A. Ray Charles

It was here that A. Ray Charles, vice president of the Owens Group, a Chicago-based minority-owned commercial insurance brokerage firm, planted the seed that eventually sprouted a contract with Dave Deurson, CEO of Fair Oaks Farms (No. 44 on the BE INDUSTRIAL/ SERVICE 100 list).
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"The platform was laid and it was up to us as entrepreneurs to take advantage of that," says Charles.
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Remember Charles?He, and the more than 150 entrepreneurs who participated in the golf outing, were on the right course.After meeting at the opening reception, he agreed to link up with David R. Deurson, president and CEO of Fair Oaks Farms in Kenosha, Wisconsin.He committed Duerson to a follow-up meeting.

Duerson says that although the group is based in Chicago, he had never met Bill Owens, president of the group, or Charles."I was even more impressed after meeting with him [Charles] for an hour," he says of their meeting, which took place less than two weeks after the Entrepreneurs Conference.

Charles believes that his background also worked in his favor.After earning a B.S. and an M.S. in chemical engineering from Howard University, he leveraged his degrees to develop commercial insurance deals within the manufacturing sector.

"I hire individuals, not companies.I hired A. Ray Charles.I see him as a brother of integrity.He gained my confidence."So much so that in August, Duerson invited Charles to the Multicultural Food and Hospitality Conference in Atlanta to introduce him to a number of Fair Oaks Farms clients.Says Charles, "These are companies I've been calling on for six or seven years.Both parties concur that they're dealing on a two-way street, meaning that each company has paved the way to "opening" a network of clients to the other.

Duerson says that because the Owens Group is Chicago-based and, more importantly, black-owned, it made sense to turn over the insurance responsibilities to the group.Under the contract, Fair Oaks Farms retains Chubb as its insurance carrier but turns over all negotiating, monitoring services and loss control services to the Owens Group.

"Dave is very committed to working with minorities," says Charles, adding that signing a deal with the second largest black-owned supplier of sausage to McDonald's represents a very sizeable contract for his organization.