$UNVC Check this out Sterling when with R4 secured a

$UNVC Check this out Sterling when with R4 secured a 16.5billion contract I am in the right stock!

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When a group of toweringly successful African-American businessmen scores a “D” in the crucial category of “Diversity” on the application process on the ground floor of what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar industry, the outcome usually isn’t good.

This is not the case, however, for African-American owned AGRiMED Industries.

For managing partner Sterling Crockett, board chairman Bruce Goldman and medical director Dr. Eric Mitchell, it is a reason to celebrate even more their awarding last month by the Pennsylvania Department of Health one of the 12 coveted licenses to operate as a grower-processor of medical marijuana in the state.

Not only did AGRiMED win a license – it blew the doors off of the process. Of the 177 statewide applicants, its score of 790.44 on a scale of 1,000 was the highest among the license recipients.

Still, despite an All-Black executive suite, a brilliant plan to partner with Lincoln University aimed at making the suburban HBCU both a research hub and an incubator for young African Americans hoping to gain entrance into the industry, and a planned partnership to pursue a medical cannabis license to grow, process and dispense marijuana with the Black Farmers Association in Florida, AGRiMED’S 60 out of a possible 100 points on the state application is a mystery.

More importantly, for business purposes, it is irrelevant.

Why? It’s simple. This group of African-Amercan businessmen scored so highly in areas of operational standards such as processing and extracting, operational timetable, employee qualifications, etc., that diversity – which eventually will be labeled by some as a form of affirmative action to give Blacks an unfair advantage – was rendered meaningless.

“When we saw our scores, we thought we must have nailed the diversity section,” said Crockett, who along with his team will operate a state-of-the-art facility in Carmichaels, a town about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh.

“We didn’t,” he added. “But we scored so highly in all of the other professional proficiencies, the areas where we have spent our careers working tirelessly to rise to a standard of excellence, of Black excellence. And we did it. That is why this is so rewarding.”

This isn’t arrogance. Quite frankly, their resumes are stunning.

Crockett has served as chairman, senior financial officer, and board treasurer for R4 Inc., a specialty company that services disabled veteran contractors and provides field support in Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany and Africa. Overseeing more than 300 employees, Crockett secured a $16.5 billion contract.

The Rockville, Md., native and his wife started Sterling Construction Services Inc. from their kitchen table. The general contracting company has provided disaster recovery services to the Pentagon after the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. Navy after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Goldman has served as the CEO at Harlem Hospital Medical Center as well as at the Roy Lester Schneider Hospital in St. Thomas, a U.S. Virgin Islands territory. He also was chief operating officer at a number of health care agencies and held administrative positions at such academic institutions as the University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland, Yale University and his alma mater, Lincoln.

Mitchell is an accomplished orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine. The former St. Joseph’s University basketball player is a graduate of the UPenn’s Perleman School of Medicine, and he holds a master’s degree in international relations. A retired colonel, Mitchell served as commander of two combat support hospitals and served as the deputy inspector general for the Department of Defense.

Before uniting with Goldman and Mitchell, Crockett, formerly general manager at Green Thumb Industries in Maryland, was part of an unsuccessful bid to harvest marijuana in that state when, just two days after being awarded a license, GTI was stripped of the license it won. In what had to be a slap in the face, the license was handed over to a lower scoring company to insure more “geographic diversity” in Maryland, which did not award any grower licenses to African-American-owned companies.

Pennsylvania’s process has been more fair and equitable, says Crockett.

While the Philadelphia area did not land any African-American growers in Round 1, another round is coming. Crockett added that local politicians such as City Councilman Derek Green, state Rep. Jordan Harris and state Sen. Anthony Williams have been extraordinarily helpful in the process.

But the reality of the situation is that is that AGRiMED did this by being completely prepared to strike when the opportunity presented itself.

For instance, Franklin Labs, which secured a facility in the southeastern Pennsylvania region, owns one of the largest cannabis operations in Colorado and is affiliated with a major marijuana producer in New Jersey. The company lists as an executive John Hanger, whose credentials include being the former secretary of policy and planning for Gov. Tom Wolf, a former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and a former commissioner on the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

If there is a developing trend in the early stages of this business that some have compared to Prohibition, it is that the well-healed and the well-connected win these licenses from state to state.

AGRiMED, formed last September, had none of the above. Apparently Black ownership, a commitment to an HBCU and struggling Black farmers didn’t check all the right boxes, so being diverse didn’t help.

But what did help is a speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that has been informing Crockett’s work ethic since he first heard King’s speech, given at Barratt Jr. High School in 1967 titled, “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint.”

“In your life’s blueprint, you must have as a basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various field of endeavor,” is a King quote that Crockett recites verbatim.

“People ask us how we won?” Crockett says. “We tell them, ‘We were the best.’ ”