't have meaningful integration in our communities, our neighborhoods, and our workplaces, and that so many people are okay with that, on what they're missing out on. Is a still a fallout of that denial?

Dan Ryan: Yeah. And the fact that what is it, 2% of our population is incarcerated.

Kimberly McGlonn: No.

Dan Ryan: Is it? Is

it

2%?

Kimberly McGlonn: it's higher than that.

Um, it's, it's almost 7 million people. So I have to, I have to go and look and Google the statistic on what that, what the percent of Americans are, who are held in a, in a, in any kind of criminal control. And this is the thing, you know, criminal control, which means, and it's not that people.

So yes, people break the law, right? And we gotta figure out what do we do with people who break the law? We gotta figure out what are the laws that people should break that result in jail time. That's, that's an issue we gotta resolve. We have to figure out are, you know, how are we policing the population?

Is everyone being policed at the same rates? Are there, are there assumptions about who needs to be policed differently? And how does race and class and gender factor into that Policing, those policing rates, you know, and. Do we care about? What do, what do we care about y'all? And I'm still, I still, I'm still rooting for America.

I'm working

really hard. Yeah. I'm.

Dan Ryan: so that's, that's, that, that was that turn we took to go down the optimistic road. And then, so, so when I, when I talk about the 13th Amendment, I'm like, okay, it was a compromise, but it, and it also helped bring an end to the Civil War, and it also was a missed opportunity because there was no. Truth and reconciliation. Right. So in, I'm, I just wanna go back into your headspace to where, you know, you're a teacher, you're in East Africa, you watched this documentary, how did you find like Netflix in East Africa? Did you have to go through a vpn?

Kimberly McGlonn: No, no. Good question. I, I watched when I came back.

Dan Ryan: what? Oh, okay.

But when you watched it, when you came back and then you think about that like, After you, you, that the credit started rolling in that film, like how did that change the trajectory of you? Because to me it's also a pessimistic thing. I haven't seen the, the documentary, so I can't really speak to it, but like as awesome as the 13th Amendment was, it also created a whole bunch of other problems, unresolved problems.

And I, I don't know, the optimist in me says, you know, where you say you, you're still rooting for America. I just think that like, If you look at the history of the world, we'll, we're still the longest serving self ruling people without benefit of king or dictator in the history of the world. And for that, to quote an article I love that gets printed every Thanksgiving, we still remain the marvel and the mystery of the world.

So as horrible as things are, I still think that we have that pursuit of happiness. It's not, not a guaranteed thing, but I don't know, I'm just optimi. I, I'm just optimistic that we still have that. Ability to pursue happiness as imperfect as it is, and it's, I don't know, I just get so pessimistic looking at everything.

So how did that movie flip a switch for you, and how do you remain optimistic in everything that you do?

Kimberly McGlonn: You know, I taught, I should say this, I taught, um, I taught about colonialism for about 18 years. So I've, I've taught the story of Rwanda. That was the, I taught about that since 19, since 2003 maybe. I've been teaching about Rwanda, so I know that, that, that context really, really well. And I was gonna go to Rwanda instead of East Africa, but it was in April, my triples plan in April.

And I didn't think it was appropriate to be a voyeur. Of a culture in a moment when I knew that they would be honoring what happened in April of 1994. That's how I ended up in Kenya actually.

Dan Ryan: Oh,

Kimberly McGlonn: Mm-hmm. And, and I, when I think about the stories of, of the world, right? Having spent so much of my life really a understanding the larger global context, ultimately we, we all have a choice to make.

And, and we, it's a choice you have to make every day. Are we gonna settle into pessimism? Which ultimately is a force that leaves us feeling demoralized and defeated. And that's, or we gonna choose the spirit of optimism. And with this one precious life of mine, I have been so gifted with, with this a really interesting set of talents.

And I recognize that my time on this planet is finite. And I also know that I have a 15 year old daughter who is gonna be here after I'm gone. And I know that as she steps out into the world every day, I really feel responsible for trying to not just protect my own optimism, but to protect her positivity too. And so the work that I'm doing with Grant BLVD and, uh, and all my projects, um, they really are about trying to. use my energy to be a beacon of light for, other people because, because our, the threads that will hold us together are fragile.

And unless more of us step into being anchors of optimism and of calm, then there will be more chaos and that will not be my story.

Dan Ryan: Hmm. Well, thank you for sharing that. Um, I just think this imperfect union and what we have here, I, I don't know, I just feel like it's a 200 and almost 50 year experiment, right.

And for all the horror horrors, I'm still rooting for America because I think, um, I think we have all the pieces and people. To make, make change.

And I'm just so honored to have you on because you are there doing change. You're making change happen. You're impacting, you're remarkable in, in what you're doing. And I was just really inspired when I first fucked up your introduction and, uh, and, and got to know you at all these other events and it's just, it's awesome.

Um, I also didn't realize you were in Kenya. I was in Kenya when you were at the elephant place. Where was it? David Shel.

Kimberly McGlonn: Um, yep.

Dan Ryan: Oh yeah. I love that. I, I went there, I'm actually going back again this summer with my wife and some friends,

Kimberly McGlonn: That's awesome.

Dan Ryan: I'm very excited.

Kimberly McGlonn: You should be Kenya's a beautiful country. Nairobi's an incredible city.

Dan Ryan: it, it is amazing. I remember, and actually when I, oh, so here's a funny story.

Ready? Did you ever see, the Crown.

Kimberly McGlonn: I never saw it.

Dan Ryan: Do you, uh, okay. Well in a way I'm kind of like the Queen of England because when my wife said, oh, you have to watch this, you have to watch it. Cuz when I was in Kenya, my dad actually died and I had no idea that he passed away.

He was sick for a while, but uh, a couple weeks later I started watching the Crown and. The Queen. Elizabeth's dad was King George. Right. And he had lung cancer. My dad had lung cancer. Uh, and then she, when she went on her honeymoon with King, whoever, or whoever her husband was, I don't even know if he was a king.

Uh, they were in, they were out on safari where I was. And then when she first found out about it, she went to this place called Nan Yuki over, um, I guess there was like a British garrison there. And then when my, when I got back to internet, I was in Nan Yuki and my phone buzzer went off and I found out my dad had died, and that's where she found out that her dad had died.

So when I was watching this on an airplane, I literally fell out of my chair. Um, and then I went back and I thought I, I like relived the safari I was on, and just thought about my dad dying and all the things that I saw in an owl flying. And the guy never saw an owl and owl's a symbol of death or. Um, so like all these things that I recreated in my head were really powerful, so I'm glad you had a transformative moment when you were in East Africa too, because like that really resonates with me and I'm super excited to go back and, and kind of relive that.

Um, sorry to digress there, but I just wanted to share it with you and everyone. But, um, as with all the depression or all the things that are not going well here and this, you know, staying with that theme of optimism, um, When you look at all the things that you've accomplished and you know your daughter and like what she's looking like, how you're gonna help kind of pilot her into this optimistic future.

What, what's lighting you up and what's exciting you most about what you see in front of you?

Kimberly McGlonn: Ooh, fun question. I'm excited to see how we continue as a brand, as a, as a manufacturing, um, anchored company, how people continue to respond to us. You know, like we've gotten some. Some really great support and we're still in some ways, you know, I've been at this now for almost six years.

Um, and so, and, and you know, half of that time we've been all navigating an a, a, a pandemic. So that's, you know, that's been there. But I'm really excited to see, you know, how people respond if, if we can create some traction around some infectious sense of optimism and belief in what we're doing. You know, Hedley and Bennett.

They, they produce a lot of aprons for the world, and I would really like to give them a solid run for their money. So for all you listeners who are, who are currently, you know, your partnering, you, you, you. You purchased from Hedley and Bennett, come on over here. And, and when I think about that, that that opportunity to really create a national momentum around we can produce things in America, we can create jobs in the face of.

Of whatever AI will do to the landscape and the workplace we are invested in, we're, we're all rooting for America. If, if Grant Boulevard can be a story of, of that revival, of American ingenuity and, and American potential. You know, and, and new stories of like, who can lead a company and, and what is the power of B cores and, and why is it important to figure out how we're gonna address poverty as a nation.

If Grant Boulevard can become the poster child of all of that good. That is something that makes me really, really excited as a part of, you know, just like national service.

Dan Ryan: Yeah. And at at some way, if. I just think we all need to be more engaged and I think, uh, a disengaged democracy is not an optimal one. And, and even with all these formerly incarcerated people, I don't know how it is in Pennsylvania, but are they, are they allowed to vote?

Kimberly McGlonn: They are allowed to vote in Pennsylvania, but in a lot of places they're, they're intentionally not, you know, that's true.

Dan Ryan: It's insane.

And I'm like, because we need to get. In the voting booth. Everyone, everyone. American experience,

so that,

Kimberly McGlonn: we're demo, if we if we really believe in democracy.

Dan Ryan: Yeah. Huh. That's what I wanna figure out. How do we get more people in the voting booths? Hmm.

Kimberly McGlonn: And I appreciate that being your concern because for me, you know, and this is, uh, you know, talking to everyone who's, who's all to you, listener right now, you gotta get to your frontline. You know, like we all have to figure out in this, in this story of the now and the future, what will we choose to care about?

And there is a lighthouse that is waiting for you to take your position. And so it's cool to me that you say you, you care about voter engagement and voter turnout. We need people who were there like, yo, like I give my time to this every week or every day, or once a month, or you know, like, I have my cadence.

We all have to figure out how are we leveraging our time and our talents to, to add more value to our own lives. I am, I, my life is, is really, it's really like, Ooh. A stack to the minute, but it's full. I feel so alive. I still sleep eight hours a night. I still get to vacation. I still get to, you know, rest on Sundays is the day I choose.

Um, but I, I feel alive and it's because of, of how much my commitments to caring how much they, they, they carry me.

Dan Ryan: Hmm. Um, if we could get in a time machine, how, how long ago did you watch that documentary? 13th

Kimberly McGlonn: 2016 is when it came out.

Dan Ryan: 2016. So you, it, it, it changed the course of your life, right?

Watching that documentary. I'm, I'm gonna watch it, um, this afternoon because

Kimberly McGlonn: It changed the course of my life and there was one moment when I had to turn it off cuz I was just like, I just. This is just so heartbreaking this, all this truth. You know, you talk about facing the truth, whether it's your own childhood trauma or, or someone else's trauma. That is true. It's hard, it's heartbreaking, and, and the adults in the room have to have to handle that so the children in the room don't have to.

Dan Ryan: Well, if you, the Kimberly I'm speaking to now, like since then you've created Grant Boulevard, you're leaving an impact. You're a remarkable teacher. You, you know, if you were to go back to that Kimberly, that was in 2016, watching that and how you felt and how it changed the trajectory of your life. What advice would you have for yourself?

You know, almost, what is that? 9, 9, 8, 9 years later?

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, something like that. I would tell her you don't know how you're gonna do it, and you don't have to know how you're gonna do it. You'll learn, you'll figure it out. You're capable and you're smart and you're confident and the people who you need to pull up for you to show up, for you to get behind you. They're coming. Show them where you're standing and wait.

Dan Ryan: And if you can get Fast Company Incorporated and Beyonce to pay attention, I, I think you're, I think you're ma you're in, it was seven years. My math is terrible. But in those seven years, uh, you're leaving an impact and I thank you for being here. If people, if people wanted to, Learn more about you or Grant Boulevard or see how they can help, like what's the best way for them to get engaged?

Kimberly McGlonn: Yeah, you know, you can get engaged by, you know, we're on that the good old IG we just got on the ticky talkie. Um, so that's Grant Boulevard there. If you, if you wanna listen to, to my thoughts and, and follow my life and my journey. I mean, I'm not like post crazy, but, you know, you can get to know me on, on those.

Same on, on grant, on, uh, Instagram, excuse me. Um, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn and that's at my name, Kimberly Lon. Um, and if you wanna just hear my thoughts on identity and failure and success and disruption, then you can listen to school for disruptors. That's in season three. We just wrapped season three.

We're gonna go into season four. Me and my, my dear friend Sarah Ulli, um, I identify as black. She identifies as white and I, and I think it's really been really beautiful to be able to build with her in the, in the digital space through that platform school for disruptors.

Dan Ryan: School for disruptors. So wait, I have, okay, thank you. And we'll put all those in the show notes. But, uh, Kimberly, this has been fantastic. Uh, we laughed, we cried. Thank you. This was, uh, I'm very grateful.

Kimberly McGlonn: I had a really great time. Thank you again for, for having me on, and I'm so glad I gave you a second chance at redemption.

Dan Ryan: Yeah, always give me a second chance. I appreciate it. Um, and also I know you were referring to the listeners a lot and I also want to just take a moment to thank them. Um, Thank you. Uh, without you guys and the growth we experience every week, we wouldn't be learning from Kimberly and being impacted by this remarkable teacher.

Um, so please be sure to like forward it on, uh, leave a comment. All of it helps with the distribution, so we appreciate you and, uh, if this changed your idea on hospitality or how to impact others through hospitality, um, please pass it along. It's all word of mouth, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you.