15 minute read
Entrepreneurship Profile: Toriano Phillips
Mister Resilience
Toriano Phillips ’90 Relishes Each Challenge
Advertisement
Sometimes, the obvious must be stated. “I’m a big risk taker,” stated Toriano Phillips. And the Benedictine grad has quite a history of taking the risks that those of us with an entrepreneurial bend thoroughly love.
Phillips’s story is quite a rollercoaster, and the man remains a bundle of directed energy, but it all comes back to risk. The first major one was when he came to his high school. A selfdescribed hellion during his youth, Phillips had been informed by his middle school principal that he would not allow him to attend public high school in the City of Richmond.
Phillips’s mother, Edna, must have had some concerns, because she reached out to then-principal John McGinty and learned that her son needed to pass the entrance exam in order to win attendance into Benedictine. “That test saved my life,” Phillips recalled.
No matter the circumstances, joining a new school is never easy. Compounding that difficulty for the young man was the newness of it all, primarily found in those aspects that most clearly define Benedictine: military, Catholicism, single-sex, and camaraderie. Phillips also stood out for another reason: the color of his skin. The class of ’90 consisted of 70 Cadets. Of that 70, there were two African American students, one Asian-American, and one of Puerto Rican heritage. Those numbers were hardly reflective of either America or the City of Richmond. “In middle school, we had about 10 White kids,” stated Phillips. “There weren’t a lot of guys at Benedictine who looked like me.”
“I asked my mother, ‘Mom, what in the world did you put me in? Nobody looks like me.’”
“She said, ‘Son, you’re going to finish.’ But it took a good year to get adjusted.”
As if that weren’t enough, Phillips suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach during an incident his freshman year.
“After the Figure, I was dropped off at my brother’s house and was planning to meet my girlfriend there,” Phillips recalled. “When I entered the house, there was a man in there trying to rob the place.”
Not content with mere burglary, the intruder upped the game to assault with intent to kill when he took a shot at the young Cadet. “I ran to a store with [the intruder] chasing me,” he said. “I asked to use the phone, went for some change, and my hand came up bloody.”
Phillips hadn’t initially realized he’d been shot in the stomach with a nine-millimeter hollow-point bullet. Once he had, he was rushed to the hospital and in for an operation (from which he still bears the scars). Fortunately, there was neither spinal damage nor harm to any organs. Needless to say, “It messed up my football season.”
“When I got off the operating table [and gained consciousness), I could smell cigar smoke,” he said. “It was Father Donald. He came to see me, and he told me he was there to support me.” The incident seemed to have piqued his fellow Cadets’ interest in this transfer. “Everybody wanted to know what happened,” said Henry Berling ’90. “If not a celebrity, he certainly was a novelty, and rose to an ‘interesting’ status.”
In time, Berling found Phillips to be more than merely interesting. In quarterbacking the Cadet gridiron gang, Berling had a steady, reliable, and productive halfback lining up behind him. He also found a lifelong friend.
While football played a big role in Phillips’s run at Benedictine, it was his proficiency at playing the tuba that earned him a scholarship to Norfolk State, though he later transferred to St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, Virginia, from which he graduated in 1998.
A number of roles followed, including teaching in Richmond Public Schools and selling internet provider services, before Phillips found his sweet spot in the transportation industry. “When I was at Norfolk State, I had two years of work-study under a professor who owned a transportation business. My time with him was working and even driving for him,” recalled Phillips, with a Frank Boehling ’90
chuckle. “I thought I’d be in the office. Instead, I got a map, a set of keys, and a manifest. That gave me an appreciation and a drive to work for myself, not for somebody else.”
It also gave him an up-close appreciation and understanding of the transportation industry. He turned to Berling, who offered to help Phillips acquire a handful of vehicles to start up TransVan Transportation. “Toriano is always talking about ideas,” said Berling. “When the van transportation idea popped up, I encouraged him…Toriano was the work engine; I was the supporting counsel.”
Specializing in medical and personnel transportation, Phillips’s fledging venture realized steady growth, eventually developing into a fleet of 40 vehicles. The company started locally, but eventually spread its tentacles to cover surrounding counties, even expanding into the Hampton Roads region.
“Toriano is 100 percent entrepreneurial,” said Frank Boehling ’90. “I don’t recall him ever having another job other than working for himself. I believe he was one of the first in our class to start up a ground-up business.”
His company ran a gamut of medically related transportation duties, from as simple as chauffeuring patients to their doctor appointments to the delivery of payroll checks, and from moving medical supplies to moving patients between facilities. The funny thing is, Phillips was ill-suited to run the business, yet he realized 10X growth. “I didn’t even know how to read a balance sheet,” he recalled, with a chuckle. “Henry [Berling] would interpret for me.”
In 2012, however, the relatively low profit margins of that industry and his natural tendency toward altruism fired the urge to move to something else. He handed off his transportation business to a partner so that he could direct his attention toward assisted living facilities. This venture into a new world started with Hawkins Residential. Phillips readily attributes his interest in assisted living to the woman who raised him, noting his mother’s name was Hawkins and who was quite active in the residential care business prior to her passing. “I saw the need for a place for the mentally ill,” said Phillips, who saw that first home fill a mere 34 days after its opening.
Toriano with his mother, Edna Hawkins, who inspired his interest in assisted living
Phillips Zen
Invariably described as “cool under pressure,” Toriano Phillips’s calm demeanor belies a burning desire to kindle the flames of entrepreneurship. “You have to jump from that cliff,” he enthused. “You’ll experience bumps, bruises, and scrapes, but there is glory at the end.”
Phillips has other sage advice for budding entrepreneurs:
Line up your funding. You don’t necessarily need to have it in hand, but at least be confident that it exists and is obtainable.
Have a budget review every day. Always know where your venture stands on that balance sheet. If you play it safe, you never experience what is really meant for you. Find those populations that have been ignored and pushed aside, especially if they have been so treated for a long time. They have needs to be met. Be firm and consistent with your employees. When you build that trust, they will cut down on incidents. To be successful, you have to find the right team. If you can’t find it, build it. If you are the smartest one in the room, you are in trouble. If you go far, you’ll be taking people with you. You have to take risks to see the final chapter: to fulfill your dreams. If you fail, take another risk. Just like in football, teamwork makes the dream work.
Today, Phillips claims three such houses as well as an additional building that houses over 40 clients. (He is also in the process of opening a significantly larger facility in Chesterfield County.) “I stay full,” he stated.
Still, he saw more opportunity and, in 2016, he opened a day support program, First Access Support Services, where, in a group setting, clients learn about money management, pain management, and medicinal management. The participants come from houses that Phillips’s company manages or from other area homes. His company serves customers from a wide array of origination points: the Department of Social Services, Department of Corrections, the Daily Planet, and state hospitals are just a few of them. Don’t misread: the services rendered are anything but adult day care. They are psychosocial rehabilitation services.
Employees must be vigilant and responsive, dealing with issues that range from clients wandering off on their own to being watchful for potential suicide or self-mutilation. But there is also the “real life” side of things, with Phillips helping clients obtain food, housing, and medical care, as well as getting them access to the financial support they need to survive.
PHILLIPS IN BSoR STRATEGIC PLANNING
Part of Something
Because of his business acumen, love of school, and visionary thinking, Toriano Phillips has been invited to participate in the Benedictine Schools of Richmond strategic planning efforts. While part of the larger effort, he is also a member of the “Culture and Community” subcommittee, headed up by Benedictine Schools of Richmond Principal Drew Mugford ’86.
“I’m happy to be a part of this committee,” Phillips said. “Jesse [Grapes] could have picked a lot of different people. I really respect that he picked me.”
Grapes was unhesitant in selecting Phillips. “Toriano is one of my favorite alumni from Benedictine,” noted Grapes. “He is an entrepreneur and a leader. Toriano tells the truth about overcoming adversity and what it takes to achieve success in life.” But Phillips brings more than his entrepreneurship and leadership to their committee. He brings a third “ship,” which is: fellowship. “He is kind to people and generous to his alma mater,” noted Grapes. “I smile every time I see him, which always ends in an embrace. Our students can learn a lot from Toriano Phillips.”
Grapes kicked off the strategic planning committee in recognition of the challenges faced by the coordinate program structure of BSoR. “Similar programs around the country, although materially successful, have succumbed to factionalism,” stated Grapes. “[Such failures have been] because of a lack of commitment to complementarity and a mutually supportive culture.” Philips and Mugford’s committee is assigned to address programmatic ways to cultivate such a culture.
The idea is to best educate the Benedictine and Saint Gertrude communities on the philosophy of complementarity of the sexes, while getting all on-campus groups (leadership, faculty, staff, and students) to lift the BSoR brand while being respectful of the schools’ commitment to single-sex education.
Complementarity, of course, is one of the drivers in the movement of Saint Gertrude High School onto the Goochland campus. Even as the new Saint Gertrude building is being constructed, the two schools operate in a largely independent fashion, but partner where it makes sense.
Additionally, there is a mandate to continue to improve the support of diverse learning communities across the two schools. “I bring a form of diversity, as an African-American man,” noted Phillips. “People get to hear how the culture was when I went here [thirty-plus years ago] versus now.”
Both schools have undergone massive transformations in the three decades hence. Today, Benedictine and Saint Gertrude tout populations that are much more reflective of the greater Richmond community. “When I was in school, I thought it was for rich, white people,” recalled Phillips, who noted a lack of financial aid opportunities in those days.
While financial assistance opportunities today are both more robust and more plentiful, one thing remains, in the eyes of Phillips. “This place has always been family-oriented,” he said. “The parents are always involved throughout the school year. That helps with culture. You don’t have that in public schools.”
“And you need a great culture at school to build up your kids.”
Ricky Scott
As the chief executive officer at the Community Counseling Group, in Petersburg, Ricky Scott has seen the benefits of Phillips’s day support program. “He’s a compassionate and dedicated leader,” stated Scott.
“I have observed firsthand the high level of care and commitment that he provides all his residents and clients.”
Phillips also shows that same care and commitment to his employees. Throughout the current pandemic, “I’ve been able to pay my employees despite [hits to the business]. I’ve avoided having to lay off anybody.”
Don’t misinterpret kindness for softness though. “I am frank and consistent with my employees,” he noted. “But you have to build trust.”
“[Phillips] doesn’t play favorites,” said Berling. “He treats everybody the same. He is both endearing and disarming.” Added Scott, “He is devoted to serving individuals with serious mental illness and substance abuse issues, many of which would be homeless if not for his clean and professional facilities. Mr. Phillips is nothing short of a hero that makes our world a better place.”
Network Maestro
TORIANO PHILLIPS IS A RELATIONSHIP BUILDER
Every business advice book advises that a vast network of contacts is essential to realizing success. The challenge, however, is developing a network that is both wide and deep.
Toriano Phillips seems to have conquered that challenge. His day is spent interacting with people: in-person, phone, email, text. His truck, if anthropomorphized, would groan at the miles demanded of it. His phone receives a constant stream of contacts reaching out to its owner. The man, himself, is always building — whether it is his business or his circle of people. “The greatest thing about Tori is his very rare ability to establish and maintain relationships to get things done,” said Ricky Scott, one of Phillips’s peers in the residential care industry. “He checks up on peers, mentors, employees, and friends.”
Indeed, Phillips is known for maintaining contact with individuals who have long since “graduated” from his residential facilities, checking on their success in re-integrating into the larger community.
However, Phillips has a couple of men who help form the core of his network. The three men, all class of ’90 Cadets — Phillips, Frank Boehling, and Henry Berling — have a relationship that is difficult to describe in a single word. But what springs from that relationship is easily identifiable: strength, support, mentorship, encouragement, and success.
Left: (l-r) Frank Boehling, Toriano Phillips, Henry Berling. Class of 1990 in their senior year and their five-year reunion.
While the three developed their strong bonds during their high school days, their shared foci extend well beyond all things Benedictine.
“Toriano’s friendship has meant the world to me,” said Berling, who has spent the last two and a half decades in the fields of investment banking and private equity. “You can’t have too many guys like that in your corner.”
Berling should know, for he was one in Phillips’s corner. “I met Henry before Benedictine,” Phillips recalled. “We were 10 years old in Little League Baseball. Once at Benedictine, Henry told me, ‘I’ll make sure you make it through this place.’”
“He was out of his comfort zone,” said Berling. “But I quickly realized it would make him better.” Berling, of course, proved prescient when he sees the man who is Toriano Phillips. “I treasure my friendship with Toriano,” said Berling. “He is as true and natural a guy as you’ll ever meet. If I called him on a cold, rainy night, at 1 a.m. and told him I was broken down somewhere between Richmond and Charlottesville, he’d be right on his way.”
There’s more to relationship-building than merely communicating on a regular basis. “[Phillips’s] personality is great. He lights up a room,” said Boehling, founder and president of eTEC Mechanical, a Richmond-based mechanical contractor. “Everyone loves the way he treats them. He’s a big guy with a big personality.” Boehling noted that there is a yin and yang aspect to his relationship with Phillips. “We talk about our business challenges together,” he said. “We look for similarities. It’s not a formal counsel. I just lend him an ear.”
While Boehling and Berling may well be the Cadets who have the closest relationships with Phillips, the former halfback has stayed close with a number of Benedictine alumni, including Matt Puccinelli and Marshall Banks, who both graduated a year earlier. He’s even taken up fishing (though where he finds the time is anyone’s guess), dropping the occasional line with David Simmons ’88.
But it is Scott, who first encountered Phillips during their days together at Norfolk State, who may have the best bead on his friend. “Toriano puts a team around himself that masks any weakness he may have. And he takes the time to make people feel really good about themselves,” he said with a chuckle. “Just before he asks you to do something for him.”
Phillips is the personification of outward joy. He cares about others and has dedicated his labors toward that end. He’s engaging and responsive.
With all those traits, it’s small wonder he’s been able to network so well.
