A Chance To Get Into The Room

Some business choices do not come easily. The decision about what would appear on the Web site was agonizing. Asked whether he is hiding his heritage or is ashamed of it, Ford's smile disappears and his eyes narrow. He wonders aloud if it's being suggested that he is a sellout, then abruptly leaves the office to lift weights.

The next day, he admits the questioning angered him. "I had to pray about that," he says. Ford then proceeds to defend his racial consciousness: He mentors black teenagers interested in becoming entrepreneurs. He makes a point of employing black interns at his firm. And he still lives in the 'hood (in the Brookland section of Northeast), near vacant lots where he played football as a boy and within walking distance of his elderly parents. "It's expected that when you obtain a certain level of success, you move out to the suburbs, but that's not me," he says. Not even after his house was mistakenly riddled with bullets five years ago in a drive-by shooting.

Do not mistake his business decisions for some lack of black pride, Ford insists. Like many black businessmen who have long felt like outsiders, Ford just wants "a chance to get into the room."

"If I get in the room," he says, "I'll show you what I can do. And I'm going to do whatever I can do to get in that room."

* * *

The 'Myth Men'

In a sense, Ford's quest to "get in the room" originated on George Washington University's campus in 1983. He, Andre Rogers and Thomas Spann -- classmates who became good friends -- would meet at the black student union and fantasize about owning a business together.

At the time, blacks made up about 2 percent of the student body. On the first day of a class on race relations, the men recall, some white and Asian students talked openly about their perceptions of black people: lazy, good only at sports, the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action. It was the first time anyone had voiced such perceptions in their presence.

"We sat there with our mouths open," Ford, 41, recalled.

The trio, along with nine other black male students, decided to form a group called the "Myth Men," in part because no black fraternities existed on campus and they craved a social outlet. But the group's other mission was to try to dispel the negative stereotypes about black men.

After graduating, Ford, Rogers and Spann worked in various corporate jobs for 10 years before deciding to pursue their college fantasy. In 1998, they began meeting in Rogers's basement after work, throwing out questions and ideas about launching an information technology consulting firm. Where should they be based? What would attract clients? Where would funding come from? With his outgoing personality, Ford was chosen as chief executive. Rogers's fondness for spreadsheets and numbers made him a natural finance chief. And Spann, who had experience in management, would be the company's chief operating officer. Because they planned to illuminate clients' possibilities, they chose a name that suggested imparting knowledge and insight. Companies that worked with them, the partners figured, would be enlightened.

In 1999, the three men resigned from their corporate positions -- Ford as a manager at Intelsat; Rogers as a software developer for Fannie Mae; Spann as a senior analyst at NASD, a financial regulatory company. With their severance packages as seed money, plus $15,000 each in cash advances on credit cards, they rented a small, windowless space, just big enough for five desks, in an office building at 11th and G streets NW. (Enlightened still has that space but has since expanded to another floor.) The company's initial work came from small government jobs subcontracted to Enlightened by larger minority firms.

Enlightened now employs about 60 salaried and hourly workers who make as little as $9 an hour and as much as $110,000 a year. Expectations are high, and so is turnover: Since Jan. 1, 21 employees have either resigned or been dismissed. Last year, Spann left his executive's chair to become a consultant because he was away from his family too much.