RAYMOND BERRY: RENAISSANCE MAN

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—By Frederick A. Hurst—

Raymond Berry Adopts Springfield
Raymond Berry Adopts Springfield

I can’t recall when I first met Raymond (Ray) Berry. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere though he soon became so well known in Springfield that it seemed he had been around forever.

In fact, Ray Berry was born and raised in New Jersey as an only child and moved to Springfield to attend American International College on a football scholarship. He played “lots of sports” in his early years, including football as a defensive back and wide receiver, and track where he excelled in the one hundred, triple jump and the four-by-four relay. He maintained good grades in his college preparatory courses, graduated and came to Springfield, along with his good New Jersey friend, Don Mitchell, in 1988 – quite unexpectedly – to attend AIC where he played football until graduating in 1992 with a B.A. in Finance. What followed was a year of graduate work at AIC and a job at the new Mason Square Development Corporation where he was made responsible for small business development, Community Development Block Grant compliance and finance.

Springfield almost didn’t get Ray Berry. He actually planned to attend a school in Pennsylvania on a full football scholarship, which he lost when the school abruptly terminated its sports scholarship program. He was unsure of his next move when he was offered a last minute scholarship to AIC in May of 1988. And when he arrived for orientation in August, uncertain about his course of study, he followed the advice of AIC counselors and pursued a degree in finance. And at some point during his time at AIC, he decided he liked Springfield enough to stay. And even after Mason Square Development Corporation was discontinued and remnants of its mission were absorbed by the Urban League, Ray continued on to make a name for himself in Springfield as an impact player.

How Ray ended up as the subject of this column is also a tale of chance. Ray came to my journalistic attention at an annual 100 Men of Color awards event held at the Bushnell in Hartford where we were both among the honorees. It was at the black tie reception before the ceremony that I spotted Ray chatting animatedly with a handsome woman who was responding in kind. The two were obviously an admiring “couple” and I couldn’t quite get a read on who she was but it was clear that she cared about him a lot. I thought she was an older sister or an older girlfriend but I did not know it was his mother until my wife told me. She was so animated! I later learned from Ray that his mother had taken the bus that day from New Jersey to Springfield to share in his glory. Her pride sparkled and it was the sparkle that stoked my curiosity and which led to my call to Ray Berry several days later and, of course, to this article.

I must admit, something else moved me about Ray Berry that night. I was selected to be the “class valedictorian,” which meant that I had the tough task of delivering a talk at the end of the evening just before the event closed when everybody was ready to go home. I did something I normally would not have done in my eight minute speech: for the first part of my speech, I talked about myself and some of my early struggles because I knew without asking that most of the honorees would have had similar experiences, which is why for the second part of my speech I related my struggles to theirs. And the response from the full house and my fellow honorees was humbling. But when the packed audience at Hartford’s Bushnell gave me a standing ovation, Ray stood out in the front row of 100 honorees, pumping his fist and cheering words of encouragement and praise. I was touched by such a sincere and candid demonstration from a Black colleague from Springfield.

Ray came from good stock. His 69-year-old mother was born in rural New Jersey as were both of her parents. She had many siblings living throughout the state, which is why Ray has so many cousins living in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania and also because his father was born in New York where his family migrated to from the South. Ray’s father’s family moved with their three kids to New Jersey where his father met Ray’s mother while playing high school football in Phillipsburg, a small rural town of about 15,000 located close to the border of Pennsylvania with a population that is now only 7.5% Black.

Ray Berry with Mom, Karen J. Beder, at the 100 Men of Color Gala
Ray Berry with Mom, Karen J. Beder, at the 100 Men of Color Gala

Both of Ray’s parents worked hard, his father in various blue collar jobs until he started his own office cleaning janitorial business, and his mother first as a housekeeper at a local hospital and later as an assistant in its radiology department until her retirement. When at 15 years old his parents separated, Ray lived with his mother in a one bedroom apartment. It was not easy but his mother took on a second job as a dispatcher and “did what she had to do to make sure (he) had what he needed and to make ends meet.” And though both of his parents completed high school, Ray was the first in his immediate family to attend and complete college.

Ray’s family has witnessed tougher times while living with his grandmother in Lambertville, New Jersey, an old factory town of 3,900 (1.95% black) located on the Delaware River that long ago lost its factories and has now re-birthed itself and become an artists’ haven and tourist attraction. His grandmother, who labored in a local factory, raised Ray’s father, who passed away 10 years ago at age 58, and two other kids in a “makeshift house” with no running water or electricity, an outhouse for a bathroom and a two-burner stove. For a brief period Ray’s family moved in with them and he recalls that it was a difficult but joyful time in a harsh living environment in which they “made do.” The family experience was very close to the story I told in my speech at the Bushnell. Every so often Ray returns to Lambertville just to refresh the memory of the experience and to remind himself of his current good fortune. And for Ray Berry, the good fortunes keep coming in the city he adopted. After the Mason Square Development Corporation faded, Ray joined the Springfield Housing Authority for eight years where he became Director of Management after which he moved into a job in Connecticut that was 100% finance and accounting. But he missed the personal and community interaction, which is how he ended up as Chief Financial Officer at the United Way of Pioneer Valley where he works today.

But that is hardly the end of it for Ray Berry who recently entered the world of the entrepreneur. By now, most of Greater Springfield has heard of “White Lion” beer. When he graduated at 17, Ray wrote in his high school year book, “Time to make some money.” Well, it has taken a little time – more than he probably planned – but almost 30 years later he has taken the region by storm with a craft beer business in Springfield that started with a vague idea and has now almost completed its first phase of a well thought out business plan that supplies a good product to Springfield and the region and eventually to the entire state (White Lion is already in Massachusetts’ new Plainridge Park Casino and may eventually be at Springfield’s MGM casino).

The first phase of the unfolding of White Lion Brewing Company, which launched in October 2014, was the branding and the product introduction. Berry partnered with Springfield’s TSM design to brand the new company. TSM created the White Lion brand and “applied the brand to printed materials, apparel and…packaging.” Berry also partnered with renowned beer Brewer, Mike Yates, who is the head brewer at the Cambridge House Brew Pub in Granby, to brew and distribute five White Lion beers and, most impressive, Berry works hands-on to distribute the beer and share its story with his target markets, which he tells me is what “craft beer” is all about – the personal touch. (See Point of View article by Marjorie Hurst, “Another First for Springfield,” November 2014)

The second phase of Ray Berry’s plan, which is coming soon, will be to bring the entire production process to Springfield. White Lion beer is currently brewed at a brewery in the eastern part of the state. Ray plans to open Springfield’s own White Lion Brewing Company brewery (arguably the first since Theodore Giselle’s grandfather’s brewery was closed down by Prohibition laws in 1919) “as a small scale manufacturer of a product that blankets the state.” We’re talking economic development and jobs!

My bet is on Ray Berry who inherited good, hardworking genes and who has partnered with some of the most powerful people and businesses in the city, region and state to make White Lion a success. The mythical “white lion,” by the way, has been part of African folklore since prehistoric times. According to legend, white lions were children of the Sun God, sent to earth as gifts. It was centuries before Europeans discovered that white lions truly existed. I think it’s fair to say that Ray Berry has taken White Lion beer from an obscure idea to reality with somewhat greater speed as a gift to Springfield.

I like Ray Berry. He’s a Renaissance man. I put him on the spot with blunt questions about his politics. He was the named “manager” of the school committee campaign for Reverend Calvin McFadden, who ran against the late Antonette Pepe and my daughter-in-law, who was running for a second term. My family chose to treat the minister as an opponent because of the manner in which he ultimately chose to run. And we were pretty tough on some of his key supporters who sanctioned his approach. And several of the more prominent among them still harbor resentments that they can’t seem to dissipate post-election in the normal manner of politics. I was certain that Ray Berry was not among those who cling to such toxic and, for the most part, self-destructive resentments but I had to ask. And I was impressed, though not surprised, by his response that reflected an incredibly mature understanding of the nature of the political process when it is working as it should. I’m certain his sober view is in good part a reflection of his business orientation that is necessarily grounded in rational thinking and pragmatism.

I have given very serious thought on how my next article on Black leadership should unfold. I know what I want to say but I am struggling with how to say it. But I know that Ray Berry is among those who are the subjects of my next article, subjects who represent something positive though not necessarily exactly what many of us from back in the day had planned and hoped for. But I’ve come to realize that Ray and many others like him represent something that is beginning to unfold that’s just as good, the vanguard of a new Black leadership paradigm that has risen above the pettiness and smallness that is characteristic of an increasingly shrinking residual of an old guard that can’t grow. And I intend to write about it.

The most important point is that Ray Berry is a true leader with cross-cultural flexibility and an unusual openness. He is a former member of the Springfield License Commission and he is a board member of

“Suit up Springfield,” an organization that guides young men of Springfield on professional attire and, through mentoring, on becoming professionally minded. And he is a board member of the YMCA of Greater Springfield. And he continues to play a role – though low key – in Springfield politics.

And I hope he doesn’t mind if I also consider him to be among the key Black leaders who will most certainly be instrumental in forging the future for a revitalized Springfield. ■

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