Welcome back to the Theology of Business podcast with host Darren Spear. This is the show that helps marketplace persons to partner with God in business to help you make disciples of your company, your industry, and your community. If you want to learn more about how to do business for the glory of God and take the culture through discipline the business world, this show is for you. You can get more of the Theology of Business Institute's interface and features like the one you're about to hear at at theologyofusiness.com.
SPEAKER_00On this episode, we're joined by Mark Whitaker. Mark is Chief Operating Officer of CBMC, an organization that has impacted his life greatly over the past two decades. That's probably an understatement. You're going to find that out here in just a minute if you haven't, if you don't know Mark's story. And CBMC, we've mentioned CBMC a number of times on this podcast, but it's one of the most prominent pioneering organizations in the faith to work movement over the past century, started back in the 1930s. And since December of 06, he has been the chief operating officer and chief science officer at Cypress Systems Incorporated. And you, if the name Mark Whitaker is ringing a bell, his undercover work with the FBI during the ADM scandal, the Archer Daniels Medland scandal, was the inspiration for the major motion picture, The Informant, starring Matt Damon as Mark Whitaker. And drawing from his unique history, Mark provides a one-of-a-kind insight into corporate ethics, corporate greed, and the warning signs of a flawed corporate leadership. Mark, welcome to the Theology of Business Podcast. Yeah, thank you. I'm glad to join you. Thank you for having me. So for those who haven't heard your testimony, uh, could you just tell us what was it like starting your career at ADM? I started in October of 89.
SPEAKER_02I would have been 32 years old. ADM at that time, it's even larger today. ADM is the 40th largest company in America today, the 40th. I joined, we were the 56th largest company in America in October of 89 with 30,000 employees, 70 billion in revenue, and I was number four ranked executive out of 30,000 executives. I was divisional president of the biotech division and reporting uh right to the uh the vice chairman of the company, and the president was 69 years old and the CEO was 75 years old, so I was half the age of the executives above me. So I saw plenty of room to move up, and uh there were only three slots above me.
SPEAKER_00Wow, and you got your own jet, right? I mean, you were uh you were flying pretty high at that point.
SPEAKER_02The seven top executives did get you their get, and they still do, I think, even today, but each have their own Falcon 50 and being ranked number four. I had my own Falcon 50 at 32 years old, and boy, did I think I was a rock star at that time. I even had air back then.
SPEAKER_00So so you're really kind of at the mountaintop of your of your career at this point. I mean, and you're just starting out. I mean, gosh, one of the I can only imagine the one of the youngest executives uh in all of Fortune 500 companies at this point. And so the stakes are pretty high. You've got a lot to lose uh if something goes south in the company. Um, but then things started to you you started to get involved in something called price fixing that some of our audience may not be familiar, but especially with our international audience. Um, what is price fixing and how did you get involved in it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, price fixing is basically uh the way capitalism is built in the United States, and the reason why prices stay, for the most part, fairly competitive and fairly low, is because just think of a car manufacturer. Uh they're competing against each other. Honda's competing with Ford, they're competing with Hyundai, and so on, and that drives the prices to a more fair price, even though consumers may think they're high. Just think what it would be if there was only one car manufacturer. Uh then they would, you know, they could be double or triple what they would be today. Well, the same way with food additives, uh, ADM is one of the largest food additive companies in the world. Your listeners, whatever they have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today, will likely have something from ADM in it. They make the ingredients that would go like in Kellogg's cereal. If you look at Coca-Cola and Pepsi and iced tea or an orange juice, they have ingredients in those in those uh beverages. You look at a Pillsbury or a Kraft, it'd be difficult to buy a uh processed food and put in your grocery cart from the grocery store that does not have something from ADM in it. Again, one of the largest food additive companies in the world. But capitalism means you compete with your competitors and that keeps prices down, and then for the consumers can get a good price for their uh coffee, their beverages, their sodas, their breakfast cereals, and so on, and bread and so on. But if you're if your competitors are working together, which is illegal, they form an international cartel and they start working together, they then can drive the prices up by taking out the competition, taking out the element of capitalism out of it. And that's exactly what was happening at ADM. It was actually happening in proven in court 12 years before I joined them. But the fact that the CEO was heading close, heading towards 80 years of age, uh, they started teaching younger guys, and I was one of the guys they saw as a future, as a you know, as a future leader, being the number four executive. Uh, they started training me uh to do, mentoring me to do the price fixing.
SPEAKER_00And so they probably didn't start out mentoring by saying, hey, what we're doing is illegal, by the way, so keep us hush-hush. Or or did they?
SPEAKER_02No, they didn't. I was a couple years with a company by this point. Excuse me, I joined them in '89. It was 1992 when the vice chairman came back to my office. He gave me a large, large bonus, lots of stock, and I'm talking uh close to a seven-figure bonus. And uh about an hour later, I came back to my office and then I understood what that bonus was for. He told me he was going to sign a mentor to me. Now that I've been with a company long enough that I'm trusted and they see me as part of the family, they were gonna sign a mentor to me to show me how ADM does business. And he started describing to me what I was gonna be trained to do, and then I understood exactly what it was, which was the price fixing. But I tell you, it was I was had a very high compensation, $350,000 a year base salary, this is 1989, and bonuses that would add up between one and three million dollars a year between the stock options and bonuses. And at that age, and and full of myself and all about uh power and and greed and materialism, I wasn't willing to walk away from it. And I thought these guys being 30, 40 years my senior, they had a lot more business experience than me. I just thought, well, this is how business is done in the real world.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02So I rationalized and said it must be okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, that do you remember? Was there a moment when you recognize that, whoa, what I'm doing is actually illegal? Because usually it takes compliance getting involved before you know somebody recognizes that what they're doing is, you know, borderline or is just outright illegal. I mean, uh, how did you figure out that this is not, I mean, had you studied antitrust law or anything like that? How did you how did you know that this was illegal?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I it's it's it's it's I mean, I have a PhD in biochemistry from Cornell, so uh price fixing and cartels, I was president of the biotech division, and most executives in biotech or pharmaceutical, most of them are science background more than they are business school graduates. I realize a lot of corporations would have MBAs as their top leaders and as their CEOs and divisional presidents and so on. But in the in the biotech world, in the scientific world, a lot of your top management are more scientific related than they are business. But I still knew what price fixing was. I knew what international cartels. I remember reading about it years ago when the oil companies would fix prices and gas prices would go up because of price fixing. So just through, just through the media and newspapers, I knew it was illegal, and companies received large fines, and sometimes executives received prison sentences because of it. So I did know it was illegal, and my wife noticed something different about me during that time when I was starting to be mentored of that, and that's how the discussion came up with her and I talking about the price fixing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and she really had a way of framing the issue that really, really cut right to your heart. Um, what was that conversation like?
SPEAKER_02Well, my I was about seven months into the price fixing scheme at this point, so it would have been November 1992. She could tell something was weighing heavily uh on my shoulder, something changed. Uh, you know, three years at ADM at that point, but those last seven months something had changed. And we started open, and I've known my wife since she was seventh grade, and I was in eighth grade, so I've known her for decades, even at that point, as young as we were. And I started sharing with her what was going on and why, you know, I was feeling differently. And um, boy, was she really started digging in and really convinced me there's no way to rationalize yourself out of this. This is stealing from every consumer that goes to the grocery store.
SPEAKER_00And on the order of say three, maybe four dollars for every $50 worth of groceries, is that about right?
SPEAKER_02That's right, about three to five dollars. About every consumer go to the grocery store in the 80s and 90s, it was going on for about 12 years. If they bought $50 worth of groceries, it would have been three, four, five, three to five dollars, depending on what was in their grocery cart uh of theft. But when you take that and uh and hundreds of millions of consumers around the world, uh we were earning an extra billion dollars a year doing it. Not a million, but a billion dollars through the price fixing illegally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow. And and so there there came a point where uh you had to go and uh and start putting a stop to this, but you don't I I've heard you say that you don't characterize yourself as a whistleblower, but as an informant, whereas your wife was really the whistleblower. How do you differentiate those two? Yeah, I really do.
SPEAKER_02Uh I mean when you look at I was so obsessed at that period of my life. You know, I was showing up in Fortune magazine as likely to be the next COO of the company, the number two, in other words, to go from divisional president to company president, from number four executive to two. And I really got caught up in that world. I mean, I have I was almost addicted to that world. And I don't believe I would have ever turned myself in if it wasn't for uh Ginger's uh encouragement after a very long discussion with her on that very day, November 5th, 1992. And and basically, I mean, she she really laid it out black to put it in black and white, that like even her grandma on two dollars a week and $200 a week Social Security, you know, a grocery bill being her largest bill, and we're stealing from her. And here we're living in a mansion with a corporate jet and uh eight-car garage full of cars. And she felt very uncomfortable with that. And the more she felt uncomfortable with that, I started realizing, boy, I I I was putting uh I was putting uh rationalizing so much, I was basically making illegal activity like it's okay. Like, well, everybody's doing it, it must be okay. But when you look at it black and white, it was outright fraud, it was outright theft, it was a billion dollars a year from every consumer going to the grocery store, and um, and and and and I turned myself in that day. And when something like that happens, uh I would say my wife, ginger, was the whistleblower, and I was the informant, and and the whistleblower is the one that sacrifices everything to do the right thing, and that was ginger. Uh, because really I I I I confess to the FBI because of ginger. An informant is somebody sitting in front of the FBI and has a choice to be arrested or start wearing a wire. And uh that was me. That's right. And there's a huge difference between an informant and a whistleblower.
SPEAKER_00Hey, before we get back to this episode, I need to let you know about a new course we've developed here at the Theology of Business Institute called the Biblical Standards for Businesses course. Are you tired of hearing well-meaning statements about how God cares about your work in business, but not actually having much practical guidance on how to apply the Bible in business matters? Are you tired of having to rely primarily on non-Christian business gurus for useful guidance on how to run your business? Do you want to know what the Bible says about the fundamental aspects of business like innovation, competition, marketing, sales, customer care? What does the Bible say about quality control or management, human resources, accounting, business law, risk management? Given that we're called to set Christ-centered standards in business, which is really just another way of saying we're called to make disciples, we believe every Christian business executive, entrepreneur, and coach should be able to explain and apply what the Bible says about each of the core fundamentals of business. So join us in the Theology of Business Institute's Biblical Standards for Businesses course to discover and apply what the Bible says about business stuff. So we can set industry standards and steward our companies in ways that reveal God's glory to the world around us. So head over to theologyofbusiness.com and click the tab that says course to learn more and enroll for the current semester. That's theologyofbusiness.com. Well, I shudder to think um, you know, what would have happened had you not uh been married to such a strong woman, you know, that uh or not been married at all, or you know, just had a spouse that was of lower character that would not have really pushed you uh to to do the right thing. And you did do the right thing at that point and and became an FBI informant. So so then they cut you a deal and gave you immunity, and yet you still went to prison. Well uh why'd you go to prison?
SPEAKER_02Uh well basically after wearing a wire for I wore a wire every day, every day for three years. It's the longest duration of anybody wearing a wire in U.S. history. No one wore a wire 10 hours a day for three years. And even in the FBI museum at the FBI headquarters, it has the equipment I wore undercover in their museum. That's how large this case was. It was the largest price fixing case at the time. It was the highest level executive that ever wore that ever uh started wearing a wire for the FBI, and that still even holds true today, some 25 plus years later, and was also uh the longest duration of anybody wear a wire in U.S. history, and that still holds true today. And the reason so I had full immunity for basically for taking that risk when the FBI would wire me up at six o'clock every morning, they'd say, Boy, Mark, if these guys get you, they're gonna kill you. This is serious stuff. And uh so they gave me immunity for gathering the evidence, only being seven months with the crime at the time, a crime that was going on for 12 years, and basically and basically being the informant and and helping them bring this case to justice. So I had full immunity, and all I had to do was stay out on my own way and uh not break any laws that they didn't know about, because I was breaking the law doing price fixing, but they knew about it, so they wanted me to continue to participate in that. But what happened was I panicked after wearing a wire for a couple years. I I for sure wasn't uh wasn't thinking clearly. Uh I would be blowing the driveway off with gas leak blowers at three in the morning during thunderstorms, for example. Uh, you know, I was falling apart wearing a wire. Uh the longer I wore a wire, the more I was falling apart. And then when I came to realization that this this career is coming to an end after seven years having that career, I couldn't imagine life without that compensation. The plane, the house, the cars, had a Ferrari, two BMWs, two Mercedes's. I mean, it was a life of a rock star. I couldn't imagine life not that way. And so what happened was I started thinking, I'm gonna get fired when they learned that I'm the one that witnessed against them. And basically I had stock options that were in the millions, actually about nine million at that time, that they were gonna owe me, but I had a five-year set of stock options that would have been worth about nine million, but it was about a year away from when I could exercise them. You can only exercise them when that five year comes to an exercise date. Well, I was gonna be fired for being uh the informant. They weren't gonna let me stay there once they learned I was the witness, and I knew that. And so what happened was I started basically writing checks to myself to equate to what they were gonna owe me on stock options, knowing I was never gonna reach that stock option date. So basically I stole my own stock options a year before I could exercise them, knowing I was gonna get fired. And I went to prison for that $9 million fraud and not the price.
SPEAKER_00And so you went to prison for how many years?
SPEAKER_02I the I had a 10-year sentence, but uh the way the federal system works, there's no parole, but you get 15% for good behavior. That's the maximum you get, is 15% off for good behavior. So I did eight and a half years on a 10-year sentence.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And yet the guys that were in the price fixing at ADM got max of three years, right?
SPEAKER_02That's right. Almost all of them. There were about 30 people convicted, four from just ADM alone. And then it led to other cases from those tapes. It led to a vitamin case, a citric acid case. People would continue to brag about their illegal activity, so it led to many cases beyond the product that we started with called lysine at ADM. So all together it was about 30 uh defendants of all the cases, vitamin, citric acid, and so on. And the maximum they got were three years because that was the maximum on price fixing at that time, the maximum sentence. But now the sentencing commission has changed that. For that same dollar amount on price fixing today, it's a 10-year sentence for the price fixing and $10 million for money laundering. So today they would have got 20 years.
SPEAKER_00And it's it's not hard to see the disservice the FBI really did to you. I mean, considering now I'm sure there's a lot more uh mental health uh therapy that's going on when you're when you're undercover like that, but three years, I mean, the longest anyone has worn a wire, and you know, you're you're helping them out out, and yet, you know, you're in this really vulnerable position results in you know, three times as long as anyone else uh in prison. And and and not to mention just the this your your mental well-being uh gets compromised in the process to the to the brink of suicide, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, I attempted uh attempted suicide twice. I mean, it was uh basically what happened, uh Darren, they were they knew they took me undercover too long. They actually have a guideline, they don't allow an informant to wear a wire longer than a year because they know what happens when guys like me, and there's been other examples when they wear them for two or three. In my case, I wore for three years. Uh, people do fall apart. Even their own trained agents fall apart when they wear a wire undercover longer than a year. So they were once they were very sympathetic about that and knew that I wasn't thinking in my right mind to write five checks for nine million dollars to myself. That that's not clear thinking when you're working for the FBI. Uh so for that reason, they went and fought with along with an attorney of mine at the time for a plea deal, a plea agreement, and they received a plea agreement for me that I would have received six months, six months in federal prison, uh, in a white-collar camp with no fence, no razor wire or anything, a minimum security camp. And my lawyer called me in Chicago and told me about this six-month uh plea agreement. All I had to do was sign, and this was for the nine million. I had immunity obviously before that. The six-month sentence was for the nine million. So I would have had the lowest sentence of any defendant, any co-defendant at all. And my wife begged me to sign it, and I looked at her and said, She's the one who got me in that mess, this mess in the first place, and I wanted to do the opposite she wanted me to do, and so I took that plea agreement and threw it in the trash can, fired that lawyer, faulted the case through a system with different lawyers for 10 years. I'm sorry, I fought it through the courts for three years to get a 10-year sentence instead. And I had a six-month plea agreement right in front of me. And then when I saw realistically how stupid I made that decision to have 10 years instead of six, that's when I attempted suicide.
SPEAKER_00And yet your wife said the nine years would have been better than the six-month sentence. What uh what did she mean by that?
SPEAKER_02Well, she for sure didn't um she for sure didn't feel that way, probably in the beginning at that time. But once we look back and and uh there was a movie on the case in Matt Damon, my identical twin Matt Damon, uh played played me in 2009 in a movie called The Informant. Um, not her faith journey, but more of a crime drama, kind of a a secular version of Of uh kind of just basically the three years of wearing a wire during that period of time of my life. And we did several interviews during that time when that movie was coming out, and they did ask Ginger um on one of the CBS interviews about what would have happened if I signed that six-month plea agreement. And she really looked back and said she thought about that a lot over all these years and felt strongly that I would have came out the same greedy man I went in, and God gave me exactly what I needed, which was nine years and not six months. I think two years would have been enough, Darren, but uh I agree six months. You know, there are a couple guys that reached out to me and discipled me and mentored me, one named Ian Howes, another one Chuck Colson, who uh was a guy who went to prison in the 1970s for Watergate uh scandal. He was President Nixon's White House counsel. And if I had a six-month sentence, I don't I don't even think I would have listened to those guys uh when they showed up. But when you got nine years, you're looking for hope. So I was I got I was at the end of myself at that point and was really willing to listen and wanting to learn.
SPEAKER_00Because you know, obviously I think our audience is picking up the theme that your wife was trying to tell you this all along, but she ultimately had to just really start praying that God would send somebody that you would actually listen to. And CBMC was a big part of that, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. Uh, seven months before I went to prison, after um one of the suit, one of the two suicide attempts, a man named Ian Howes, vice uh CFO of a large uh pharmaceutical company, uh, had read about me. And he was part of CBMC in the Chapel Hill area where we were living at the time, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and he reached out uh to me, and that was seven months before I went to prison and started taking me through a Bible study called Operation Timothy, really introduced me to Jesus, really. And then my second week in prison, only seven months after Ian Howells started reaching out to me, then Chuck Colson showed up my second week in prison, and I was really discipled by the both of those guys uh uh during that journey, Ian Howells and Chuck Colson. And they planted the seed that changed my life forever. And Jinder's been praying for that for a decade to happen.
SPEAKER_00Praise God. And at the end of the Discovery Channel, so there's the the the Matt Damon movie is for for those who haven't seen it, is a comedy. And clearly this was not a laughing matter, uh, but there was a much more serious uh you know telling of the story in the Discovery Channel's version. But I was curious, at the end of that documentary, you were asked uh basically what would you have done differently? And you said that you would have just left the company uh from the beginning when you saw what was what was going on. Uh so what is the what do you mean by that? Uh well basically because people were looking at you as as this hero, the you know, the whistleblower that I mean just took down corruption at the highest level, and and then you said that you would have just left the company.
SPEAKER_02Well, keep in mind I want to really to the basically when the movie was turned into a comedy, and the three books are very, very serious documentaries. Um FBI was pretty upset that was a comedy. And so they did the documentary to combat the movie. The documentary came out after the movie, and that's on my website, markwittyfer.com. It was done by Discovery channel called Undercover, and that was 40 hours of form of filming. Uh so they show 45 minutes after 40 hours of filming. So there's a lot of editing and cut. So there was a lot more that really was said during that time. And what I'd said during that period of time that you know they don't make the final product after 40 hours of filming, is that for my family, for sure, the bet what I put them through really the living hell daring that I put them through, the better thing would have been to leave the company. But then result of what God did, they took a lot of the faith uh discussion we had in that in that uh Discovery Channel interview. A lot of that was taken out of it to make it more secular in nature. But I talked about, but basically, if I would have stayed at ADM and became the president of ADM that was planned, that was the company's plan, I think I would have lost my family on that track. So this brokenness and me going to prison and finding God saved my family. I would have lost my family. Most people lose their family going to prison. In this case, it saved my family. And I would have not become a Christian if this had not happened. So there was a lot more that didn't make that final piece in that documentary that for my family's sake, the best thing would have been to leave. But from our family staying together and me getting to know God, uh, it was uh it was a such a blessing that it happened.
SPEAKER_00And I I I mean, it's like it's like asking Joseph, like if you knew that you were gonna end up getting put in that position with Potiphar's wife, you would have he would have probably said, I would have never gone there. I would have never gone to, you know, I would have never gone to work there. Or of course he didn't really have a choice in in his situation, but it's what the enemy meant for evil, uh, the Lord used for good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, Romans 8, 28. I mean, this is really a lot uh uh a messy story, tremendously messy with two suicide attempts, wearing a wire for three years, prison for eight and a half years, a 12-year living hell for my whole family, my ginger and I and our three children. But God took that story and and took us from ashes to beauty. He did, to the point we're married. Ginger and I are married 40 years here in June this year. I mean, the divorce rate, if you serve five years and longer, is 99% divorce rate. The official statistic, if you serve five years and longer. I served eight and a half years and we're married for 40 years. That's a miracle of God. So it's a shame what my family had to go through for me to get better. But the end result of this is a family that went from ash to the phone.
SPEAKER_00One of the other parts of the story that I love is that when you were in prison, the same companies that you had robbed and this and and and that had been robbed through this price fixing scheme were you know, like Tyson and uh Coca-Cola were taking of your family, right? They put together a fund. What what what happened there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they did, you know, with the the $9 million of fines that I had that I had to pay, the $2 million in interest on those fines, uh the legal fees that I had with the number of lawyers I had over those three years. I mean, we were broke by the time. And you know, the other ADM executives, ADM paid all their legal fees, paid their lawyers and everything. But for me, being a witness against them, none of that happened for me. So that was all out of pocket. And they didn't exercise any of those stock options, which was kind of a big part of the reason why I was stealing the money in the first place. The other executives got all their stock options exercised because they were not witnesses against the company. So the ones that went to prison still got their stock options exercised. They did. I did not. And so Ginger was about ready to go home and live with her mom with our three children. I mean, she was a stay-at-home mom for almost 10 years at that time. And the companies that were the victims of the price fixing, the Kellogg's, the Tyson Foods, the Coca-Cola, the Pepsi's, the Procter Gambles, they put a trust fund for Ginger for basically forcing me to turn myself in, and also for the help of me wearing a wire for three years. They put a trust fund for my family to assist her financially the whole night nine years or eight years and eight months that I was in prison.
SPEAKER_00Wow. A miracle. That's a miracle. And a lot of these have strong Christians at uh, you know, in the in those high levels of those companies, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. Right. That's the ones that actually uh strong Christian at general counsel of Tyson Foods is the one that got the others on conference calls to make that happen. That trust fund, that assistance, almost like a whistleblower reward for ginger. And then also God brought a Cornell professor to the to the uh prison to visit me, and he brought executives from other companies, pharmaceutical and biotech executives. They had offers for me the day I got out of prison after eight and a half years at age 49 when I got out of prison in 2006. The FBI agents started visit me in prison, and today they just published literally seven months ago a very detailed Forbes interview with the FBI agents. Those four agents all retired now, become my biggest cheerleaders. So God is really taking the this taking what happened in this journey and turned it all into blessings.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of uh there are a lot of heroes in this story that don't that don't really don't get brought to the forefront uh as much. But you know, you're because the media doesn't really always cover that, but you've been really faithful to uh to to give the credit where credit is due, you know, especially to your wife, uh Ginger. What a oh wow. That was my greatest blessing by far. Yeah. And so so what with all that you have gone, because you had a just a great job waiting for you when you got out of prison, uh, and and then you and you're still the COO of this company, biotech, cancer research. Yeah, cancer research company, you know, doing doing more, great work there. And also, how do you have time to be the COO of CBMC? You're you know, you're traveling, and and what really was uh uh led to you uh taking that position?
SPEAKER_02Well, I got out in 2006 and and CBMC having such an impact on my life, and the one who discipled me, Ian Alles, invited me to speak at a prayer breakfast, a huge prayer called a mayor's prayer breakfast that CBMC sponsors in hundreds of cities around the country. And this one was in Chapel Hill, and I thought, well, the guy who invited me, who's the guy that reached out to me seven months before I went to prison and introduced me to Jesus to Operation Timothy and then by in the Bible, I couldn't imagine not saying yes. I was really planning on doing that one time and never doing that again because I just felt like I needed to do that for Ian Howles after after discipling me and pouring his life into me. And so, invite of that, I showed up at that 209 prayer breakfast that was on May 7th at that time, and I said, I'm only gonna do it one time, never again. Uh it was several hundred people who came to that event, and I went and I presented, shared my testimony, what God's done in my life, how I met God, the greed track and the selfishness that I was on before I met God, and and what God's done since, keeping our family together and how the companies took care of my family, and how I was employed when I got out. And I was three years out of prison when I presented that, and I tell you, God spoke to me shortly after that, that he said, Mark, I've taken your life from ashes to beauty. I want you to go share it with the world. And then Oklahoma City invited me, and they have a 1,500 people prayer breakfast shortly after the Chapel Hill, and then I went and presented to that. And that's after that, I started presenting it 80 to 90 prayer breakfasts every year since 2009, the last 10 years. About eight a month. Wow. And the fact I get to so many cities uh around the country, so many of the CBMC active cities, uh, that they felt, well, who's in the field more than Mark? We should give him a management role while he's there. He can help equip our leaders and encourage our leaders and so on. And that's what developed more to from a management team role and from Cyprus's role. The CEO is very active in CBMC in California, he is. So he's a CBMCer for a long time, CBMCer. He loves me sharing my testimony. So I've been going more from a COO to uh more to a board member where it gives me a chance, an advisory board member. So that means I review clinical trials and approve uh their product specs and things of that sort using the background I have, but but really spending more time and really in the in the faith-based arena uh sharing God's story around the country. And even around the world. Two two February's ago, I presented in Jerusalem at their prayer breakfast.
SPEAKER_00I love what CBMC is doing. I mean, this is these prayer breakfasts has been going on since the third lunchtime meetings have been going on since the 1930s, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, 89 years since 1930 in Chicago was the first time.
SPEAKER_00My dad wasn't a business guy. He's a he's uh uh you know a pastor when I was growing up, but um he went to a few CBMC meetings and took me along with them, rolled me out of bed, and uh, you know, uh just um just a dynamic group of guys getting together to encourage each other and in the word and to just really exhort each other to reach out to the the their hurting co-workers, you know, and and that's that's what happened with you, you know, and that that that really low point in the pit, uh literally. And uh one of those CBMC guys reached out to you. How can people get connected with CBMC?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's a great uh organization. If you go to the CBMC.com website, and then there's uh there's resources there that you can look what cities they're in. We're in 308 cities uh around the country. And if you click and put your zip code in, it'll show you the clocest, look the closest um CBM city, the closest active city to where you live. And very likely it could be right where you live, the city. I mean, we're in from Orange County all the way to Parsiphony, New Jersey, uh, from West Coast to East Coast, and a lot of cities in between. And we're in 40 new cities already just this past year, 42 new cities. So there's what's called Vision 650 that that put on the that God put on the board's heart a year ago to grow at least 40 cities a year, and we grew up 42 cities last year, and already this year we're up six already. Beautiful, six cities. So if we're not in your city yet, it's very likely we'll be there. Because there's a God's really blessing a lot of growth with C BMC to reach the lost and the unconvenced in the marketplace.
SPEAKER_00And that's cbmc.org, is that right? Uh cbmc.com.org. And um, and mark's website is markwittaker.com. You can learn more about him there. And uh the the spelling there is W-H-I-T-A-C-R-E, so not uh E-R R E at the end. That's correct. And uh Mark, as we wrap it up here, what would be a parting uh piece of guidance and in light of your your testimony and the uh and what you shared here today, and or just anything else that's on your heart for our listeners, what would be a parting piece of advice?
SPEAKER_02Two things I would part with that if you're in the marketplace and and God's nudging you to get into into ministry and to uh kind of have a different season in your life, I just urge you that there's no better place for ministry than the marketplace. Ian House was CFO of a pharmaceutical company and he reached out to me uh in the biotech industry. I mean, what better place than ministry reaching the lost and the unconvinced is where God has us right in our jobs. What a platform for ministry. So that's one thing I'd like to emphasize. And for your listeners who don't know God, I'd like to emphasize this that I I pray that they explore him and get to know him because it is so important, so important. The most important decision I ever made was June 4th, 1998, at age 41, to surrender my life to Jesus. And God then guided my life, and to and I was a train wreck, and he put me back on the tracks and has guided my life the last 20 years, 21 years. And I urge your listeners, if they don't know God, to have God in their life and let him take that steering wheel and drive that car. I'm serious. But for the ones that know God, look at their work. Don't turn that switch off on Sunday when they leave church. Keep that switch on on Monday and use Monday through Friday what they learned at church, uh looking at their job as a ministry. You just you don't have to look too far. It's sometimes across the hall, the house across the street, or the next office right next to you at your work where someone's in need.
SPEAKER_00Mark, well said. Uh this has been a phenomenal conversation. And I say it often on this podcast that we need more Christian heroes in the marketplace. And uh I know you've been reluctant to call yourself a hero or have other people call you that, but I certainly regard you as that not only for what you did uh by exposing this scandal, but uh moreover uh for the way that you have uh taken reins there at CBMC to go and spread the gospel among business people in our culture. Uh it's just so, so desperately needed. So thank you again for your time and your uh your wisdom for sharing your story with us today.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.
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