NOLa for Life initiative promotes upward mobility to Black male youth

By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer

Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s ongoing quest to dilute the murder rate in New Orleans and provide positive opportunities for Black males, took on a new iteration November 17 with the creation of a speakers’ series through the city’s two-year-old NOLA for Life initiative, backed by public and private funds. The series features a new speaker each month conveying a message of upward mobility to Black male youths.

“I started my business at 26, now I’m 36 and I run the largest Black-owned engineering firm in Louisiana,” said Dwayne Bernal, a West Point graduate, McDonogh 35 alum, and the president of New Orleans-based Royal Engineers. Bernal was the inaugural speaker for the series and focused heavily on overcoming personal struggles. “There were a number of challenges I faced, like when my father died and when I became very ill.” Bernal stressed that hard knocks were the ingredients that gave way to his life recipe for success.

Dwayne Bernal, CEO of Royal Engineering. Photo courtesy of Royal Engineering

“I first started contemplating that I might want to go to West Point when I was a senior in high school,” he said. “I had a teacher stop me in the hallway and say, ‘I heard you were thinking about going to West Point.’ I said ‘yes’ and then she said, ‘You’ll be back in a year.’ That’s when I knew I had to attend.”

Bernal’s message to the group of nearly 100 young participants in the Honoré Center for Under­graduate Student Achievement was to look adversity in the face in order to “set an example for others.”

“Before I started my own business, of course, I was working for someone else. I had lots of ideas and opinions and one day my boss told me that he paid me too much money in order for me to think that I was right. Well, first of all, I was right and then, second of all, he wasn’t even paying me that much money,” Bernal laughed. “So, I knew then that it was time for me to go and that I had to chart my own path.”

Q93 radio host Wild Wayne, who moderated the discussion, asked Bernal what advice would he give to “street hustlers,” or men engaged in illegal commerce. “Some of these guys are the best businessmen around,” Wayne said. “They understand product placement, packaging, network marketing and math skills.” Bernal said: “I would encourage them to become entrepreneurs because the ceiling is always higher in the legitimate market and they already possess the skills necessary to own a business.”

This article originally published in the November 24, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.