Be Kind
Alum Promotes Compassion and Service to Humanity
Bryant Greene, MBA ’96, says he lives his life based on the advice of his great-grandmother: “You never know who’s going to give you your last cup of water, so you’ve got to be kind.”
And so, Greene has made it his life’s work to honor his beloved “Big Grandma”—from owning and operating a senior home care agency to volunteering with a myriad of community organizations that work on behalf of young and old, human and animal.
Now, he’s taken on an additional role—chair of the Advancement Council for his alma mater, the Kanbar College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce.
Greene, who earned his master’s degree in business management with a minor in international business at Kanbar, sees the position as a way of passing the baton to the next generation and promoting a school he believes “has the right model from an educational standpoint to empower our next generation of leaders.”
As chair of the council, Greene works with the faculty and students to create the best collegiate experience possible.
“We’re staying on top of trends, connecting with students to see what’s on their minds, and working on communicating better to meet their needs,” he says. “It is really a transformational period in life when you’re trying to figure out what you want to do. You have to learn how to navigate and network, and you realize how important it is to be the master of your own brand.”
Of particular interest is supporting first-generation college students who might need a little more guidance, and mental health outreach for a population feeling more and more stress.
He also wants to foster more recognition of the excellent education Jefferson provides, noting, “while a lot of people know the campus is there, they don’t know all the campus has to offer.”
Circle of Life
A native of Philadelphia, Greene is a graduate of Central High. After earning a degree in accounting and finance from Virginia State University and starting a position at Chrysler Financial, he decided to get an MBA from what was then called Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science.
He then went on to a few different corporate leadership positions before landing at Comcast, but when the economy took a downturn in 2009 he found himself laid off and looking for a job.
“The only opportunity that presented itself was buying into a franchise. The one that appealed to me most was senior care,” he says, noting that his love for senior citizens and for caring for others struck a chord with him. And so, in 2010, he bought into Always Best Care Senior Services, which operates in Philadelphia and surrounding counties, as well as Delaware.
“I grew up around hospitals,” he says. “My mother, my grandmother, and a few of my aunts worked in hospitals and in places that provided care in the community. I was also a caregiver for a long time because I had the blessings of grandparents and great-grandparents. I recognize what it is to have to care for a loved one and still go to work. To turn that into a business has been a wondrous ride.”
The official name of Greene’s LLC is BMG Circle of Life.
“That’s how I see it—being able to learn from every generation. There’s nothing better than to see the synergy between people just getting started in life and people that have been here for a while—to see them coexist and trade off of each other.” For example, he says, when a young person shows a senior how to use social media, or an older person encourages someone who aspires to enter what was once their field.
“We do a lot to match people from a caregiver perspective to the people that they’re taking care of [at Always Best Senior Care],” he says.
“It’s really uplifting when you see a nursing student taking care of a retired nurse,” he says. His own grandmother, Elizabeth “Chubby” Greene, currently a client of her grandson’s senior care services, was a nurse and loves talking to her caregivers about their curriculum and sharing her experiences in the profession.
Melding generations to promote shared knowledge and experience is something that is in the back of his mind for Jefferson, perhaps through a career placement program.
“There is nothing more beneficial to learning than speaking with someone who has firsthand knowledge of history,” he says. “When you get a chance to talk to a centenarian—someone who has lived through many conflicts, through wars, through the civil rights movement … someone who can talk about when women had to take up a lot of the jobs that men did during World War II, or who can remember when women were not able to vote—it’s different than reading it on Google.”
Sleepless in South Jersey
Greene credits his great-grandmother and two grandmothers for teaching him the importance of being kind and serving his community, noting that “Chubby” served meals to the homeless at her church every week until she couldn’t physically get there anymore.
That is why he supports several organizations that give aid to the homeless and veterans, and is on the board of the Alzheimer’s Association, where he has been a top fundraiser for the past 11 years. He works with Philadanco, as well as several cancer societies, and supports the Overbrook School for the Blind, his daughter Bria’s alma mater. He has also donated to a menstrual hub for young women who are not able to afford feminine hygiene products, and works with a prisoner re-entry program for women who are looking to make a fresh start.
Greene has also created scholarships for business students at his two alma maters—Jefferson and Virginia State University.
And then there’s his “dream-come-true”—his animal rescue farm.
“I’ve always loved animals, and have always wanted to manage a rescue,” he says. “When you have an animal that’s been mistreated and doesn’t trust humans, and when you’re able to bring them out of whatever difficult situation they’ve been in and they start to trust you all over again … It’s a special kind of feeling.”
Uncle Beez Rescue Farm in Sewell, New Jersey, houses horses, donkeys, ponies, alpacas, sheep, and goats that have been abused, surrendered, or neglected, or that were slated for the slaughter house. The “herd”—as he calls them — shares the farm with Greene’s three senior dogs and 11 barn cats.
The nonprofit not only helps the animals. He opens the farm for visits from various groups, including children, those with disabilities, and civic groups to promote “zen.”
Greene’s other side gig—also as a volunteer—is hosting a local radio and television program called the “Did You Know Show,” which focuses on connecting people to home, community, and business resources. In addition, he has just broken ground for his newest business venture—Uncle B’s Greeneries, a legal cannabis dispensary in South Jersey. Its motto, he says with a chuckle. is, “The grass is always Greener at Uncle B’s!”
How does he get it all done?
“I’m the world’s biggest insomniac,” he says, admitting that he will be up sending emails at 3 a.m. “But when you like what you’re doing, it doesn’t feel like work.”
As long as he has the energy, the fifty-something-year-old says he’ll keep doing what he’s doing to follow his great-grandmother’s words of wisdom.
“I just want people to really be kind,” he says. “I’m trying to leave a legacy of giving from my heart. And when you do things from the heart, it’s not labor-intensive. It just feels right.”