In this episode of the pod, Tripp talks with David Meeker, a real estate entrepreneur and active board member of several Raleigh, NC, area non-profits. In their conversation, David shares how the right decision that serves the community can, contrary to popular belief, often be the best business decision.
David prioritizes a commitment to the Raleigh community and fosters professional relationships that are based on shared values. He works with several organizations to combat gerrymandering, serves on the board of Healing Transitions, worked to implement a fare-free bus system, and continues to work toward safe and sustainable transportation infrastructure for Raleigh's future.
He shares a few key pieces of wisdom with Tripp about maintaining work/life balance while financially succeeding, prioritizing your family, and being an active and impactful member of your community.
A Raleigh native, David Meeker founded Carpenter Development and partnered with the Trophy Brewing team in 2008. He has made every mistake in the world, lived to tell about it, and has invaluable development experience because of that. David is on the Board of the Raleigh Chamber, Downtown Raleigh Alliance, Common Cause NC, North Carolinians for Redistricting Reform, Dix Park, Dogwood Bank Advisory Board, and Artspace. He is also on the Capital Campaign Committee for Healing Transitions, a detox and recovery center on Dix Park. David lives in Downtown Raleigh with his wife and two boys.
David Meeker on Twitter
Carpenter Development Group
Kindness Reigns in Raleigh During Covid-19
In this episode of the pod, Tripp talks with David Meeker, a real estate entrepreneur and active board member of several Raleigh, NC, area non-profits. In their conversation, David shares how the right decision that serves the community can, contrary to popular belief, often be the best business decision.
David prioritizes a commitment to the Raleigh community and fosters professional relationships that are based on shared values. He works with several organizations to combat gerrymandering, serves on the board of Healing Transitions, worked to implement a fare-free bus system, and continues to work toward safe and sustainable transportation infrastructure for Raleigh's future.
He shares a few key pieces of wisdom with Tripp about maintaining work/life balance while financially succeeding, prioritizing your family, and being an active and impactful member of your community.
A Raleigh native, David Meeker founded Carpenter Development and partnered with the Trophy Brewing team in 2008. He has made every mistake in the world, lived to tell about it, and has invaluable development experience because of that. David is on the Board of the Raleigh Chamber, Downtown Raleigh Alliance, Common Cause NC, North Carolinians for Redistricting Reform, Dix Park, Dogwood Bank Advisory Board, and Artspace. He is also on the Capital Campaign Committee for Healing Transitions, a detox and recovery center on Dix Park. David lives in Downtown Raleigh with his wife and two boys.
David Meeker on Twitter
Carpenter Development Group
Kindness Reigns in Raleigh During Covid-19
All right, and all right. Here we go. All right, the Meeker episode outline. Welcome to the business of human flourishing podcast where we investigate how business can be used as a force for good, especially as it relates to healthcare, education and technology. Today, I get the privilege of speaking with someone I really admire and who has been extremely helpful in my professional career. While he isn't actually the mayor of Raleigh, it sure seems like he is. David maker is a businessman, philanthropist and community organizer. He founded Carpenter development and proudly claims to have made every mistake in the world live to tell about it and has invaluable development experience as a result. David is on the board of the rally chamber, the downtown Raleigh Alliance common calls and see North Carolinians for redistricting reform Dix Park, dogwood bank advisory board and artspace. And that's not all. He's also on the Capital Campaign Committee for healing transitions. My favorite local nonprofit, David is a Raleigh native and lives downtown with his wife and two boys. David, welcome to the pod. Yeah, thanks for having me trip. I'm thrilled to be here. So I'll just tell I'll kind of kick it off with how we met I think we met through through a mutual friend, Matt Cox, when he was, you know, running for for state senate here and just met, I guess, met at a campaign event. And then I think you have helped us with both finding, finding a banker finding someone who's a bookkeeper basically finding real estate for us basically everything. So a lot of the success we've had a greenhouse I think we owe to you. Yeah, well,
Unknown Speaker 1:45
that's definitely not true. And that was the most successful campaign that never happened. That's a good campaign, you worked for Matt Cox. And the folks that connect you with are so thrilled they actually thank me, I connected you with them. So. So anyway, it was a win for me, not just you. Well, it's
Unknown Speaker 2:03
been a lot of fun. Um, you know, why don't you just kind of give us your background, how you got into business, you're from Raleigh, just give us like a quick synopsis because you're obviously involved in a lot. So how did you get to get to this place?
Unknown Speaker 2:16
Sure. So went to school and so grew up in Raleigh, and downtown Raleigh, went to school in Houston, Texas to Rice University, moved back here worked for a real estate developer for a couple years, pretty quickly realized I wanted to go on my end, and did that in 2008 seems like a bad time to go out on your own as a real estate developer. But other than the first project, which was a little iffy, you know, it's been a good time. You know, the last 13 years have been great for real estate and rally. Early on, I got partnered up with two guys, Chris powers, and David Lockwood, who wanted to open a craft beer bar. We were thinking that was a one off partnership. And that was the busy bee cafe, we ended up being great friends. And that's turned into trophy brewing. So I really have two lanes of my business, I have Carpenter development, we do real estate projects, mostly focused on restaurant retail tenants, although we're doing some small residential stuff now. And then trophy brewing, and we I'm the real estate guy in the trophy burning team, we own our buildings and you know, you know, are expanding, including a big project over on Maywood Avenue, we're just planning now. And then I'm also really interested in the community. Obviously, I grew up here and live here and care a lot about it. And so that's how I've gotten involved with the nonprofit stuff. I really use my businesses to allow me to pay for me to spend time on the nonprofit stuff. That's what I really care about, to be honest. But you can't can't live on nothing. So I got to have the businesses to sort of support that.
Unknown Speaker 3:49
Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about two real estate. I think a lot of people who might listen to this real estate doesn't seem like the most progressive field to go into. Right. But But tell tell us a little bit about I know there was a really cool article in the triangle Business Journal about how you worked with kind of your tenants and in different capacities throughout the pandemic. And then also just like how you like why is that interesting to you? Why is why is real estate important? Why is that something you want to you enjoy?
Unknown Speaker 4:17
Yeah, so it is something that interests me, that's why I got into it. I enjoy construction. I enjoy seeing projects being built and projects be successful. So it's a passion project. And so it makes it a good career for me. And it is not generally most the most progressive. To get into. I agree with that. Quite frankly, there are a few options and times when you can sort of be compassionate and help people and the pandemic was one sort of time for that. And what we did was wave the rent for the tenants that were really impacted. Two examples were Beasley's chicken and honey and Irregardless the restaurant,we own both those buildings, and we waived it. One, because it was the right thing to do. The other reason we did it was because it was a good business decision. If you were to charge rent, the tenants could potentially give up at some point, not making any money. So having to pay rent, they would leave. And we'd have an empty building. rather than having two businesses that are basically institutions in Raleigh. And so we sort of said, hey, let's just look at this as six or eight months as a renovation period. And, and just not get rent, but long term, still have them there. And it worked. They're both back open and paying rent. And yeah, and, you know, that article was really nice, but but, you know, really, we it was a good business decision to and we kept our tenants.
Unknown Speaker 5:40
So how do you have that long term focus? I think, like, that's, that's one thing that, you know, you say it again, it's, it was the right thing to do. I think one of the things I really respect about you is, and I hope I'm living up to this as well, but it's really hard, like, I just can't make a decision that's going to hurt people if I have another option, right. But I think for a lot of people, they can be really focused on the short term. And, you know, early in the pandemic, and, you know, I know some some people not not enrolled, but who were not very compassionate from the landlord side. And so how do you keep that long term focus? Because what you're saying, and you know, what we were talking about before? I mean, you're, you're kind of booming, you're taking on bigger projects. So this is all worked out really well. But I think if you were thinking maximizing quarter to quarter returns, you would have made different decisions. So how do you keep that long horizon?
Unknown Speaker 6:34
Yeah, absolutely. So the I mean, the key is, is that you want to I want to be in business in Raleigh for 30-35 more years. And so I'm focused on the long term, how I can build a successful business, these folks who charge rent and now have vacant spaces, or even if their spaces are full, they have tenants who don't like them, that that was a bad business decision. So I'm very focused on what's good for the company, for the next 10 to 15 years and less about quarter to quarter, I will say, I'm fortunate to be able to think about that. There are some even people in my field, some real estate developers who have investors, who don't allow them to think like that. Yeah. And I'm lucky that I have a team of folks who believe in me and allow trust me to make decisions year to year, as long as the 10 to 15 year outlook works.
Unknown Speaker 7:24
So talking about you said your investors allow you to have that longer time horizon as well. You obviously hooked us up with our banker or bookkeeper. I think like, as you build that network, you start to find more people who share that time horizon and want to, you know, build a good life for themselves make make money do but do it the right way. So can you tell me a little bit about you know, building a network, you're from Raleigh? I do. You know, you're a pretty well connected guy. But think about someone maybe moving to Raleigh, what would you suggest they get interested in or get involved with kind of in the community? How can they get some exposure?
Unknown Speaker 8:01
Yeah, good question. I'll hit that in a second. The first thing is like building your team. You know, it's interesting, as you work with people on a project or two, you sort of realize who they are. And you know, as people and what they're thinking about, and you really trend away from the folks who trend away from the folks who are looking for a quick buck or just, you know, profit in the, you know, in the next six months, and you, you start working with folks who have the long term view, and that's what we've done. And you're we're always looking for new tools, or teammates, but, but we just naturally work with people who sort of have your same beliefs. And then then now like, and I'm thrilled, we've been able to share them with you all, too, in some instances, but like, we end up with great people. And, and they do a great job for us. They help our friends. And it's just all good terms of getting involved with rally, I think finding an issue you're passionate about. Most of us have full time jobs. So these nonprofit projects or passion projects are night and weekend stuff. So you got to be passionate. For me, I think my first big cause I got involved with was ending gerrymandering. That's been a failure. We haven't done that. I started working on that. And 2011. And here we are 10 years later, we're still Jerry, North Carolina is still a gerrymandered state. But I got really interested in that, and started, you know, organizing around that joined a couple boards around that. And and I'm still involved with that fight. But that was an issue that sort of kept me up at night. I was pissed about it. Yeah. And there were other people in the community who felt the same. And that sort of got me connected.
Unknown Speaker 9:34
So tell me a little bit like I'd love to kind of double click on the gerrymandering piece. Maybe tell the listeners what, you know, what's going on in North Carolina and why it's so important because I think that this is one of those kind of foundational first principles, problems that we have to address because until we can address that everything's built on a kind of it's a house of cards,
Unknown Speaker 9:56
right? Well, you're exactly right. And if we address it as a country, we could you You know, really changed our politics pretty quickly. So gerrymandering is where the leadership, the folks in power, draw their own districts, and and are able to manipulate the districts because of that states that don't have gerrymandering have independent commission, citizen commissions, or groups of professors are groups of judges who draw the districts. And those systems work so much better. One, the state is accurately represented, most important, but to the districts are competitive. And when you have competitive districts, you get better politicians who are less on the fringe. So more pragmatic folks, folks who are willing to compromise to get things done. And again, states that have ended gerrymandering are much more successful. And it is a foundational issue in North Carolina and the country. And, and until we fix it, and you know, hopefully, you know, soon in our politics, we'll be continued to be where they are now, which is we're led from the fringe on both sides.
Unknown Speaker 11:00
Yeah. It's it's really an interesting, interesting for the wrong reasons, when North Carolina is a case study on how to do it the wrong way. So glad you're involved in that.
Unknown Speaker 11:11
Yeah. And let me give you a quick thing of where we're headed. So North Carolina now has 14 congressional seats, where a 50-50 state, you'd expect our congressional seats to be split seven, seven, and the leadership is trying to figure out a way how to draw districts 10 for right now. Yeah. And you know, I mean, that's just shows like that's, that's not fair, North Carolina is not rezept represented in the USS
Unknown Speaker 11:33
Yeah. And when you see the lines drawn on the map, they're just these little carve outs and islands in nowhere. It's it's, it doesn't make any sense. And that's what's, you know, unfortunate, I think about it is, this doesn't actually make sense to anyone, if you can have a long time horizon. So right, man, well, you're involved in a lot. So we talked about the gerrymandering, what, what else is kind of taking up your time and your interest outside of maybe outside of work?
Unknown Speaker 12:00
Yeah, so two things that we've been working on one we've had a bunch of success on recently. And that was to take the Raleigh bus system to a fare free service. So most people who are riding the bus can't afford a car. And that's why they're on the bus. And, you know, going to fare free service saves them 50 bucks a month, or 600 bucks a year, we were working on a big campaign that included the universities, nonprofits like healing transitions and other family oriented nonprofits, and a broad coalition downtown, including the rally chamber, and, and we are gearing that up, and then the pandemic hits. Well, the City Council smartly in the beginning of the pandemic went to fare free, because now the only people riding a bus in the pandemic are folks who don't have a car. Everyone who had a car was getting in, into their might, germs might spread on money. So they quickly move to fare free at the beginning of the pandemic, then this spring, the council has to decide again, hey, do we go back to charging $1 and a quarter to get on the bus? Or do we stay fare free, and they decided to keep it fair free for another year. And so now as the pandemic hopefully sort of fades, we need everyone to start riding the bus, not just people who were who were, you know, couldn't afford a car. If we if that happens, the council will keep it fair free, because we will have less congestion, we will be a greener, greener city. Federal funding is based on how many people ride we'll get more federal funding, the buses will run faster, because you're not waiting for people to pay. They're not a lot. So that was a big success project. And we're hoping rally as a leader in the in the country on transit equity, starting with fare free bus service, but you know, extending to many other platforms. So that was one big win. The second one is healing transitions. That's the free detox and Recovery Center over on Dix Park. For again, I want to emphasize free if you're struggling with addiction, you can go into healing transitions and and stay there. We were doing a capital campaign to raise money to have more beds based on need. We have almost finished that campaign. It's 17 $18 million campaign. Just want to mention the city and county were heavy hitters in that campaign really stepped up and led the way for hospitals, insurance companies, private companies to step into, but we're proud of that. And we're getting ready to break ground on construction in the next couple months.
Unknown Speaker 14:34
That's awesome. Yeah, healing transitions, like I said in the intro is one of my favorite nonprofits, I think dollar for dollar, they're doing some of the best work out there. And we've been fortunate at greenhealth to I think we probably have four or five guys who work here now that went through the HDX program, and it's just really cool. You know, to build this kind of ecosystem that really helps people flourish you know, for us, you know, for people who aren't familiar With healing transitions, like David mentioned, it's a free kind of detox and residential program. For for anyone who wants to wants to show up, it's, it's incredible. And as you work through their program, as you're leaving, you have to have stable housing. And so that's one of the places where we've actually had, you know, we have kind of live in staff members at some of our facilities, and a lot of those guys will go from HD to being kind of overnight staff for us. And it's just been, it's been really cool to kind of build that out and, and help them get on their feet, and then kind of do more as well. So you, you've talked a lot about transportation. And we've talked about affordable housing, you're not a healthcare guy. So I assume you're probably not that familiar with the social determinants of health? No, I'm not. Okay. So this is actually where I think, you know, one of my interests with kind of the intersections of politics, health care business really come together, social determinants of health are these non medical factors that play a really big part in your health outcomes. So things like transportation, access to food, financial security, and affordable housing, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if we take care of those things would get better health outcomes. And it's also a lot less costly for the society as a whole. And so one of the things I hope over time with through this podcast, and just through all the work I'm doing is that we can start to view all of these kind of connected, right. And so, you know, I think it's really important to talk about the affordable housing and the transportation piece, because without that we're getting worse outcomes in our healthcare system. And it's just costing us a lot of money, you know, it's, we could we could actually provide, you know, months of housing for one ER visit, and that might actually save like, to spend money on on affordable housing is probably in our best interest as a health care system. So I don't think we're that progressive yet. But I hope one day we are
Unknown Speaker 17:02
Yeah, know exactly. That all makes sense. And, I mean, let's look at healing transitions and what it does for downtown Raleigh. If you didn't have healing transitions, we would have 10 cities full of folks struggling with drug addiction and mental health issues on Fayetteville Street, right? Because healing transitions exist, all those businesses and residents on every street can can do their business and be successful, rather than deal with somebody who's having a life emergency see in front of their business, the financial impacts, although it's not what we want to talk about, because it's not the reason we're doing it, we're doing it because it's the right thing to do. The financial impacts and payback are huge. The city, for example, when they put 3 million into healing transitions, they said this is the best investment, right making our city. So let's talk about housing, for example, because I think you're right, it's the same thing. In housing, we just the city just did an $80 million affordable housing bond, they had to decide on that amount right after the pandemic. So there's been criticism that it's too much because it's mid pandemic, or it's too little, because it doesn't, you know, tackle the full problem. Both are probably accurate. And, you know, that's why they ended up in the middle. But, you know, let's you let's use the $80 million fund that seems to be a success, and is working well as, as a stepping stone to a much bigger font of her talk. So the next fordable housing bond being a billion dollars, some people say, Oh, you're going from 80 million to a billion, that's too much for rally? We The answer is no, we have a huge affordable housing problem here. And it would be an investment that would save the city, so much time and resources, in terms of health outcomes in terms of costs, er, you know, please, you know, all the all the costs that come if you don't have affordable housing, and we could potentially lead the country again, by, you know, doing a huge bond and over investing in it. And then, and then, you know, and then being much better place to live and a much healthier have much healthier citizens.
Unknown Speaker 19:08
Man, absolutely. What, um, so you're obviously we went through, we've talked about some of the dominant Tell me about any of the other causes you're involved in, that you'd like to speak about? And how maybe how the intersection, you know, how you've actually brought knowledge from either the real estate side of things or how all this connects? Because I think it does, and I think that that's where, you know, people like you and kind of leadership positions in Raleigh is so important, because you understand the nuances of not just running a business or not just thinking from a nonprofit, but how do we, you know, set up set up rally for kind of the future.
Unknown Speaker 19:47
Right, right. Well, we you know, no matter what business you're in, or what organization you're connected with, you care about Raleigh, long term, and that's exactly where I am. We all sort of have to work together. Clearly the folks who are working in nonprofits are doing a lot more than folks like me are doing. But I think it's important for folks in the private business to support those folks. And I'm trying to do that. And so it's it is all intersected. And if you want to live in a great city and and have it still be great in 15 or 20 years, you have to make those investments. Now, a couple other things I'm working on, just because you asked is, you know, I'm working on the Dix Park, you know, Bond, sort of getting funding for that and making sure that's an incredible park for the city. And then I'm working on reducing this is an interesting one. So downtown Raleigh sort of broken in half by two highways, Dawson and mcdow, streets running through it. And it really impacts the walkability and the safety, as you move around downtown. So we're working on working with the state d o t, slow in those roads down reducing the number of lanes, hopefully getting, you know, bike lanes on them and making them a lot, a lot safer. So that's sort of a slow moving project. But I do think one day, you might say, hey, if I'm going to downtown, I'll go on Capitol or sell Saunders. But if I'm going around town, I'll get on 440. And right now people cut through. Yeah, yeah, so go to town that through town. And because of that the walkability downtown will be a lot, a lot better and a lot safer. So that's sort of a passion project of mine. And then I just have to mention it, like the fair free bus service is in place through June 30 2022. The community needs to provide cover to our elected officials to extend that, hopefully forever, but at least a year at a time, it would just significantly impact a lot of folks in a negative way, if we went back to charging fares. So I'm working on providing cover to make sure that's extended. That's awesome.
Unknown Speaker 21:51
Switching gears a little bit. How do you manage your time? I mean, what you tell me, you I've never run into you in a bad mood. And so you must manage your your time and your energy better than I do?
Unknown Speaker 22:02
Well, I think you do a better job of it than me. So I should be asking you this question. But I'll tell you, it's it, it has been a challenge at points. And I try and make adjustments when I realize it's a challenge and put things in place. Part of it is having folks in the companies who can really run them better than I can. And then I'm in weekly meetings, but I'm not involved with every problem. But But I just want to say for folks who are out there struggling with time management, I can relate. And me too. And one thing I've found that's helpful is to turn it off at times. You know, I really do this may sound late or it may sound early, I've sort of stopped working a 45 at 9pm. I sort of turn my phone off and I'm not answering texts or emails. To some people, they're like, Oh, 9pm, late to a lot of CEO types, you know, how can you run a business if you don't have your phone all the time. And so that's sort of that nine, I sort of cut it off, I hang out with my wife and you know, 10 to 30, we get asleep. And then I really don't look at my phone until 645 or seven the next day. And that is maybe not enough time. But like, that gives me peace of mind. And when I get down in the morning, I'm sort of rested and ready to roll. Awesome. Well,
Unknown Speaker 23:13
you mentioned spending time with your wife on you know, I need some advice here. I'm you know, we're looking at having kids. And you know, I think I remember last time. Last time we met in person you were you were about to take a trip with one or one of your sons. I think you can you know, what advice do you have for young entrepreneurs balancing, you know, family life trying to be, you know, engaged in the community and, you know, successful in their business pursuits.
Unknown Speaker 23:41
Yeah, so my advice is gonna be honest, which is to expect the worst in terms of sleep for the first six or eight months, I sort of expected I could keep rolling at 80% for the first six months and, and that was a bad idea, I should have expected to get no sleep and then the sleep I got would have been a win. So expect the worst and it won't be that bad. And then expect to be in the weeds. For until the I think the first or second kid is one or two. And then you'll get back to where I am. My kids are three and four now and I'm really sort of back 100% at work, I feel good. My kids who provided wonderful balance and perspective. In life. I will say having kids made me think a lot less about things that were fun to me. Like, hey, you know a lot of people a lot of us work to take that fun trip, right? I'm much less focused on that fun trip for me and much more focused on what will be that fun trip for the kids. But that's a good thing. I mean, we're getting to the age where that's it's time for that to happen. Yeah. So but I would definitely highly recommend the family thing and then just the first six months sort of expect the worst and it won't be that bad.
Unknown Speaker 24:55
I like that. Well, we can we can wrap up here in just a minute. What uh Is there anything else you want? To highlight, I mean, you, you, you've brought us through a lot. We'll put it this all in show notes, because I think anyone who wants to be active in the community should really tune in to this one. I've learned a ton about kind of what's going on in Raleigh. I like to think I'm somewhat informed, but I learned them not. So thank you for that. But what else? Is there anything else you want to highlight? Whether It's Your your work, where to reach you? Or any other causes? No,
Unknown Speaker 25:25
I would just say I've been very impressed with you all are doing at Greenhill, too. And especially one thing I want to highlight is the team you've built. I think I've you know, it's very hard to keep really good people on the team long term. And you've just done a wonderful job of that. I've gotten to know a lot of the people at Green Hill, and I like him on their phone, and they're clearly doing a great job. So I'm learning a lot from y'all all the time. So I just want to mention that.
Unknown Speaker 25:49
All right. Well, until next time, thanks for coming in. David. Yep. Thanks for having me. All right. We'll talk soon. All right.