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- In 1976, Gerald Ford was the first US president to designate the month of February as Black History Month.

It is an annual celebration that recognizes the contributions and sacrifices of African-Americans and their role in US history.

Today, we'll be celebrating the achievements of African-Americans here in the Lehigh Valley by meeting with business owners and talking with experts about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and recognizing the outstanding achievements of one Lehigh Valley resident who broke the racial barriers and soared up the corporate ladder in the field of automotive design.

- My character as a designer, it's a sleek, sporty elegance.

I've been drawing cars all my life.

When other toddlers were drawing stick figures of horses and people and buildings, I was actually drawing cars.

The day that I went through my mother's bookshelves and drew cars on the front page of all her books, she was not very happy.

Years later, she would want to show it off to everybody.

There we go.

The whole stack of them right here.

I grew up in Pennsylvania, actually on the Main Line, Berwyn.

My father was an automobile mechanic in World War II.

Once he got out of the war, he and his brothers started an auto body repair shop.

Philadelphia Auto Show was my Disney World.

It was my fantasy land, all the bright lights, the colors and the music.

My parents took me to the Auto Show.

I was eight years old.

And when we walked into this particular exhibit and I saw that car, the Cadillac Cyclone, and I was standing right there where that red dot is, I was standing right there along the rail and I was just peeking over the rail at the car.

And that is when I said to my parents, "When I grow up, I want to design cars.

"And I want to design cars for this company."

And at age 11, I wrote my first letter to General Motors, asking for their advice on careers in design.

So this picture just makes me smile, big-time.

It's cool.

Where I grew up, in suburban Philadelphia, there were very few people who looked like me that I could look up to.

I didn't have a single teacher of color until I went to college.

None of them were of color, my entire formative years growing up.

Never really thought about the fact that I might be the first African-American to design cars for GM.

This is one of my all-time favorite photographs.

I was a summer intern at General Motors and I was shaking hands with the head of design, one of my heroes, Bill Mitchell.

Look at all that hair I had!

And an awful lot of people wanted to see, "How is this black designer going to do?

"How capable is he?

"Is he going to be able to deliver?"

The first thing that I designed that went into production, I designed a tail-light for a Pontiac Granville.

That would've been for 1974.

And it was such a big deal that I designed this tail-light.

My parents went to the dealership to see it, when the car came out.

It didn't take long for me to realize that I was representing more than just myself.

When you're designing cars, you sign your sketch.

Every designer signs their sketch.

And they do it in a very legible way, so that when the bosses come in and they're looking for the design, they know who to credit for the very cool sketch.

So your abilities were right out there for everyone to see.

The Motor Trend Car of the Year award is something that's very prestigious, very sought after.

It's an award for design, engineering, every aspect of the vehicle, and I've been a part of the design of 10 different cars that received Car of the Year awards.

Designing the presidential limousine which became known as The Beast was a fun project.

Most of them have been Cadillacs, and with each one, they put more armored plating in them.

And when they'd add the armor plating, the interior kept getting smaller and smaller, as the doors are getting thicker and thicker.

And it got to a point where the interior was really cramped.

For the president and one other person, they had to really be close friends.

It was tight.

So when we had the opportunity to develop the new limousine, the decision was made to make it wider.

And so we developed The Beast, which became Obama's limousine.

I remember riding in it once on a test track.

And it was Secret Service that gave it the name The Beast.

I think most designs have a personality, they have a character.

Michael Bay, in his movies, used cars a lot because of their personality.

- Move it, you moron!

- You see?

Fantastic!

That car is sensitive.

- Some cars are the villain, some cars are the good guys.

And it's because of their character and their design that they can fit those parts.

All I knew about Transformers are the toys that my son had.

We were in secret developing Camaro, bringing it back.

And the leaders of Chevrolet thought that Michael Bay should see it.

Maybe that could be the new Bumblebee.

So he came in, he saw the Camaro.

He just said, "That's the perfect Bumblebee."

It's so appropriate for Bumblebee to be a Chevrolet Camaro.

It's very approachable, it's strong and it seems to be more youthful than some of the others.

And there's something friendly about it.

But you don't mess with Bumblebee.

- 50 years from now, when you're looking back at your life, don't you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?

- It was great working with Michael Bay.

He just wanted to thank me for my involvement, and so I had this cameo part where I had to yell... What did you touch?

My office in 15 minutes.

An automobile is an extension of a person's personality.

There's a lot in that vehicle.

It's a very technical device, but it's also artistic.

And that balance between art and science is a very critical one.

Designers and engineers speak different languages, and those designers who can speak the language of an engineer have a real advantage.

Having a diverse leadership team has an influence on the whole culture of that company or that business or that activity.

And to this day, I see the positive influence that it has.

The sensitivity to their customers, the understanding of their customers, their clients, is so important.

I'm proud of the people of GM Design, and I just think that people are capable of doing much more than we give them credit for.

- Our next featured guest is salon owner Michael Perry.

Firmly rooted in the Lehigh Valley for over 30 years, Michael's salons have thrived because of his desire to help people feel great about themselves and understanding that your team that helps you achieve your goals.

We spoke with Michael at his salon, where he talked about the importance of respecting one another, educating ourselves and those around us, and how necessary it is to embrace change.

- Hi, I'm Michael Perry, and I own Michael Perry's Hair Studio here in wonderful Bethlehem, PA.

I've been a hairstylist since 1982.

My mother experienced cancer when I was a boy.

Because of the chemo and the radiation, she lost her hair, and I could see how important it was to her.

And it was something that I was able to do for other people, to help them feel great about themselves.

Okay, Lisa, how are you?

- Good.

- Good.

So tell me about your lovely hair.

My first salon was tiny, almost like a bowling alley.

I had three chairs, black and white floor and I moved into the much larger salon.

And now I've come to a smaller salon.

We don't want to go too short because we don't want to cut out that beautiful color.

So we'll just texture and shape the edges a little bit.

I love the peacefulness of being in one room, with all of the guests.

I like to meet each guest personally.

I want to make a connection with them.

Being a black man in the beauty industry and in business, and a gay man in the beauty industry, it can be really challenging.

We haven't come that far from blatant racism.

And we haven't come that far from people being homophobic.

Prior to opening my salon, I was told that salons were not prepared for black and white people to have their hair done at the same location.

And it was really hurtful.

That is actually how I opened my first salon.

I had to open my first salon if I wanted to work with different nationalities, cultures and people.

The beauty industry is rooted in people wanting to change.

We change hair colors, we change haircuts, we change salons.

We just go to other salons just because it's fun.

Change is what it's about.

And it's challenging, but it's a lot better than the alternative, and so I've always embraced change.

I've been a hairdresser for a long time.

My purpose has changed over the years.

When I became a hairdresser, in the beginning, it was for me.

I have all these things I wanted to do for myself.

I wanted to make everyone look the way I wanted them to look.

As I've evolved, I realized that true beauty comes from the experience of just being with each other and helping people feel better.

So that keeps me going.

I think the importance of seeing people who are different than you is mindfulness.

And in order to understand yourself, you need to understand other people and their loves and their fears.

When you understand those things, you find that you have a lot more in common with them.

They love someone and you love someone.

They are concerned and so are you.

And they want the best for the world and so do you.

When you come together with another person, you can make more impact together in a positive way.

We have about 14 people.

I have two assistants, two front desk.

We have the front of the house, which is my husband, who runs the company.

He manages everything.

I tend to work for him.

And he has a bookkeeper who supports him.

And then our skincare is independent.

And the rest of the people work in hair.

I would say my secret of my success has always been, when you come into work today, you have to recognize, "How can I help somebody today?"

"What can I do to be a blessing in someone's life?"

And you build a team of people to help that blessing happened.

Because you can only drive so far by yourself, but you need a team of people to help you reach your goals or go farther down the line.

The team is your company, your support staff, your community.

In our case, in the building that we work in, our neighbors are wonderful to us.

Even the people who do snow removal on a snowy day, they're part of your team, so we have to respect each other and want the best for all of them too.

That really seems to get us what we need.

I learned early that there's a lot of love and support in the community, and the Lehigh Valley has been really wonderful to me and continues to be a part of that.

I love being here and I would be happy to stay here and to grow here.

- Talented, hard-working employees are the greatest asset of any company.

Recruiting and retaining highly skilled and motivated individuals is crucial.

We met with two local agencies focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, who are helping to attract top talent to the Lehigh Valley and keep them here.

- Hi, my name is Lindsay Watson, I'm co-founder of FIA NYC Employment Services.

We are the only black-owned recruitment firms in this community.

Getting the client request to actually starting to find the candidates... We work with companies to help them to identify top talent, to retain top talent, and we also help them from the C levels perspective especially to dive into what changes need to be made in the culture of the business in order for top, amazing, wonderful, diverse talent to be hired and to stay.

- It comes down to the job.

- Bill Brown, he's my business partner and he's also been my mentor.

- FIA NYC, we started out as just a staffing agency.

After the George Floyd incident... - Unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony, find the defendant guilty.

- ..there became a big cry and a call for diverse staffing.

We then began to turn ourself in that direction.

- LINC is a nonprofit organization.

We work with employers on diversity, equity and inclusion within the workforce.

We're going into our seventh year this year, so we work with employers, to support them in their efforts to recruit and retain highly skilled diverse talent.

- I came to the Valley in 2017.

My employer introduced me to LINC.

Working with LINC I was able to bring comfort to my wife and my daughters as far as getting acclimated to the community.

- The market for hires, for talent, has become incredibly, incredibly tight, and from manufacturers up to, you know, C-suite executives, it's a struggle to get employees.

You look at diverse employees, it's even more of a struggle.

- I think it's important that our employees represent the population that we service, and there's a definite value proposition in having people that are diverse in your organization where you're providing service to a diverse community.

- So if you're saying, well, we want people of color, we want more LGBTQ, OK, but then I walk in your workplace and I can feel the atmosphere says, "You're not welcome, you're tolerated."

"You're not welcome, you're tolerated."

"We're putting up with you," they're not going to last in there.

And that's why a lot of these companies can't keep the employees that they bring in.

- Companies are more profitable when they are diverse.

They're 19% more profitable if they have diverse management.

If you're hiring somebody that is, you know, a person of color, they're less likely to take the job if nobody else looks like them.

- Let me come in and assess your environment.

I can help you understand why people won't stay.

- I think it's important that you not only invite diverse groups to the party, but you got to make them feel welcome at the party.

- If an employee feels included, they're three times more likely to retain that employee.

- We are in the human resources business.

Our business is all about people, and that will never, ever change.

When people ask, well, what makes you tick, what keeps you going, it's helping people find great opportunities.

But it's also giving them value.

Having diversity really adds to the value not just of the workforce, but to the community.

You know, if you think about the restaurants and the stores and things that have happened in this area and have grown, because we are building diversity in the Lehigh Valley.

- So hasn't been without its challenges, but what communities doesn't have its challenges?

But I think that the opportunity here for us to make an impact and to help introduce change, with what Mr Brown is doing on the DEI side, the opportunity is amazing.

- Everybody's trying to do something better and something different in this area of diversity, and equal opportunity in employment, and if that continues, within the next 5 to 10 years, we could have a whole different Lehigh Valley.

- Mo Taylor first came to the Lehigh Valley in 1998 as a college freshman to play football and study engineering.

In his last semester, his career path took a turn towards the restaurant industry, and he never left.

Partnering with former co-workers, he co-founded the Bayou Boys hospitality group.

We got to talk with Mo when we sat down with him at the Bayou in Bethlehem.

- Hey, I'm Mo Taylor.

I'm a partner in the Bayou Boys hospitality group.

I'm a restaurateur and a serial entrepreneur.

I am Mo.

The Bayou is a southern restaurant.

We focus with New Orleans cuisine.

This is our gumbo.

Got all the goodness in there.

New Orleans is just a unique place.

Anyone who's ever been knows it.

When we go down, our trips consist of a lot of food.

People go down for the partying, we go down to eat.

For me, Southern cuisine is comfort food.

We wanted to open a restaurant that was different from what was already existing in the Lehigh Valley, and Bethlehem especially.

And we got a staple core of items that we just don't really deviate from.

Try chicken, mac and cheese, catfish, you know, those stay on the menu.

When you come to the Bayou, that's what you're going to get.

You know, that's a testament to our kitchen staff and the hard work that they put in back there.

We like to play our music loud and have a good time.

Our cocktail list is one of the things that hasn't changed.

One of our top-selling cocktails is our Bourbon & Berries.

Muddled berries in the base there, put a little ounce and a quarter of bourbon on top, some raspberry shots in there and then lemonade.

Shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Boom!

Bourbon & Berries, baby.

Came to the Lehigh Valley in 1998, came up from South Jersey.

I grew up in Somers Point right outside of Ocean City.

I came here to play football, go to Lehigh, studied engineering, and I thought that was going to be my path.

And I ended up taking an extra semester, and in that extra semester I got back into the restaurant industry and I found a little sports bar that used to exist here in Bethlehem called Starters Pub, and I quickly moved up the ranks there and became a manager, and went on with the owner to open two other sports bars in the Bethlehem area.

My partners today were all colleagues of mine back then, so we've got a history of about 20 years together.

The Bayou Boys hospitality group, it's an interesting mix, right?

So we all bring something different to the table.

On to other business... - Everything's been fine around here for the most part.

- Good.

What I think is important for a new business owner to do is assess themselves.

What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, and then figure out where you need to hire first.

Hire in your weaknesses, because you can handle the things that you're good at.

The other benefit, though, of having multiple partners, is it allowed us to scale quickly.

Are you managing today?

- No.

- Gary's here?

You're serving?

- Yeah.

- We opened the Bayou Bethlehem in 2014, and in 2015 we moved on and opened our second restaurant which was Grain.

Shortly thereafter opened a bottle shop next door, in 2016 we opened our barbecue restaurant, which was Queen City BBQ, and that was a very quick process.

From that point we opened our newest concept which is Wiz Kidz Cheesesteaks.

Bacon cheese fries.

Cheesesteaks have always been a part of my life.

When you look at that cheesesteak arena, it is the most hot button, like, food item, I think, that exists.

People feel that there is a proper way to order, and if you watch any type of videos in Philadelphia of, you know, people going up to order a cheesesteak and guys yelling at them, hitting them with a spatula, like, Wiz Kidz is not that.

So when you come there, you order your cheesesteak however you want.

We have a cheesesteak that we do called the 610, that's a traditional Lehigh Valley cheesesteak.

610 cheesesteak is steak, cheese sauce and pickles.

And then we have, you know, our Wiz, which comes with our house made cheese sauce, and steak is our classic Philadelphia style cheesesteak.

But no intentions of trying to be a Philly cheesesteak shop.

We wanted to be a Lehigh Valley cheesesteak shop.

- Thanks so much.

- Thank you.

The Lehigh Valley is, it's welcoming.

To me, it's really like the center of the universe.

Being a black entrepreneur, being a young entrepreneur and having success and gaining money and managing that, it's a major, major thing.

The challenges are many.

You know, you can be smarter with your money, right, you can invest, right, you can invest in property, you can invest in stocks.

I'm not going to be stopped.

I'm going to walk into that bank and I'm going to tell them what's going on.

It takes effort, and it takes belief, and it takes work.

Strawberry milkshake.

Success for me is being able to look back and know that you've helped others.

I felt successful when I first got a phone call from a former employee who called me and said, "Hey, Mo, I know that I was very difficult "when I worked for you, but I wanted to say thank you."

"You really did instill a lot in me that I use today, "you know, in what I'm doing."

Knowing that I had an effect on someone's life to help them better themselves, that was success for me.

- Earlier in the show, we spent time with Ed Welburn, former VP of Global Design at General Motors, at his home here in the Valley.

Retirement hasn't slowed him down one bit.

We brought him back to the studio to find out what's next for this ground-breaking design genius.

Welcome, Ed.

- Oh, thank you.

It's great to be here.

- In your career, you were the first black man in the design department at GM.

And later the first black VP, vice president, in the auto industry.

- Yeah.

- Do you see yourself as a pioneer?

- Yes, I didn't think so at the time, you know.

I just, I was just excited to be a car designer.

I mean, I was on a mission to become a car designer and it wasn't till I walked into that building for the first time that I realized that I was in fact the first African-American to be a car designer for General Motors.

- Wow.

- Wow.

- Wow.

So you've now retired.

I don't think you've slowed down, though, have you?

- Ah, not really.

You know, as I put it, and by the way, I really hate the word retired.

I am not retired.

- OK. - You know, and you know, there's something great and exciting about being retired, but that's not what I...

I'd rather say I graduated from General Motors, one of the best schools of higher education, and I'm now putting all that into practice.

It's like, I had this narrow focus on designing cars all of my life.

And when I graduated from General Motors, it like, it blossomed into many different creative areas and there are a lot of different things that I'm doing today that I'm excited about.

- Could you give some examples of where you're putting your creativity to work?

- Oh, a number of things.

I'm working with, I'm a design consultant and I end up doing a lot of sketching, for Bolt Micromobility - that's Usain Bolt - designing, you know, the future of electric scooters and electric bikes.

I love fashion design, I'm designing footwear from sneakers to boots to... And I really enjoy designing footwear or shoes for women, you know, from the tallest of heels to the flats of flats, and I really enjoy doing that.

- You've left quite a legacy.

What are you most proud of?

- What am I most...?

You know, there are certain cars that I'm very proud of.

And for me, the particular cars I'm most proud of, it's not just because of the car, but how I changed the brand and how it affected a lot of people.

But I think really, creating the Global Design organization, a seamless team of creative people, 1,400 creative people, working in 11 studios in seven countries around the world, the power of that team is what I think I'm most proud of.

- Wonderful.

- Yeah.

- Well, thank you so much for being with us today.

Your story is incredible, and I'm so happy that you shared it with us.

- Oh, it was a pleasure.

It was a pleasure meeting you!

It's great.

- It's great.

Thanks again.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Ed and Georgette.

For information and to see this episode and others, go to PBS39.org and share your thoughts online with the hashtag #LVRising.

I'm Valerie Bittner.

From all of us at PBS39, thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- BSI Corporate Benefits is a proud supporter of the Lehigh Valley Rising.

- The Vistex Institute for Executive Learning and Research at Lehigh University College of Business provides programs for working professionals.