Interview with Jeff Wright, Publisher of The Guardian Line

by: curvezilla 2 years, 2 months, 4 days, 10 hours, 31 minutes ago 15

Take a look at the article I have posted below.  Jeff was such an interesting guy and I was so intrigued by his personal story that I had to post this true American Success Story.  Heroes don’t only exist in the comics!

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Carl Jeffrey Wright is the fifth of seven sons born to Alvin and Lottie Wright.  His parents were childhood neighbors in Jonesboro, Arkansas.  Both individually and as a couple, Jeff’s mom and dad defied every perceived “limitation” and inspired the respect and trust of many, including their children.  Their legacy is the compass that has guided Jeff through the best schools and several highly successful careers until he reached his latest destination—his calling, UMI.

Lottie Wright was one of eleven children, the daughter of a preacher.  At the tender age of eight, she was run over by a train.  After she nearly bled to death, her family praised God for preserving her life and accepted the awful truth—Lottie had lost her left leg and her left arm below the elbow.  The future a poor, black double amputee could hope to enjoy in 1940s America was dismal, at best.  But Lottie was extraordinary.  Great things were bound to happen.

She and Alvin married in 1941.  In the early fifties, the family, which now included their first son, moved to Washington, D.C.  Alvin got a job at the Supreme Court building.  Since he had not completed high school, he began his career in Washington as a maintenance worker.  As he served faithfully and absorbed the daily routines of the Supreme Court, he received the notice of powerful men.  Alvin became a personal assistant to Chief Justice Earl Warren.  After 25 years of service to the Court, he retired from the position of Conference Clerk—the only trusted person admitted to the conference room as Supreme Court Justices privately discuss a case.

While Alvin flourished at the Supreme Court, Lottie’s loving, no-nonsense approach to discipline shaped the character of the couple’s seven sons.  “Mom could spank us just as hard as Dad,” Jeff recalls.  “I was 10 years old before I realized that she was “handicapped.” That word—“handicapped”—was never used in the Wright household.  Lottie wore a prosthetic leg, but she managed to do everything required of a mother without the use of her left hand.  Lottie’s boys had the best example of what hard work, determination and intelligence could accomplish.  “If a certain goal could be achieved by any living human being, we knew we could achieve it,” Jeff remembers.

While she was pregnant with son number seven, Lottie completed her Masters of Library Science.  She was Jeff’s school librarian and eventually held a position at the Central Library in Washington, D.C.  During a library career spanning 20 years, she became one of the founders and served on the board of the D.C. chapter of Reading Is Fundamental and served on the black caucus of the American Library Association.  “America is filled with two kinds of people—those who read and those who watch [TV].  My mother raised readers,” Jeff states with pride.

Jeff attended St. Albans School, the elite National Cathedral high school in Washington, D.C., where his classmates were the sons of senators and high-ranking D.C. personnel.  He chose to leave the school in 10th grade and returned to the public school system “to be with the black kids again.” Upon returning, he discovered he was hopelessly ahead of the curriculum.  After completing a few night classes, he graduated from high school at age 16.  He started college immediately at Fisk University, where he served as student body president and graduated with honors at age 20.  While attending Fisk, he spent the summers working as a custodian at the Supreme Court building.  “I know for a fact that I am the only lawyer in America who has cleaned every toilet in the Supreme Court,” Jeff laughs.  One day while he was vacuuming the carpet in the great hall, Jeff decided to pursue a law degree.

He was accepted to Georgetown Law School.  During the summer following his freshman year, he began working for the airline industry.  He had the opportunity to attend the deregulation hearings taking place at the time, and he found the whole process intriguing.  He discovered that the business world interested him far more than the thought of becoming a lawyer and contemplated quitting law school.  But his parents and the dean of Georgetown Law School encouraged him to finish what he started, so at age 23 he earned his law degree and immediately took a position with TWA’s marketing department in New York.

When he arrived in New York, he discovered that “corporate America had fallen in love with the MBA.” He was carrying the wrong degree.  While waiting on an offer from TWA’s law department, he decided to apply for scholarships, hoping to acquire the obligatory MBA.  He received two offers—one from the law department and one from Johnson & Johnson’s scholarship fund.  He chose to leave TWA and in 1980 was awarded the Johnson & Johnson Leadership Award, the most substantial fellowship for minorities available at that time, which paid for his two year MBA in finance from Columbia University.  As a cash-strapped graduate student, Jeff reconnected with the faith in Jesus that his parents had instilled in him as a young boy.

The next fifteen years were a season of spiritual and professional growth for Jeff.  He worked first for Johnson & Johnson then for health care giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he was vice president of corporate development (mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances) for their consumer businesses.  In 1988, Jeff decided to become directly involved in ministry, so he enrolled in seminary and was licensed to preach in the Baptist church.  He considered leaving his job to be a full-time minister until he saw a film produced by UMI, a company that produces media for the African-American church market, about two inner-city friends who had chosen different paths in life—one as a drug dealer, and one as the writer of Christian hip-hop music.  “UMI was so far ahead of the curve,” Jeff recalls.  “Here was a way to use media in a compelling way to reach young people with the saving message of Christ.  I had to work with these people.” He called the number on the back of the tape and asked to speak with the company’s president, Dr. Melvin Banks, Sr.  He was shocked to discover that a small company was producing such great work.  Dr. Banks invited Jeff to serve as a consultant for UMI and then to join its board of directors.  Jeff resisted a full-time commitment to UMI because his career at Bristol-Myers Squibb had really taken off.

In 1994, Jeff finally made the big leap of faith.  He left a powerful, unbelievably high-paying job
(with stock options!) in New York to serve as UMI’s president and CEO.  The company has nearly tripled in size during Jeff’s tenure.  “When you consider my parents and my grandfather, the preacher, it seems obvious that I would eventually run a company that publishes Sunday school material,” Jeff muses.  But his mission is not limited to reaching the African-American church alone.  “We have seen that Black culture sets trends.  It has become the global youth culture.  The media delights in glorifying the underbelly of Black culture and presenting it as representative of the culture at-large.  I want to spread the message of faith through the best that Black culture has to offer,” Jeff emphatically states.  Toward accomplishing this goal, UMI will be releasing The Guardian Line, a new series of comics created by established comic book artists that will engage young readers in stories that incorporate UMI’s biblical worldview, in September 2006.

Jeff serves on the boards of Americans United for Life, Fuller Theological Seminary, Urban Outreach Foundation and Evangelical Christian Publisher’s Association (ECPA).  He also serves as board president and CEO of Circle Y Ranch (Bangor, Michigan), one of the few African-American owned and operated Christian camps in the country.

The father of three and one more on the way, Jeff and his wife currently reside in the Chicago area.