Journey Towards Anti-Racism Ep11: Conversation with Ted & Rooney Castle (EP.64)
Updated
September 3, 2022
In episode eleven of the 12-part podcast series, "White Men & the Journey Towards Anti-Racism," Tim interviews Ted Castle (Founder & President) and Rooney Castle (Vice President) of Rhino Foods, the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream.
This series was created to be a resource for white men who might be wrestling with questions like, “What’s my role in anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and justice work as a white man with power and privilege?” and “How might my personal commitment to do this work manifest itself in the organization I help lead?”
Are you new to the series? Check out episode 54 where podcast co-hosts Lauren Ruffin and Tim Cynova introduce and frame the conversations. Download the accompanying study guide. And explore the other episodes in this series with guests:
Raphael Bemporad (Founding Partner) & Bryan Miller (Chief Financial Officer), BBMG
Ron Carucci, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Navalent
David Devan, General Director & President, Opera Philadelphia
Jared Fishman, Founding Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab
Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder, B Lab; CEO, Imperative21
Kit Hughes, Co-Founder and CEO of Look Listen
Marc Mannella, Independent Consultant, Former CEO KIPP Philadelphia Public Schools
John Orr, Executive Director, Art-Reach
David Reuter, Partner, LLR
Sydney Skybetter, Founder, CRCI; Associate Chair & Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts & Performance Studies Department, Brown University
Want to explore related resources primarily *not* by white guys? Check out our compilation of 30 books, podcasts, and films.
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
TED CASTLE is the owner and President of Rhino Foods, a certified B Corporation located in Burlington VT. Rhino employs 250+ employees and manufactures bakery style inclusions for ice cream manufacturers, and a variety of frozen desserts and snacks that are distributed in North America and Europe. Rhino Food’s Purpose is to “Impact the Manner in Which Business is Done” through its Financial, Customer and Supplier, Employee, and Community Principles. Rhino Foods and Ted have been recognized for their efforts with the Hal Taussig B the Change Award from B Lab, Beta Gamma Sigma Entrepreneurial Award. Vermont Small Businessperson of the Year, by the SBA, the Terry Ahrich Award for Socially Responsible Business by Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, Forbes Magazine’s List of Small Giants. Optimas award for vision in the workplace (past winners include UPS, Coors and 3M), Inc Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Special Recognition Award from the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. In 2018 the Rhino Foods Foundation was formed with the mission to "Spread Innovative Workplace Practices that Champion Employee Financial Stability and Make Good Business Sense" with an initial focus is to spread the Income Advance Program Rhino nationwide. Ted lives in Charlotte, Vermont with his wife Anne. Their two sons Ned and Rooney are presently living in Vermont.
ROONEY CASTLE Growing up, Rooney was continuously asked if he ever planned to join the family business. Time and time again, he would answer with a definitive “no”, as it would have impeded his plans to become the next Wayne Gretzky. However, as time went by and his hopes of becoming the next “Great One” slipped away, he began to learn more about Rhino Foods. As a child, Rooney only knew it was the home of the locally famous Chessters ice cream sandwich and the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream. As he began to invest both time and interest in the business his parents had created, Rooney discovered there was more to Rhino Foods than just delicious treats. His father’s passion for doing things the right way and understanding how a conscientious employer can impact employees’ lives outside of work is something to admire and emulate. It is this “do right” mentality, spread across all aspects of the business that attracted his to becoming a full-time rhino. In 2011, he started working at Rhino Foods on the production floor as a batter maker. The most important byproduct of his 8 months batter making was undoubtedly the relationships he developed with other rhinos and the knowledge he gained about what it takes to make their products. Rooney moved on to other roles giving him broad experience in other aspects of the business. This flexibility and exposure to a variety of learning opportunities is what makes him an engaged, versatile and happy rhino. Now the question he’s most frequently asked has become “when do you plan on taking over the reins of the family business?” to which he most politely responds, “I’m in no hurry.”
Host
TIM CYNOVA (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press.
Transcript
Rooney Castle:
What I'm learning is, to get into this work really requires a system change. And these things don't happen overnight. It isn't a quick fix here, a quick this here, a training there. It really is looking at how you do things from a structural standpoint. And I think that we actually do have a lot of progress in some of these areas, and we just really need to sort of double down and look at them with this new lens that we're learning through and figure out how do we continue to drive progress in these areas.
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck. A podcast about, well, that. We've paused our regular podcast episodes to produce this 10-part mini series called White Men and the Journey Towards Anti-racism. While you can listen to the episodes in any order, if you're joining us in the midst of this adventure, I invite you to check out episode 54 of our podcast where my co-host, Lauren Ruffin and I, introduce the series and frame these conversations.
All of the episodes, as well as a whole host of amazing resources on the topic not by white guys can be found on workshouldntsuck.co. In this series, we're talking with a variety of white guys who are personally and professionally engaged in anti-racism work. When asked, they each define the work in slightly different ways. Some articulate it as anti-racism or anti oppression work. Others say they approach it more through a justice lens. Others, inclusion and belonging. Still others, equity and impact.
Through these conversations, we'll explore the moments that led each of them to do this work, including their initial realizations that this was work for white guys to be doing. We'll discuss what's been most impactful and resonant to them in the journey, what's been most challenging. And since this is a podcast about the workplace, we'll discuss how this work shows up in the organizations they lead and the ones they work with.
On today's conversation, I'm joined by Ted and Rooney Castle. Ted is the founder and president of Rhino Foods. And Rooney is his vice president. Rhino is based in Northwestern, Vermont, along Lake Champlain. And while you might not recognize the company by name, I'll wager that one of their products. Rhino Foods is the birthplace of the iconic cookie dough that goes into Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream. You can read more about Ted and Rooney in their bios included in the episode description. So in the interest of time, let's get going.
Ted and Rooney, welcome to the podcast.
Ted Castle:
Thank you.
Rooney Castle:
Thank you very much for having us.
Tim Cynova:
So let's just start with, how do you both introduce yourselves and the work that you do?
Ted Castle:
Well, this is Ted. I'll go first. I would probably introduce myself as the founder. So I started the business with my wife, Anne. I'm the president right now. A lot of people call me The Big Cheese. Our company, we often say, is Rhino Foods. We're a B corporation. And yes, we make a lot of business to business ingredients for cookie dough ice cream. We also do some co-packing for some national brands also.
Tim Cynova:
That's awesome. Rooney?
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. So Rooney Castle. I've been with Rhino for just over 10 years now. And so obviously as a family business, I grew up in the business, but I'm working about 10 years in full-time capacity. So currently as the vice president, but I started actually, I was planning just to work for a few months and make some money to go back to continue the traveling I was doing internationally and one thing led to another and I'm still here. So I started out actually in production. Worked for about a year, eight months to a year as a batter maker, making our product on the floor. And then transitioned through a variety of different roles to where I am today.
Tim Cynova:
So let's go with you both share the same last name. Are you related?
Ted Castle:
Yes, I'm the dad. He's the son. I think it's important to note that we're transitioning the business as far as the presidency. So Rooney's vice president now and I'm going to be stepping back a little bit, lot less day to day. And so he's going to be the president of the company and I'll be trying to figure out how to support him in a different leadership role than be here as much as I am right now.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. So I'm one of Ted and my mom and two sons. I have a brother who's three years older than me and he doesn't actively in the business, but does do a lot of work for us and with us in terms of some of our media making and sort of storytelling. So he does a lot of video production. And so any videos that we have or stories we want to tell through our website or other media channels, he comes in and collaborates with us on those. So although he's not in the business day to day, we get to work together fairly often.
Tim Cynova:
I've been excited for this episode, for this interview because, one, I admire company, two, I admire your product. I enjoy your product. But three, I've never talked to two people who are related. I've never talked to a father-son, as it relates to the topic that we sort have met around white guys talking about race and racism in the United States. I find that to be a really interesting dynamic to explore, that you both are related. So you're exploring racism, anti-racism, anti-oppression, both as family members and also through business. How has that felt like in practice?
Ted Castle:
We are part of a group called White Men for Racial Justice. We call it WMRJ. We've been doing that for about two years. And so quite frankly, I would say I'd be a classic example of a white male with privilege in many ways who hasn't had a lot of exposure to what I'm learning now. So most of my experience over the last two years is unlearning and learning. I've considered it one of the most valuable things I've done in the last two years, because I know that both Ned and Rooney are involved in the WMRJ. There's no way that I had the understanding background insights that I've learned and we're learning now and the journey we're on. So in many ways, I'm 69 years old and I wish I had started doing this years and years and years ago.
Rooney Castle:
Just for those who don't know, Ned is my brother. So he referenced the two of us. To sort of answer your question, it's a unique experience to do, I think, as an individual. For me personally, it's been a really interesting experience and it is unique, I think, to have both your really two family members. So not just my dad, but also Ned is also in the group. So to have them in the group and sort of have that opportunity to continue to have those discussions outside of our weekly calls and other work that we do, because it's hard not to have these conversations and these topics come up in whatever we're doing.
If it's at dinner together, if we're down on the pond skating, whatever it is, we find ourselves referencing the work and some of the conversations that we have in WMRJ. So I find that it's a unique opportunity to continue to practice having that as part of the conversation and the way that we're now starting to, at least I'll speak for myself, the way that I'm starting to view the world and the way I interact in the world. And so to have more partnership in that and support only helps me on that journey.
Tim Cynova:
I'll say I'm envious, because before my dad passed away, anytime race came up it was not an easy conversation. And so I've admired the work that you all are doing together and how this is really impacting or maybe changing the frame for how you work and both together with the organization. And maybe can we unpack that a little bit? What's it been like to be in WMRJ doing the work personally. And then professionally, what does it look like at Rhino Foods?
Rooney Castle:
I think of this work as very much a journey. I think that's what we all sort of talk about. And for me as well, I feel like I'm very much at the beginning stages of that journey, now recognizing that this is lifelong work and it goes beyond that. So as we sort of say in the group, "Prepare for a lack of closure. This isn't something we do for a month or two and then we've sort of got it figured out." That said, where I'm really starting is really, as Ted said, it's unlearning and relearning. So I find that a lot of the focus over the last year and a half, two years for me has been on me and my sort of the way I think about race and racism and white supremacy and how I fit into that as a piece into that puzzle. And I feel like the best thing I can do is really put that foundational work into unpacking and understanding my role in all of this and really educate myself and learn before I start to go out and try to take action.
I think as a white male we tend to have action biases. And I'll speak for myself again that I tend to had have action biases and sort of to, like, "Okay, here's a problem. I'm going to go solve it." And this process has really taught me that sometimes that's not the best thing, and particularly in this case when there's a lot of harm that you can do or I can do not knowing the impact of some of my actions. Even if they're well intended, impact of course is a lot different than intention.
So again, to answer your question, it's still very much in the development stage for me of how this impacts how I do my day to day work. It certainly impacts how I feel like I show up in the things that I notice. And I would like to say that over the next six to 12 months and beyond, we're really now getting into, "Okay, how does that start to shape the actual work that I do and the way I show up differently?" Of course, I think that has changed a little bit, but I'm trying pretty hard not to rush into solution and change more into observing, learning, noticing. And when I do notice something, try to unpack that a little bit more before I start jumping to conclusions about how I think it might be done differently or could be done differently.
Tim Cynova:
There must be attention from a business perspective where often if that thing's not working the way we need it to, let's fix it. Or if we know something's wrong, let's do something about it. But sitting with that before doing something might feel counterintuitive.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. And I think it's important to recognize we've been operating this way again, or I've been operating this way for, I'm 34, so for 34 years. Until you start to do this work, you don't see that something is wrong. The whole system, white supremacy, is so powerful because I can continue to live within the system and not notice that there is a problem or the advantages that I'm getting through this system. I don't see massive problems in front of me. Again, for myself within the business case, I'm starting to see areas where there's opportunities for improvement or where, "Hey, this might be an area where I need to dig in to really understand is there a problem here. And then as we discover those, now let's be smart and intentional about how do we address them."
So it's a little bit more nuanced to me than... Or I think I'm used to sort of like with businesses it's like, "Here's the problem or here's the situation. Let's go in and fix that." This is much more of a discovery uncovering mission. And then what we do with that is think it's still the part that I don't have answers to. And that's sort of where the rubber meets the road and the work that I'm sort of excited to try to figure out how do we actually start making some tangible impact.
Ted Castle:
So I would just put it in context a little bit. So Rhino is a manufacturer. We started hiring new Americans 25 years ago. And what did that look like? It was refugees from Bosnia. So Burlington, Vermont is a refugee resettlement area. So we have been, as a business, trying to understand what that looks like for 25 years. And now over the 25 years, we now have lots of new Americans from the Bosnia, all over Africa, Nepal, Iraq, now Afghanistan. So in a way, our cultural diversity here at Rhino is something we've been exploring and working with for a long time. We decided to try to be the best in the state of Vermont for a place to come as a new American. So what does that look like? It takes a lot of practice. And so this idea of diversity and inclusion for us is very much a part of who we are in the programs and policies that we have at Rhino.
What WMRJ has done for me is have a little bit different lens towards a systemic and structural racism. But as a company in our programs, especially around our people and culture practices, we've been dealing with a lot of people that most people would consider the most vulnerable people in our society. So we're dealing with homelessness, addiction, all kinds of economic situations. So we've been dealing with economic inclusion and diversity and also cultural. So we're trying to... I believe Rooney and I are trying to get our arms around more of the structural and systemic to make sure the things that we're doing are helpful.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. And I think the work that we've done with the WMRJ has given me a different lens in which to sort of look at how we're doing things. So I would certainly have said two years ago I think very good at the work we do around diversity and inclusion. Now, I still think we're doing the right things, but I think it gives us an opportunity to look at it in a different light and see are there things that we may not have seen before that aren't big blaring acts of racism, but are policies and practices truly anti-racist. I think that's a shift that I'm seeing for myself personally, is not seeing these intentional sort of blaring issues, but saying, "Okay, where are these areas where we could be more anti-racist and what does that really look like and what would that really mean for us at Rhino?" So that to me is the big shift that the WMRJ group has helped me discover.
Tim Cynova:
You guys are doing some really cool things around people and culture, inclusive hiring, the Income Advance Program, things that are really at the forefront of how you can work with people in sort of their whole selves, and also unbiased certain parts of the workplace in a way that sort are really entrenched in. Rooney, you're talking about sort the exciting to really think about how we can do this differently so that we can really center other values that... Or de-center white guys and center other values in and how we structure our organization. So I'm wonder if you could talk a little bit about both of those programs, and really your focus overarching of belonging. And that's, as my understanding, the window through which you start to see the work manifest itself at Rhino.
Ted Castle:
We have a day called Rhino Day where we take the whole company off site and to spend a day together. We have 250 employees, three shifts. So it's a really exciting valuable day. I think it was four years ago, the whole theme was belonging. So our director of people and culture came up with that instead of it called Diversity, Inclusion Day or something. And it really brought home what was important to everyone from belonging. And Ned actually did a video and just spontaneously asked people what does it mean. It's some of the most basic things about respect and showing up and having a voice and feeling like you're part of something. We work really hard at that at Rhino. That's part of our DNA and who we are.
Some of the programs you mentioned, Tim, around inclusive hiring, we started that probably more intentionally three years ago, four years ago. And that really means everyone is allowed an opportunity to come and work at Rhino. We don't do any background checks. The only exclusion would be third degree sexual offenders. So for our frontline workers, basically, if they show up and they treat people with respect or willing to learn, they have a job here.
We also do what we call a resource coordinator. We have someone from the United Way here, 40 hours a week. All she does is connect people to services. We're trying to help people have the best life they can outside of work so they come in the best shape to work. We're trying to have things happen at work to send them back home. So we call it sort of the inside out approach. We believe it is to try to help people bring their best selves to work. So our programs and our ability to no questions asked, borrow up to a thousand dollars in 24 hours, not from Rhino for [inaudible 00:15:33].
Financial institution is another example. We learned that there were a lot of people whose lives would spiral out of control because they don't have $500 in savings. They have a flat tire, they can't get to work, they can't get their kids to work and they lose their job. Again, all these programs started from a business perspective. They all make good business sense. They're also helping people. I think the new thing that WMRJ, as we've alluded to here, is we didn't necessarily have that lens of late supremacy on it, which I think we can do better in all these programs with that lens.
Tim Cynova:
For those listening who hear about really great initiatives, well-established initiatives, how did those start? How did inclusive hiring or the Income Advance Program start or anything else that you're sort of working where you're centering the people here? What did that look like at the very beginning?
Rooney Castle:
We were running a business here so these do come out of business needs. So when we talked about the Income Advance Program, the idea there was, we had some of our people and culture team and supervisors saying, "We're losing a lot of our workforce not because they're not good workers, not because they don't want to be here, but because they have these situational emergencies that come up."
And what we really realized was that a lot of folks that work here are coming out of generational poverty. And so we attended some trainings and learned a lot about how folks who are in those situations, the list I had just said, from these situational emergencies that come up, typically that require some sort of financial support or backing to sort get yourself out of it. We're finding that a lot of people when those situations fall through or daycare closes or you don't have childcare and you don't have a place to turn, a family member to go to, when put into the choice of support the family or show up on time to work, they make the choice of supporting the family, which of course nobody can blame them for.
As a manufacturer, we can only be so understanding in those situations because we still have to run the business. So again, people were losing their jobs not because they weren't good workers, but because of situations that came up. And so it really came out of that need that we said, "Let's try to fill this gap around financial insecurity that we're seeing." And therefore, that's how the Income Advance Program was born. Inclusive hiring, as we sort of call it open hiring. We had heard a lot about it from different B Corp partners, specifically Greyston Bakery. It was something we were more informally doing here, but really formalized over the last few years as Ted mentioned. And again, that came out of the business need of we need access to people in a fairly competitive market. And so why are we excluding all these people who potentially are great workers just because of something they may have done in the past and we're judging them, prejudging them without even knowing them or their context or their history.
So by opening that door, there's a business reason. There's also, we believe is just sort of the right thing to do because we are recognized that a lot of the systems in place are biased. And I can speak for myself, I know a lot more now about the criminal justice system and some of the biases and injustices that exist within there and the structural systems that are putting people behind bars. And therefore, when they come out, having an opportunity for them to have access to work is a really, really important step in theirs getting back on track. Removing any potential bias from our systems was a really important step in sort of the work that we're trying to do now around becoming more of an anti-racist organization.
Tim Cynova:
What did the challenges look like for you? You mentioned sort of manufacturing, we should also mention for those listing in the future, we're recording this two years into a global pandemic. What if some of the challenges been like as you're living these values and trying to create systems and structures and processes and language around this work at Rhino?
Ted Castle:
I think it's hard to remember life before COVID. We're now into two years and we are an example of a business that our demand for our product went up. People were eating more cookie dough ice cream. We had 25% of our workforce not here for very legitimate reasons. We also were experiencing a lot of the office people could work from home, get a paycheck. They could still do their job. And the undesk workers, meaning shipping, receiving, maintenance, production, sanitation, to get paid they got to be here. They got to be putting themselves quite frankly at the beginning of the pandemic and even today in maybe as a more unsafe condition. So I think that brought up a lot of emotions at Rhino, but we worked through that. I think it's an attitude.
We want to impact the manner which business has done. So to me, one of the best examples we had is we knew that that was "unfair" for some people to work from home and unfair for people to have to come here. So every way we supported the people who were coming here. We made sure social distancing, mask wearing. We did everything we could do based on CDC recommendations. We also did things like we did a resiliency supply. If you came in, we went around to local restaurants. Once a week had people, it was almost like a little grocery store here where we'd hand out and thank people for coming to work. So again, these aren't necessarily brilliant ideas or the perfect thing for anyone, but it is the intentional effort to try to figure out what's the right thing to do. And in those situations, we were really struggling to figure out what's right, so we put time and effort into it.
Tim Cynova:
I think that's one of the really interesting things because some of the work that you've done, some of what you've built at Rhino was not built centering anti-racism. However, when you look at it through an anti-racism lens, you realize, "Oh, actually that is helpful." Inclusive hiring is so futuristic, I think, when you think about hiring in general. And as companies are trying to retrofit current hiring processes while centering inclusion and equity, I think Rhino, a great example is to be able to look at "This is something that can help inform how we might want to continue to iterate on it." But it certainly wasn't created from that way. The Income Advance Program is another thing. It wasn't created that way, but some of what you're detailing as sort of the business case for that who's most impacted by all of those things on the list that were reasons to start the Income Advance Program.
And so I think that's really inspirational, I think, to other white guys, other white leaders in particular who are listening, who will be listening to it and thinking like, "How can I think through the things that I have? Or what things do I have right now, the language, the policies, the practices that support this work? And which do I have right now that I need to actually work on immediately because it's actively harming people?" And so I love that there are things that you have here, but at the same time that you point out Rooney, it's like we're constantly learning.
Ted Castle:
I think that's what I'm trying to think about in this WMRJ at work. And that's why I got stuck the other day. It's like we're doing all these things now. We're doing them and we do need to do more. We do have to have that lens, but all these things are helping. Because when we're really talking about the structural systemic racism, the people that sort are the most vulnerable or the most challenged due to their situation is because a lot of these things, well, these are some of the programs that help them stay at work and get a job and have an opportunity and move forward.
Rooney Castle:
Again, to your point, I think, is well said, that we've done a lot of this work without thinking this is about breaking down or dismantling white supremacy or addressing racism in the workplace. What I think a lot of the programs and policies that have been in place is... What's in Rhino's DNA and has been forever is this concept of supporting your people. And a lot of that comes with, we talk a lot about mutual trust and respect here. So everything we do goes through sort of that filter of what we almost call like our do right filter. Do right because it's the right thing to do.
Now, again, I think as a white guy with a bunch of privilege, the right thing to do for me might be very different and that's what I need the work to examine. But fundamentally across the business, when we are putting something into place, everybody, and typically it's not just Ted and I, it's more sort of grassroots and from other people who are actually living and experiencing this work. They're looking at it like, "How do we do this so that it includes everybody and then it's built off mutual trust and respect?" And I think that's what's helped us get to where we are today.
The opportunity now, as I started to try to say earlier, is how do we now look back at what we've done, where we've come from, what do we have with that anti-racist lens and say, "Okay, great. We're actually doing pretty darn well at this without having done this intentionally. But where are opportunities for improvement? How do we really call some of this stuff out and examine it and make sure that what we think is happening is the lived experiences of those that are really impacted by these programs? Specifically the BIPOC people that we have working for us."
So I think that's a little bit of the shift. It's not like, "Okay, now we're here. How do we start this work?" It's, how do we take the learnings that we're gaining sort of every day through the work we're doing and look back and apply them to really what we've become so far and how does it continue to shape into the future?
Tim Cynova:
Well, what do you both see as those opportunities for improvement? What's on your wish list or your immediate list in sort of near term?
Rooney Castle:
I don't have the perfect list, but one thing that I would like to try to figure out is how do we bring some of these conversations more to the forefront and make them more a part of the conversation, because Rhino does talk a lot about how do we be more inclusive, how do we have more belonging here. We do talk about our diversity, but I don't think we talk about... Or I know we don't talk about structural racism and white supremacy. We don't frame it in there because that's often triggering for white people because of white fragility and all the other sorts of reasons.
So how do we start to weave some of that conversation and some of the learnings that we're getting external to Rhino through WMRJ, how do we start folding that into some of the work we're doing here so that it's part of the conversation and that we can bring others into that conversation in a non-triggering way, in a welcoming way so that we can hopefully have more partners within our organization who are part of this work and can help us really steer Rhino over the next three to five, 10, whatever it is years?
Ted Castle:
The two things that I'm thinking of is for the last three years, really, we're trying to bring more voice to everyone. So typically years ago when we'd have a company meetings or we'd have our Rhino Days or whatever, it was mostly the leadership team. And then more and more, we're starting to give other people louder voices and be part of speaking out. So I think that is part of that background thinking when you grow up like I have is, like, "Yes, I should be the one talking. Yes, I should be the one leading. Yes, I should be the one representing Rhino," versus letting other people with their life experiences maybe can bring more light into what it means for inclusive hiring or some of the things. So I know that's one thing that we're starting we want to do more of.
The other thing that I'm very concerned about is that it's easy for us to have policies and practices that we think address some of these things. But how well are we really on that individual frontline, worker to worker level or supervisor level? So how well do our supervisors understand white supremacy and structural racism because they're dealing with it every day here? So if you said, "How many people out of our 250 employee workforce are new Americans?" It's about 30%. We do break down percentages of our population and we have a lot of Black employees and people of color and BIPOC people. So how are we doing really day to day, I think we need to find out more about that. And we do employee surveys and engagement surveys, but I think we can get much deeper into the organization to figure out really how are we doing. That's what I'd like to be able to stand up and say, "We know." Whereas if you really ask me, I'd say, "I hope, but I'm not sure" in many instances.
Tim Cynova:
I often think of that as kind of a balance sheet approach where you might not like what's on your balance sheet, you might not like your cash position, but it is what it is. And that it allows you to do something about it if you want. And oftentimes, that's seemingly a giant hurdle for white guys to even get to, like just to see who do we have working here because you're afraid of what you're going to find out. I mean, it feels kind of like you can't do it. It's a personal reflection of your own ability to do something or your own values and then you feel sort of stymied in what's next, then what do I do about it.
Ted, you gave me a tour of the building before we started in, talking about sort of inclusivity. I saw the wall where you have all of the employees over the years who have been nominated by their fellow coworkers around the values that you have as an organization. And then the two years prior, get to decide the current years employees about who's representing those values. You mentioned that it's a surprise to you even because you're not involved with that. It really resonates with me from a way that the employees start to say, "What does this value mean for us?" And what does this really mean, it's not words on the wall. And then get to demonstrate that by nominating and selecting the people who they feel espouse those values. And I think that's really a wonderful way of making those living values in a way too that feels like people have much more agency in how those show up in the workplace. And as we talk about things like white supremacy culture and decolonizing organizations, it feels like once again some of those early steps towards having a culture that is engaged in owning that.
Ted Castle:
Yeah, the Wall of Fame that you're referring to, it honors the employee that exemplifies one of our principles in their finance, employee, community, or customer supplier and then vision. What's so interesting about that is when you look at the wall, there's so many things you can notice right away. Number one, it's got everyone's picture. Number two, it's gotten something, a paragraph or two about why that person was selected. Number three is you can see the diversity. It's not the leadership team. It's so deep in our organization. You can see new Americans, you can see English language learners. You can see people from all departments. When you look at that wall, you realize how meaningful it is to win that award because you're nominated by your fellow employees and you're selected by your fellow employees, the last two years winners and the leadership of the company has nothing to do with it. That's sort of a true representation of trying to trust and respect and have people belong.
I think every business needs a few of those things that really speak to that. And for us, that Wall of Fame, just right in the main entrance of the building, represents that. It doesn't mean everybody's got to do it that way, but it sure is an example of us trying,
Tim Cynova:
Well, we've talked about a couple times already that doing the work doesn't mean it's perfect or that it's all, but that it's a journey. I wonder if you could offer your reflections on a quote from a colleague of mine. I was talking with Courtney Harge after I did a session about anti-racism in a workplace and got all the way to the very end and someone said, "That was really great. That whole hour was really great, but could you offer some tangible things that you've done?" And I thought, "Where have I failed this group?" Because the whole hour was tangible things. And she remarked, "I think people confused tangible with impactful. And impactful with visible. Adding pronouns to an email signature is tangible. Ending gender discrimination is impactful. Increasing gender diversity at an organization is visible."
We've talked about things that probably fall in all of these buckets during our time together. But as you think about those sort of buckets and your own approach to the work and where you struggle and what you're doing well, what resonates for you in that quote and those distinctions? Or you can just go a completely different direction and pull up something else. Best of interest.
Rooney Castle:
I think that's a really insightful comment and what it makes me think of it first is that even my own desire for something tangible. So especially in this work, I think of the time after the murder of George Floyd when a lot of people were sort of jumping and saying, "Well, our company needs to do something." You could see countless examples of people doing things. I think a lot of them, they were focused on sort of tangible or visible. At Rhino, we didn't really quite know what to do.
I think the worst thing you can do is do nothing because you're not sure what to do so you get sort of caught in this feeling of it's too overwhelming and too complicated, therefore we don't do anything. But I think what we've tried to do is step back and say, "Sure. Could we put out a public statement? Could we quickly get somebody in here and do an anti-racism training?" Like sure. And are those good things? Yes. But at the same time, I think that my concern with those is what is the intent and impact of those and really how deep and meaningful are they towards creating change.
So I think what we try to do is focus more on how do we zoom out and look at the work that we're doing around open hiring, inclusive hiring, supporting people through the resource coordinator we have here, our Income Advance Program. To me, those start to be more impactful and less... It doesn't feel as maybe as flashy or sort of quick as like, "Oh, there's some reaction to something that's happening." But I think what I'm trying to get at is, to get into this work really requires a system change. These things don't happen overnight. It isn't a quick fix here, a quick this here, a training there. It really is looking at how you do things from a structural standpoint. I think that we actually do have a lot of progress in some of these areas and we just really need to sort of double down and look at them with this new lens that we're learning through and figure out how do we continue to drive progress in these areas.
Ted Castle:
So when I heard this quote, I don't think I understood it, number one. When I hear visible, I think about that if you're successful, you can see it and feel it in an organization. So if we walk through Rhino and any visitor comes here, within 15 minutes, I want them to see and feel our culture. And it's not by having something written on a wall. But if it is written on the wall, they keep bumping into examples and they walk out and they see it and feel it. I'm a visual guy. And then I think that visuals obviously are just one part. They have to be impactful. So if we have programs that impact people's lives, we should be able to demonstrate that with data, we should be able to show you that last year or in the last 10 years, there's been $560,000 borrowed in the Income Advance Program in thousand dollars increments. 93% of the people start a savings program. So to me, there's data behind impactful. And then visual is very much of a culture and feeling of which quite frankly is a big part of what we're talking about here.
Tim Cynova:
We're three white guys talking about racism as it relates to life in the workplace. We've had a lot of conversations as a group over the past 18 months to two years though. And there's been laughter and there's been hard work and it's also been energizing. I'm wondering for both of you, where do you find energy and where do you find it energizing in the work? Or do you?
Rooney Castle:
I think I find the energy and the motivation to stick with it in the recognition of the importance of it, especially as a white male with all sorts of privilege across the spectrum of privileges. I carry quite a few of them. The most obvious example is I'm sitting here taking over a business that was started by my family. So the amount of privilege and opportunity I have is immense. And that comes with mixed emotions for me, especially as I'm doing more of this work. It just seems unfair on so many levels. And at the same time, rather than get stressed out or hold myself back because of that or say, "Oh, I don't deserve this. Or how come it's me?" I'm trying to frame it in a sense of, "Okay, with this privilege and this opportunity, how can I do the best job that I can in lots of different ways for the business, but also now, as I'm learning more about anti-racism work from WMRJ?"
So my motivation comes from as I learn more about what I have been blind to for so long, it feels like it's my obligation to make sure that I'm taking that seriously and I'm finding ways through my circles, in my spheres of influence and my privilege, to impact this business because I know this business impacts hundreds and thousands of people's lives throughout the course of its history and how it's operating. So there's a lot of sort pressure at feeling like how do I deliver on that. How do I carry forward what Ted and Anne, my parents, have started to keep it as a family business within this community, privately owned, still doing all the great things that I think we're doing. That's a lot of pressure. And then I'm trying to layer this, and now it adds almost more pressure to that. I try to take that as a positive of that positive pressure to motivate me to really want to make that change.
Tim Cynova:
Rooney, that's reminiscent that prompt we've meditated on during WMRJ. How do I X in an anti-racist way? How do I walk the dog in an anti-racist way? How do I come to a new community an anti-racist way? And I really think sort of how do I take over a family business in an anti-racist way? Sort of how you unpack that sort of speaks to that intention and how you want to do this differently than how you might have 10 years ago.
Rooney Castle:
Especially because I keep coming back to that concept of, I think to truly dismantle white supremacy and to sort of live an anti-racist life, I recognize that that means that I'm going to have to make sacrifice because I think it's easy to do the... You can conceptualize the work, but really when it comes down to it, it means making certain sacrifices. And so I don't know necessarily what that means within the frame of this business and this business transition, but you're very much right. That's on my mind is how do I, your X here, take over a family business in an anti-racist way. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm motivated to figure out what it is and how I'm going to do it.
Tim Cynova:
Ted, what energizes you or motivates you in this work?
Ted Castle:
I like Rooney's answer of the importance is what motivates me. It doesn't energize me to show up. To show up is more like I'm committed. It's important I need to be there. I end up energized by the end because seeing the people involved, hearing what other people have to say, having me think about it maybe differently than I did, it always seems after an hour and a half that it was worth showing up. But it's pretty hard work. And it also is something that I believe if you don't show up a lot, then you sort of fall away like most things. So energize is a weird word for me. I'm committed to the work is what I would say, say. And I'm energized at the more I learn, the more I feel confident that I'm going to be making more right steps than wrong steps.
Tim Cynova:
Well, gentlemen, we are coming up on time. How do you want to land the plan on our conversation?
Rooney Castle:
For me again, I think it sort of feels strange to be having this conversation in a public forum like this. We're not public right now, but knowing it's going to be. It's recorded to be shared. Because I'm trying hard not to feel like I know, because I don't feel like I know what I'm talking about frankly. It's like I'm so new to this work. There are so many people who know a lot more about this than I do and have been impacted by this work and their lived experiences that it just feels strange to be having this conversation and speaking about it like I know what I'm talking about. And I think that's part of the journey, is just recognizing I'm not an expert and being very open to learning and to... Yeah, I don't know. I can tell I'm sort of struggling with it because the point is, I'm on this journey and this almost feels premature for me to be speaking about it externally like this.
Tim Cynova:
That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do the podcast, this mini series of podcasts, because we're all on a journey. We're all white guys on a journey. Two years ago, five years ago, being able to share stories, it's messy. "This is where I am. I'm building the plane while I'm flying it with others." I wanted to serve as a resource for others who are on that journey as well and also highlight a whole host of resources by not white guys for this work. So I think that that's one of the aims with having our conversations.
Rooney Castle:
Yeah. I think the reason, I'll again speak for myself, that I said yes to doing this is because it's part of the process of taking steps. So my first reaction when I saw your request to do this was like, "Hell no. I don't feel ready to have that conversation." I'd love to have this conversation with the two of you with a beer and then have it go nowhere beyond there except for between us and sort of think of it as a practice. But to have it shared publicly seems a little bit scary to me, but I think that's what some of this work is all about, is I need to get uncomfortable. I need to be willing to make mistakes. I'm sure I've said things here that are just wrong or didn't land right. And so for those, I do apologize, but that's part of this process.
So I saw saying yes to this as one of those small wins that we talk about in WMRJ of how do you sort show up... With your sphere of influence as how do you have small wins that are driving you towards a more anti-racist way of life, then this for me was a small win to sort of have the courage to say yes to do it. So thank you for creating that space and opportunity for me to do so.
Tim Cynova:
Ted, you get the last word.
Ted Castle:
I would answer similar to Rooney. Without repeating him, I would add Rhino has a purpose to impact the manner which business has done. We're a B Corp and their mission is business as a force for good. So the reason why white guys like us with privilege own businesses is for lots of reasons. So it's our job to do the best we can with the position, the power that we have, to make the changes that need to be made. We can only do so much with what we know and we just need to be trying. So for me, the plane is not even close to landing, but at the same time for us to step back as privileged white males that own a business, privately held business, employ 250 people to work really hard, our job is to create a team and be a great business.
I believe business has the opportunity to make more social change, positive or negative than any other place. For me, it's always been about the journey at Rhino and figuring out how to do the right thing. So this is just part of us trying. I find that there's a lot of shame and guilt. At the same time, I don't ever want that to hold me back because I think a lot of people stop when that happens. So I'm okay with making mistakes as long as people know that I understand that I will make mistakes. But at the same time, it's about the effort for me.
Tim Cynova:
Well, Ted, Rooney, our time has flown by. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise, your insight, for your vulnerability, for the struggles, the challenges, and thanks for being on the podcast.
Ted Castle:
Great.
Rooney Castle:
Thank you very much for having us.
Ted Castle:
Thank you, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
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