---

Warwick Sabin has spent his professional life bringing energy and ideas to improve the lives of people. During his time in the state legislature, he worked with Democrats and Republicans to reform Arkansas’ ethics laws, promote cleaner energy, and encourage public/private partnerships to create economic growth.

He was named one of the top ten legislators of 2013, and the Arkansas Times called him the "Freshman of the session." In 2014, he was one of only 24 national leaders awarded the Rodel Fellowship by the Aspen Institute for his "outstanding ability to work responsibly across partisan divisions and bring greater civility to public discourse."

Warwick serves as the Senior Director, U.S. Programs at Winrock International, where he studies and implements programs aimed at helping rural America. He has also served as Director of Development for the William J. Clinton Foundation, and founded the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub. This is a cutting-edge facility that supports those who want to create new businesses, invent new products, and acquire new job skills. Earlier, Warwick served as a press secretary for U.S. Rep. Marion Berry. He was also a writer and publisher at the Arkansas Times and the Oxford American magazine. 

Prior to his career, Warwick graduated as valedictorian from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he served as President of the Young Democrats and President of the student body.  While in college, Warwick was awarded the Harry S. Truman Scholarship and was named to the USA Today Academic All-Star Team. He led a successful campaign to have all schools in the University of Arkansas System officially celebrate the federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Warwick also won the Marshall Scholarship for study at the University of Oxford. While in England, Warwick was the speechwriter to U.S. Ambassador Philip Lader. 

Warwick has volunteered and served on the boards of directors for numerous community and nonprofit organizations and projects in Little Rock, including the Public Education Foundation, Little Rock Workforce Investment Board, Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families and the Arkansas Literacy Councils.

Warwick and his wife, Jessica DeLoach Sabin, live in Little Rock.

---

---

Up In Your Business is a Radio Show by FlagandBanner.com

Share this Page

  

---

EPISODE 86

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:03.2] TB: Welcome to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. Be sure to stay tuned till the end of the show to hear how you can get a copy of this program and other helpful documents.

Now, it's time for Kerry McCoy to get all up in your business.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:27.3] KM: Thank you, Tim. Like Tim said, I’m Kerry McCoy and it’s time for me to get up in your business. This show, Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy began with entrepreneurs in mind, a platform for me, a small business owner and a guest to pay forward our experiential knowledge in a conversational way. As with all new endeavors, it's had some unexpected outcomes. This show has a wide appeal to everyone and I mean everyone. Not just business owners, because everyone is inspired by everyday people's American-made stories.

My guest today is an American-made man. He is our Arkansas House of Representative, representing the 33rd district, Congressman Warwick Sabin, who recently threw his hat into the ring as a candidate for mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. Today, we are going to find out about his life, his accomplishments and what let a boy born in New York City to live and love Arkansas.

If you're just tuning in for the first time, you may be asking yourself what's this lady's story and why does she have a radio show? Well, Tim is here to tell you.

[0:01:36.7] TB: Thank you, Kerry. Over 40 years ago and with only $400, Kerry McCoy founded Arkansas Flag and Banner. During the last four decades, the business has grown and changed dramatically from door-to-door sales, to telemarketing, to mail order and catalog sales and now Flag and Banner relies heavily on the internet, including our newest feature, live chatting.

Each decade required a change in sales strategy and procedures. Her business and leadership knowledge grew with time and experience, as well as the confidence to branch out into multimedia marketing that began with our nonprofit Dreamland Ballroom, as well as our in-house publication Brave Magazine and this very radio show you're listening to right now.

Each week on the show, you'll hear candid conversations between her and our guests about real-world experiences on a variety of businesses and topics that we hope you'll find interesting and inspiring. What I find encouraging about Kerry's story is that hard work really does pay off. Did you know that for nine years while starting Flag and Banner, she supplemented her income with many part-time jobs. That just shows persistence and perseverance will prevail.

Today, Flag and Banner has 10 departments and I have 25 coworkers. Thus, reminding us all that small businesses really are the fuel of our country's economic engine and they empower people's lives. If you would like to ask Kerry a question, or share your story, you can send an e-mail to questions@upyourbusiness.org.

[0:03:11.2] KM: Thank you, Tim. My guest today is Arkansas House of Representative Warwick Sabin, who is running for city mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. Warwick was born in New York City in 1993. He was chosen to represent New York State at Boys Nation, where he met President Bill Clinton on the White House lawn in the Rose Garden 30 years to the day of the story we all know when Bill Clinton, the Arkansas delegate to Boys Nation met President John F. Kennedy.

Somehow and today we'll find out how, Sabin ended up going to college at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he was elected president of the student body and graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian with a degree in of course, political science. His education and accolades as a young man are far-reaching. In 1997, he won the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, in 1998 he was named to the USA Today academic all-star team and won the Marshall Scholarship for study abroad at the University of Oxford. While in England, Sabin was a speechwriter for US ambassador Philip, is it Lader?

[0:04:17.1] WS: Lader.

[0:04:17.7] KM: Lader. For Philip Lader. By the time he left Oxford in June of 2000, he had a Masters of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics. His career life is just as impressive as his school days. After Oxford, Warwick moved to Washington DC as a speechwriter for Congressman Marion Berry. It was there he was offered a job as director of development for the new Clinton Foundation in Arkansas. This would relocate him back in Arkansas. Since that move in 2002, he has had numerous empowering positions. Many of you may remember him as the turnaround publisher of Oxford American Magazine.

Today, while serving in the Arkansas of Representatives, Warwick also has a day job as senior director of US Programs at Winrock International, where he researches and implements programs aimed at helping rural America. I want to hear about that. It is a pleasure to welcome to the table a motivated man, a man of the people, Arkansas Congressman, Warwick Sabin.

[0:05:18.4] WS: Thank you, Kerry. That was great.

[0:05:20.6] KM: It is great, isn’t it? People always come here and they’re like, “Wow, you got a lot going on over there.”

[0:05:25.6] WS: Yeah. It’s actually a pretty exciting little environment right here. You get a lot of people here.

[0:05:30.1] KM: I know. It’s fun. First things first, you grew up in New York City.

[0:05:33.8] WS: Uh-huh.

[0:05:35.0] KM: How did you wind up in Arkansas?

[0:05:36.2] WS: Well, I mean you – I always tell people there's a long story and a short story and you hit on the long story part of it, because I got to meet Bill Clinton between my junior and senior of high school. That was pretty enlightening to me. I'd never met a politician before. New York is a lot different than Arkansas. You don't get – at least I didn't get exposed to politics. I never even met my state representative, or my state senator, much less a congressman, or a governor, or mayor, or anything like that. To get to meet the President of the United States was pretty remarkable for a 16-year-old.

When I went back for my senior year of high school, at the time I just really wanted to go to an Ivy League school. I’ve worked really hard, put on my grades and, but I got a lot of – go ahead.

[0:06:17.0] KM: When you went back to where?

[0:06:18.4] WS: For my senior year of high school. Yeah, just because I'd met Bill Clinton during the summer.

[0:06:22.7] KM: Then you’d gone back to be your senior year in high school, okay.

[0:06:24.5] WS: Then I was getting a lot of nice scholarship offers from different schools around the country, and one of them was Arkansas. I was like, “Well, that's where Bill Clinton's from.” I really liked him. I bet I’ll like that place. They were offering me a trip to visit Fayetteville and I thought, I’d like to check it out. I took the trip. The truth is I mean, I just fell in love with Fayetteville from the moment I got there. Even more importantly, I met a woman named Diane Blair who you probably maybe knew at one point she was a political science professor up there and been involved in so many different projects here in Arkansas.

She and I really hit it off and she said, “If you come to school here, I'll be your advisor you can work at the White House in the summers,” because she was good friends with the Clintons. I mean, it was really more about a heart choice than a head choice for me, because it felt right in a way that I could still can't even explain to this day. I never looked back and decided to go to school, even though everybody back in New York was wondering what was going on.

[0:07:24.4] KM: Yeah, because you're probably a straight-A student in New York City and you're going to go to Podunk Arkansas they thought and into the mountains of the Ozarks.

[0:07:33.5] WS: That was what it was like. I mean, that's what they thought, but I'll tell you, I was the valedictorian of my high school. When I gave my speech as a – what's the polite way to put it? As a – oh, I don't know.

[0:07:45.7] KM: In your face?

[0:07:46.4] WS: In your face. Thank you.

[0:07:47.5] KM: You’re welcome.

[0:07:48.0] WS: Kind of thing. I quoted Fulbright and I quoted Clinton. I quoted all these are Arkansans in my speech when I was graduating, because everybody again thought I was a little nutty to come down here, but it's been the best thing I could have ever done.

[0:07:59.5] KM: Oh, we're so glad you did. Your dad's an artist in New York, right?

[0:08:02.8] WS: That's right.

[0:08:03.3] KM: I met your dad at your wedding. Charming.

[0:08:05.3] WS: Yeah, good guy. Yeah.

[0:08:06.9] KM: Both your parents are charming.

[0:08:07.8] WS: Yeah, I'm a lucky guy. I've got great parents and a great brother and sister too.

[0:08:10.9] KM: Is he do that for a living? Does he get paid?

[0:08:13.3] WS: Yeah. I mean, when he started out like you, he had to have a bunch of part-time jobs, because he had actually gotten a law degree and he had been a lawyer and then decided I guess right around the time he was about 30-years-old that he wanted to be an artist. He definitely had to make ends meet at first, but then eventually broke through and as I was growing up, that's what he did for a living.

[0:08:34.0] KM: There's two of you gentlemen in your family that make decisions on the heart.

[0:08:38.3] WS: That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah, I mean, it's not all heart. I mean, I think that there's obviously thinking through what you're going to do, but I think you do have to be willing to take risks and follow your dreams too.

[0:08:52.4] KM: That's exactly right. That's a sign of all successful people. It's the land of opportunity in Arkansas too, don't you think?

[0:08:58.9] WS: I definitely. I've always thought that from the moment I got here and I think, sometimes we don't realize how blessed we are to be able to have the access that we have to people. I mean, you mentioned your experience, you're paying it forward. You're using everything that you learned and helping other people figure out how they can do the same things. I found that exists everywhere in Arkansas that nobody will tell you that they won't sit down and talk to you and a lot of people become mentors and they help again, pay it forward and bring other people up behind them.

[0:09:30.3] KM: Well, you were at the University of Arkansas, you started – you campaigned to have all the schools in the University of Arkansas system officially observe the federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[0:09:42.4] WS: That's right. You want to know why or how?

[0:09:45.4] KM: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how old are you? 19?

[0:09:49.6] WS: Well, I mean, by the time I was student body president, I guess I was 20. I had arrived in Fayetteville and for my freshman year, and we weren't celebrating Martin Luther King Day that freshman year of college in 1994-95.

[0:10:02.5] KM: You did up in New York?

[0:10:03.9] WS: Yes. I grew up. We had the holiday. I mean, Arkansas I found out was one of the only states in the country that didn't celebrate it. I thought that was odd for two reasons; one is it didn't correspond with what I knew about the people from Arkansas that I met, who really were very tolerant and accepting. The image that the state had because it didn't celebrate the holiday, to me didn't correspond with the people. It gives us a bad reputation, makes us look bad.

Number two, the university itself had this really good reputation. It was the first southern university that admitted an African-American student back in 1948 when admitted Silas Hunt into the law school. A lot of people still don't know that to this day.

[0:10:48.2] KM: I didn’t know that. Yeah.

[0:10:49.8] WS: I was like, okay the university's got this great reputation and it actually was very progressive when it comes to that particular issue, so why aren't we commemorating the main civil rights leader of our nation's history? When I got to be student body president, I made that a big part of my platform.

By the way, another thing that had occurred to me was knowing what I knew by then about how African-American students felt at the University of Arkansas. I learned from talking to my friends that Fayetteville was a very different place. Lily-white, barely any African-American, especially back in the 90s there's hardly anybody there. We really should be bending over backwards to do everything we can to make the place more welcoming. By not commemorating Martin Luther King Day to me, it just felt like we were not doing that.

[0:11:34.2] KM: You're also became the president of the Young Democrats in Fayetteville.

[0:11:37.2] WS: Yeah, that was before I was student body president.

[0:11:39.5] KM: You always knew that you want to be in politics, I guess.

[0:11:42.6] WS: Well, yes and no. To be honest with you, it was a weird thing because when I was a kid, I loved to write, and so I thought I would definitely be in journalism. This is a theme that has repeated itself throughout my life, because first thing I did when I arrived at Fayetteville was I signed up to write for the newspaper. That's what I did. I've wrote for the newspaper the first couple years and I think I got pressed into getting into student government, because my fraternity house needed a representative and nobody wanted to do it. They're like, “Warwick, you do it.” I did it.

[0:12:11.4] KM: You’re an overachiever, you do it.

[0:12:13.0] WS: Well basically. They had me in there and then the next thing I know a couple years later, I'm running for student body president. This has happened over and over again with me. Every time I basically try to get into journalism and writing, something else sidelines me. I did write for the Arkansas Times as we'll probably get to and I did get to publish the Oxford American.

[0:12:33.6] KM: You have a theme of writing when I was reading about you. You have a definite theme of writing, and I wondered why you were a politician. I can't believe you already got to that, because I was like, “He's a writer. Why is he a politician?”

[0:12:44.3] WS: It just keeps happening.

[0:12:45.7] KM: You can't help it. I guess, it's in your destiny.

[0:12:47.6] WS: Well, we'll see.

[0:12:49.0] KM: You ended up getting grants and getting to go to Oxford. Tell us about that. Over there, you were a writer. You were a speechwriter for the US ambassador Philip Lader.

[0:12:59.6] WS: Yeah, that was really neat. That happened again, because I was trying to get into journalism. What had happened was I was over there and for my first year in Oxford, I actually applied to have an internship at Foreign Affairs Magazine for the summer in between my first and second years. That's a very hard internship to get, because there's only one of them.

I'll tell you a funny story that's actually very Arkansas related. I had applied for that and even being Marshall Scholar, Oxford and everything, apparently my application got thrown in the trash immediately because they saw University of Arkansas on it. They just thought, “No way this guy is going to do it.” The same day they threw my application out without me even knowing, Mack McLarty who I worked for before apparently, he took it upon himself, didn't even tell me to do this, to call over there to recommend me.

He reached the guy that had thrown my application in the trash and just said, “Hey, I'm Mack McLarty and I just think you should give consideration to this guy Warwick.” The guy fished my application out of the garbage can. Long story short, after an interview and all that, I got the internship.

I get this journalism internship. Then my second year at Oxford, I'm looking to find a journalism job and I'm talking to the Bureau Chief of Time magazine in London and all that. Apparently, he ran into the ambassador one day and said, “Hey, I know this guy. I know you're looking for a speechwriter.” Next thing you know I had an interview and a chance to do that. That was really neat, because I got to work in the embassy in London and I was – it was a really hard time there, because I was getting up at 4:00 in the morning to walk across Oxford to catch the train to London, because I had to be at the embassy by 7:30 in the morning and I would do that work all day and then come back and do my studies. It was vivid.

[0:14:37.4] KM: Do you need a lot of sleep?

[0:14:38.6] WS: No, I don't. Well, you see I got this big coffee in front of me.

[0:14:40.9] KM: I do see that.

[0:14:42.4] WS: I live on coffee. I don't sleep much, but I love it. I love everything I get to do and I feel lucky to do it.

[0:14:47.9] KM: Wow. This is a great place to take a break. Every person I know that’s successful just works hard. I mean, there is no secret. Well, I mean –

[0:14:55.1] WS: That’s true.

[0:14:56.5] KM: There's some secrets, but that's the one, the number one one. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Warwick Sabin, senior director of US Programs at Winrock International and Arkansas' 33rd district House of Representative. More recently, Warwick put his name on the ballot as Little Rock, Arkansas’ candidate for mayor in the November 2018 upcoming election. We'll talk more about that after the break.

[BREAK]

[0:15:19.0] TB: You're listening to Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of FlagandBanner.com. If you miss any part of the show, or want to learn more about Up In your Business, go to FlagandBanner.com and click Radio Show. Or you can subscribe through YouTube, iTunes, SoundCloud simply by searching for FlagandBanner.com. Lots of listening options. We'll be right back.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:15:58.9] KM: You’re listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with senior director of US Programs at Winrock International and Arkansas Congressman, Warwick Sabin. He is running for city mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas in the November 2018 election.

Okay, let's pick up where we left off. We talked about you going to – how you got to – how this New York guy got to the Arkansas, via the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Then you went to Oxford and was a speechwriter over there. Now you've graduated from college with a degree in a master in philosophy, politics and economics. You've been just killing it in your college career. It's time for you to get a real job. As if those weren’t all real jobs; they were. As fate takes you to Washington DC as a speechwriter for Congressman Marion Berry, is that what you wanted?

[0:16:55.6] WS: Well, I mean, it's funny because the job was offered to me and it seemed like a right thing to do, because the ambassador I was working for in London, his term was going to end at the end of that year. This was 2000, and so Clinton was going to be leaving office. I love the idea of number one, working for an Arkansas congressman, because I’d be able to stay connected to the state. Especially, the area the Congressman Berry represented, because it was the Delta part of Arkansas.

For me, I mean, that's again, we're working there now at Winrock and I love the culture of the Delta and I love everything about the history of the Delta. Obviously, the economy needs help. For me, I really was looking forward to the opportunity to be part of trying to do what I could to help as part of the political system and also learn more about it. I was excited to take that job.

[0:17:48.5] KM: Did you apply for it, or did they reach out to you?

[0:17:50.3] WS: They reached out to me.

[0:17:51.0] KM: Well isn’t that good? When people start calling you and going, “Hey, I've got a job. You want it?”

[0:17:55.2] WS: Yeah, it’s nice.

[0:17:56.9] KM: You met Bill Clinton when you were New York delegate in Boys Nation. Did he remember you?

[0:18:03.0] WS: I mean, I'm sure that he probably said he did. I don't know if he did, or he didn't. He's got notorious for having amazing memory, so he very well have.

[0:18:10.2] KM: He does.

[0:18:11.1] WS: Yes, ma'am.

[0:18:12.0] KM: You can run into him, he's notorious for remembering people's names.

[0:18:15.5] WS: It's amazing. I don't know that anybody else can do that.

[0:18:18.6] KM: I took that Dale Carnegie course, it didn't work for me, to remember people's names. Everybody take that course. No? Did you take that course?

[0:18:26.0] WS: I never took it. No.

[0:18:27.6] KM: It's about how to remember people's names. Talk about the years that you were in Washington DC. You were only there for two years.

[0:18:34.8] WS: Yeah. It was great, because I loved working for Congressman Berry. I learned a ton being on Capitol Hill and being part of everything that happened there. Unfortunately while I was, there the September 11th attacks happened. Of course, I’ll never forget that.

[0:18:47.2] KM: Oh, you were in New York during that?

[0:18:49.0] WS: Well, I was in DC.

[0:18:49.8] KM: Or DC. Yeah.

[0:18:50.6] WS: Of course, it was pretty crazy even that day. I mean, I'll never forget and we don't have to go through all the details, but the Pentagon was attacked and we were evacuated out of our offices there. Then two days later, there was the Anthrax incident, and I don't know if some of your listeners are old enough to remember this, but that somebody had mailed Anthrax to Capitol Hill and they basically shut down all the offices for really a couple months.

There wasn't any opportunity to go to work there. During that time, I ended up coming back to Arkansas temporarily to manage a congressional campaign for my friend, Mike Hathorn who was running up in Northwest Arkansas. I did that. It was a special election, so it was basically from September until Thanksgiving. I was there and then I went back to DC, but then not too long after that I was offered the job to be director of development for the Clinton Foundation.

[0:19:40.4] KM: Someone came and offered you a job again?

[0:19:42.3] WS: Yes.

[0:19:43.1] KM: See, that's why you should work hard all the time. You never know who's watching. You never know who's watching. You’re offered another job to move back to Arkansas and you jumped at it.

[0:19:51.5] WS: I absolutely did. I mean, President Clinton was starting his foundation. The goal of the foundation was obviously to do the programs in the areas that he cared about, but also to build the presidential library at the time.

[0:20:03.2] KM: It hadn't been built yet.

[0:20:04.3] WS: No.

[0:20:04.8] KM: You were one of the founders.

[0:20:05.9] WS: That's right. There were originally three employees of the Clinton Foundation; Stephanie Street, Shannon Butler who's now Shannon Butler Dixon and myself.

[0:20:14.0] KM: What about Skip Rutherford?

[0:20:15.6] WS: Skip actually was not an employee. He was I think on the board, but not an employee of the foundation.

[0:20:21.1] KM: Oh, I see. You stayed there?

[0:20:24.3] WS: Uh-huh. I was there through 2004 when the library opened. Then I finally decided I wanted to do, fulfill my journalism craving. I went over to the Arkansas Times as an associate editor, which was an awesome experience. Because I got to write, whether it was cover stories, I had a weekly opinion column. I started the blog that's on the Arkansas Times website, because we got to revamp the website at the time. I just loved it. I love writing and covering issues and being involved in that part of public discourse.

[0:20:57.3] KM: How much do you like to write a day, or how much do you write a day?

[0:21:01.0] WS: I mean, I probably don't write as much as I'd like to, just because I'm so very busy right now with so many things. I still even for my campaign purposes. I mean, I write up a lot of things. You can ask the people who work with me that I prefer to write stuff up myself, so that it's in my own words and it's my own thoughts.

[0:21:21.3] KM: Sounds like you.

[0:21:22.1] WS: Yeah. I mean, it's just communication to me is just so important and something that a lot of people take for granted. Communication is also a two-way street. I mean, it's not just about you telling people things. You need to be listening to people.

[0:21:35.2] KM: Communication is probably more about listening than talking, which has taken me 60 years to figure out. It's true. You are in your dream job, but you leave it.

[0:21:49.1] WS: I did. I left it.

[0:21:50.4] KM: You're working for the Arkansas Times newspaper, writing all the time, loving it. I can see it in your face.

[0:21:55.2] WS: Oh, yeah. No, it was fantastic. I mean, there were a couple reasons why I decided I needed to make a change after a few years there. Again, I did get offered a job to work over at UCA to direct their communications. I enjoyed that part of it, and that's actually what led right into the Oxford American, because at the time, the Oxford American was based at UCA.

[0:22:18.7] KM: That's right.

[0:22:20.7] WS: I'll never forget this, but one day I was just working and somebody walked in my office and said, “Hey, the Oxford American is bankrupt and in debt because it's been embezzled from. You like the magazine, don't you?” I'm like, “Yeah, of course I do.” They're like, “Well, will you just take it over and try to fix it and just figure it out?” I've never done anything like that before. I'd always been on the writing side, but never on the business side of publishing, but I just said yes, because I really didn't know even what that meant, and just got into it.

As you know, the Oxford American has a fantastic staff, a great reputation, people love the magazine. I'd always loved it, just because I'd subscribe to it since I was I think a freshman in college, and just loved it so much. I just took it as a challenge to try to figure out okay, what's the deal here? How can we get it going? To make a very, very long story short, we were able to overcome that initial challenge through raising money and other things. Then it was about really coming up with a business model that would work. At the time, there were two things working against us; number one, when I took over the magazine was 2008, so we were just going into a big recession.

[0:23:32.0] KM: Oh, wow. Yeah.

[0:23:33.0] WS: Then of course, also print publishing was going through its most difficult period, because advertising was being cut, circulation was being cut, the whole transformation in digital.

[0:23:43.3] KM: Everybody's come to their senses since then.

[0:23:44.8] WS: I think so. I think things have evened out now, but it was really bad at the time.

[0:23:48.0] KM: It was.

[0:23:49.3] WS: Like I said, we had a great staff. I mean, good people. What we started to learn was that the brand of the magazine, its identity was so valuable because again people cared about it so much, they trusted it. It was also very unique, because it represented really the best of southern culture at a very high level, whether you're talking about writing, or music, or art, or photography, or food, or any of that stuff.

We started doing events in all different places where people could come experience what they were reading about in the magazine. They could come taste the food, hear a band, meet a writer and listen to the writer read their work, or see the photography, the art. We were doing this in places like New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, even New York City, all these places. They were very successful.

We were actually – our net profit so to speak from those events was very substantial, because of the sponsorships we were getting and all that. One day I was saying, “Gosh, what if we could do this 365 days a year? What if we could have our own venue where we were doing music and people were eating and experiencing all this culture all the time?” That's where the idea for south on main came from.

I applied for a grant and we won the first ever art place grant that's ever been award in the state of Arkansas, and it was to renovate the old Juanita’s buildings on Main Street. I obsessed over every detail of that as you may remember Kerry, because you've had your own renovation project going for a long, long time. We got that done and we opened up the restaurant and got the programming going.

I'm just so proud of that to this day, because Oxford American is the only magazine in the country that has its own venue, and it's a very unique concept and it's right on Main Street in South Main, part of Little Rock. I think it's contributed a lot to the revitalization of this neighborhood. I think it contributes so much to the culture and obviously, it's also helped to stand up the Oxford American brand, which was the whole point to begin with.

[0:25:44.8] KM: It's everything that you said at the beginning of the show that you loved about Arkansas. You loved the culture, you felt it had this feeling about it that other states don't realize. Now you're able to communicate that to lots of people through your magazine, and then you branched out through other forms of advertising like you just said through trade shows, I guess, or venues that you went and did.

[0:26:09.9] WS: We just went and created the events ourselves. I mean, you know Ryan Kathleen and all of them. I mean, they used to pack up the van and fill it up. I mean, we had a lot of fun.

[0:26:19.0] KM: You had a great team.

[0:26:19.7] WS: It’s a lot of work.

[0:26:20.6] KM: I know.

[0:26:21.3] WS: It was a lot of fun, because we're hanging out with I mean, musicians and artists and chefs and all these folks and everybody's just there to say hey, the south kicks butt. I always used to say, you go outside of the United States and you ask people about American culture, inevitably they are going to talk about southern culture, because they're going to talk about barbecue and fried chicken. They're going to talk about blues, or jazz, they're going to talk about Faulkner or well tea. It's always going to be a southerner, so we define –

[0:26:48.4] KM: Never thought about that.

[0:26:49.6] WS: We define American culture to the rest of the world.

[0:26:51.1] KM: Never thought about that. They do always ask me about Texas.

[0:26:54.2] WS: Well, that's the other thing. We're going to let that one slide, but really, I think southern culture is what it really stands out to people when they're looking at the United States of America, where we define the culture.

[0:27:07.9] KM: Interesting. I never ever thought about that. Then you leave Oxford America, which I'm shocked but again, looking at your face and your passion about it. You've left two jobs that you are in love with and now you've started the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub in North Little Rock?

[0:27:23.0] WS: Yeah, in North Little Rock, right across the street from

[inaudible 0:27:24.8].

[0:27:25.2] KM: What made that transition?

[0:27:26.9] WS: Well, I mean, there were a few things. Let's just definitely be frank about stuff. I mean, I've had these great opportunities and I love them, but sometimes when you're doing work at the intensity level that I tend to do things and you're also dealing with creative people and all that, I mean, one year it's like a dog's life. One year is like 10 years.

[0:27:50.0] KM: That’s so true.

[0:27:52.1] WS: On top of that, I mean, you may remember at the Oxford American we went through this turmoil with our editor and –

[0:27:56.9] KM: Yeah. I forgot about that.

[0:27:58.3] WS: There were just all these things. I did five years of taking the magazine from bankruptcy, creating south on main –

[0:28:05.0] KM: During a recession, during a business model change in print. Yeah, during this toughest times.

[0:28:10.9] WS: Five years felt longer than five years, I think. I was definitely ready to do something different. The Regional Innovation Hub came out of the idea that by that time I was in the legislature, because I've gotten elected in 2012.

[0:28:22.4] KM: Oh, you had. Okay.

[0:28:23.5] WS: I've been seeing all this stuff around the country that I thought was really interesting, because in essence, all of these big cities had what were called co-working spaces, were entrepreneurs were getting access to what they needed to start businesses. There were these things called maker spaces where people were getting access to very advanced technology and other things. They needed to prototype inventions and create new products. There were these arts cooperatives, where people could get access again to the equipment and other things they needed to do art.

I'm like, “We don't have any of those things here.” The idea was what if we could create one facility that had all three of those things in it? Because basically, we needed to catch up. To make a long story short, that's what I was able to do. We’re able to take this old hundred-year-old warehouse that was sitting there empty in Downtown North Little Rock.

[0:29:15.8] KM: Put in technology, arts and what was the other one?

[0:29:18.2] WS: Entrepreneurship and co-working, yeah. It was terrific, because in a very short period of time I was able to raise the money and get that whole thing set up. It's been a terrific addition. One of the things that I wasn't expecting when I started was that we were going to have so much stuff for kids, because at first what I was thinking about was adult entrepreneurs, people who were again starting businesses, or creating new products. The second we got the doors open on that place, we had parents and teachers and kids and principals, all these different people saying, “Hey, are you going to have anything for the kids? Because we don't know how to get them exposed to 3D printing, or computer coding, or all these other things.”

We’re like, “Well yeah, let's do that.” We did after-school programs and school field trips and summer camps and coding workshops and robotics competitions. The place now, it's 50-50 kids and adults, which is a really neat and again unique thing. In the United States, there's not a facility that has all the things we have under one roof, nor is there a facility that does it for both adults and youth.

[0:30:20.3] KM: Wow, you are such a out-of-the-box thinker. Now you've learned how to be a teacher and educator.

[0:30:26.0] WS: Well, I wouldn't claim – I think a lot of what I do though is create the environment for other people to do what they do well.

[0:30:32.4] KM: This led you to become a director at the Winrock International, because they ended up purchasing it, I think.

[0:30:43.1] WS: In essence yes. I mean, they basically –

[0:30:45.2] KM: They liked it, they saw it.

[0:30:46.9] WS: That's right. They actually came to us and they do – so Winrock does a lot of work internationally. A lot of their work similarly is about economic empowerment and trying to help people in all these in essence, third world countries. We were a model that they really were interested in, because they figured if it could work here, it could work in Asia and Africa and other places like that.

[0:31:09.5] KM: They came in and what did they do? Purchase the nonprofit, or how do you do it? You just assign it over to them?

[0:31:15.7] WS: In essence, yeah. I mean, it was – I think we called it a combination. You could call it an absorption, but in essence, instead of the hub having to exist by itself as a nonprofit entity and having to raise its own money and all that, it became part of Winrock, and so in essence –

[0:31:30.7] KM: They funded it.

[0:31:31.7] WS: Yeah. It wasn't the first time Winrock had done that. There are a couple of other entities, the American Carbon Registry, Winrock had absorbed as well as I think called the Wallace Center, that helps people create local food systems and all of that. It wasn't the first time they've done that.

[0:31:45.3] KM: Then you left that job at the hub and went to work for Winrock?

[0:31:49.7] WS: Yes. Although the hub is still part of a portfolio of programs under –

[0:31:54.2] KM: Under you?

[0:31:54.9] WS: - our domestic programs. Yes.

[0:31:56.1] KM: You're still got your finger in the path?

[0:31:58.0] WS: Yes. I mean, I do what I can to help and make sure. We've got great people over there too, so that's the other thing. I don't have to be in the mix in such a micromanaging way, because we've got great people there.

[0:32:09.7] KM: That's the strength of a true leader is to be able to teach to somebody else and move up and then teach to somebody else and then move up. I mean, that everybody that comes in here is a teacher.

[0:32:21.6] WS: Well and I think, and you probably can relate to this, but I think the best thing you can do is create a situation where if God forbid, something happened to you tomorrow that everything would be just fine.

[0:32:30.2] KM: Absolutely. Some people get that backwards. They're like, “I want to be everything and I don't want anybody to able to do it. I can do because it’s a job security,” and it's exactly the opposite. The more you teach and train, the more you move up. If you don't do that, you're stagnant right there.

[0:32:44.2] WS: That’s right.

[0:32:44.9] KM: All right, this is a great place to take a break. When we come back, we will continue our conversation with Congressman Warwick Sabin, senior director of US Programs at Winrock International and Arkansas’ 33rd district House of Representative. He is also a candidate in the November 2018 upcoming election for city mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. We are going to talk about that when we come back after the break.

[BREAK]

[0:33:05.7] TB: You're listening to Up In your Business with Kerry McCoy. If you miss any part of this show, or want to learn more about Up In your Business, go to FlagandBanner.com and click on Radio Show. Or you can subscribe through YouTube, iTunes, SoundCloud and more simply by searching Flag and Banner. Lots of listening options.

[0:33:27.1] AM: Arkansas Flag and Banner is proud to underwrite Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy. McCoy began this broadcast a year and a half ago with the intention of offering a mentoring platform for those with an entrepreneurial spirit. Through candid conversations and interesting interviews with business and community-minded Arkansans, listeners gained insight into starting and running a business, the ups and downs of risk-taking and the commonalities of successful people.

Kerry McCoy, Founder and President of Arkansas Flag and Banner believes in paying knowledge and experience forward and developed this radio show as a means of doing so. The biographies, life experiences and wisdom of her guests would likely go unheard if not for this venue.

Rarely do people open up for an hour to an audience about their life, mistakes, triumphs and pitfalls. This unique radio show allows the listener intimate access into the stories of prominent leaders in our state.

I am Adrienne McNally, Manager of the Arkansas Flag and Banner Showroom and Gift Shop located on the first floor of the historic Taborian Hall on the corner of 9th and State Streets in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.

In business for 43 years, we offer an old school shopping experience with front door parking, clerks to help you and department store variety; open to the public Monday through Friday 8 to 5:30 and Saturday 10 to 4.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:34:53.8] KM: You're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy. I'm speaking today with senior director of US Programs at Winrock International and Arkansas Congressman, Warwick Sabin, who is running for city mayor of Little Rock in Arkansas in the November 28 election.

When we left, we were talking about you've gone to work for a Winrock International and you're over the Delta. You organize – you're director of –

[0:35:21.2] WS: Well, my title is director of US Programs, and that's the domestic work that Winrock does here in the US. A lot of our work is just driven around community and economic development in rural areas, and it's something I talk about a lot because we have a lot of efforts going on in urban areas around the country that are supported pretty strongly, but our rural areas are really left out. If you look at all the disparities in our country, whether its economic, whether it's educational, whether its health, even the political divide in our country. When you look at the map of red and blue, it tends to pretty much follow rural versus urban. I think that we've not necessarily done what we should be doing for our rural areas in a lot of ways.

We support a lot of efforts even internationally that we don't do domestically. I see the rural areas of our state as having so much potential, especially now in the internet age when it's possible for people to work from anywhere and want to have a certain quality of life. Again, we haven't invested in that infrastructure so we don't have high quality broadband internet in rural areas of the country. I think that nowadays, it’s not only a communications problem, but it's an education problem, because there's so much education delivery over the broadband internet now that's a health problem, because of telemedicine. Obviously, it's a commerce problem because so much of our commerce is transacted over the internet. This is the to me the rural electrification issue of our time.

[0:36:49.2] KM: Oh, that's a good way of putting it.

[0:36:50.4] WS: Well, because they made the same arguments a hundred years ago when they said, “Well, we don't want to run electricity out to all these places, because it's expensive and nobody lives out there. We don't want to do it.” Roosevelt made it happen.

[0:37:02.1] KM: Dale Bumpers of Arkansas made it happen in Arkansas.

[0:37:04.3] WS: Yeah. I mean, it was definitely an effort that needed leadership to have occurred. Nowadays, we would never think about not extending electricity somewhere, but we're doing the same thing around broadband when broadband is just as essential right now and it's going to be even more essential as we go forward. We need to make sure we're attending to that. That's something that I've worked on in the legislature, as well as now at Winrock. There's just so many more things we can do to promote again entrepreneurship and small business in our rural communities.

[0:37:35.1] KM: I've never thought about the internet as part – in comparison to electrifying rural areas, but it's exactly like that.

[0:37:42.9] WS: It is. It's the same thing.

[0:37:45.3] KM: When you were talking earlier I was like, “Why are Winrock spending all their money on other countries? Why aren't they just doing it right here?” Something I like to say that they're doing that. In January 2013 you said, or in 2012 you said you were still working at Oxford Magazine, and you ran for representative position.

[0:38:03.0] WS: I did.

[0:38:03.7] KM: Why?

[0:38:05.0] WS: Well, it's interesting, because at the time I probably gotten as far away from thinking I would ever run for office as I ever had at that point, because I was so into my career and running the business of the magazine and all of that. The seat where I live was coming open, because of term limits. There were some folks that encouraged me to run. When I got thinking about it, I mean, for me what I love about public service is what I love about all the things that we've been talking about. It's the ability to do good for your community, the ability to scale up an idea. To me, I can't live in a place to not want to make it a better place and not want to create more opportunity for others. To me, public service is one of the best ways to do that.

[0:38:46.8] KM: I went to your website and I looked at your real results page. You have things that you've done; ethics reform is a biggie, jobs and entrepreneurship we've talked about, energy, government transparency, education. What do you want to talk about? Which one are you most proud of?

[0:39:04.5] WS: Well, I'm proud of all of it. I mean, one thing – just so I can tell your listeners if you don't mind, so the website is savinformayor.com, S-A-B-I-N-F-O-R-M-A-Y-O-R.com, and she’s talking with the real results thing which you can click on at the top. What I'm proud of first of all, is that I came into the legislature in the minority. It's actually the first time the Democrats had been in the minority 138 years. My first term – it was 51-49 in the house. My second term, it was 64-36. Now in my third term, it’s 76-24. I'm in a super minority now.

All throughout there, I was working in the minority. Yet, I was able to pass all this significant legislation that you were talking about that you can see on my website. I'm proud of all of it, because it all is again part of creating more opportunity for people in the state. Whether it's again creating a new energy economy, whether it's making our government more transparent and more ethical, or whether it's making it easier to start a business, or grow a business here in the state, I mean, that's really what's been motivating me.

I think when you have good ideas and you can work well with other people and you can convince them of the merits of those ideas and you can get stuff done no matter what party you're in and all of that.

[0:40:20.8] KM: You've been known for being able to work across the table on these important issues, which you just talked about. I had some quotes somewhere about how you were written up as the up-and-coming freshman in the house. How are you able to do that? Why can you work across all and nobody else can?

[0:40:40.2] WS: Well, I don't know of anybody else. I mean, I think there are a lot of people who can, I mean, to be honest with you. I just think, a lot of it is just about having the patience again, to listen to other people, to not always think that you have all the answers going into it. I mean, you can do your research and you can be prepared, but you also have to be willing to be flexible and that's how our system was designed.

I do think a lot of it, like you said also, it's just the hard work. I think people respect you when they see that you've put the time and effort in, and that – I always tell people when it comes to the legislature, but also everything else I do. I never regret that extra meeting, or that extra phone call, because sometimes that's how the deal is done. I think sometimes people get tired of working on an issue, because it gets frustrating and they think, “Oh, if we can't just come to agreement right here, then let's just throw our hands up and walk away.”

There's some of these issues, I had to meet many, many times with people until we got to the point where we could make it happen. Then we did it and we got it done, and that's what we're here to do.

[0:41:44.0] KM: What committee are you on?

[0:41:45.8] WS: Well, right now I'm on the state agency's committee in the house. I also serve on the joint budget committee.

[0:41:56.3] KM: Your work you do at your real job is out in the Delta mostly. The work that you do at the legislature is you are the 33rd district is Hillcrest in Little Rock, it's Hillcrest, Leawood, Briarwood, Hall High, Capitol View, View/Stifft's Station, Downtown and the State Capitol.

[0:42:11.8] WS: That’s true.

[0:42:12.2] KM: They don't overlap really.

[0:42:15.2] WS: No, not at all. In fact, I mean, I represent probably one of the – probably the densest, most urban district in the state. I mean, but I don't know. I think if you have kids, you don't love one kid more than the other. I think I love the rural part of Arkansas and I love the part that I represent here in Little Rock. That's another thing that's I think important about working in that environment is understanding both.

I think our state has a history of there being a divide sometimes between Little Rock and the rural areas. Sometimes Little Rock actually gets the short end of the stick, because there are more rural representatives than urban ones. Little Rock doesn't do itself any favors sometimes by trying to throw its weight around. What I'm looking forward to when I'm running for mayor is having a more cooperative and collaborative relationship with our federal representatives, with our state elected officials and our legislature and our county elected officials and saying what can we do to all help each other, because if Little Rock does poorly, it makes the state look bad.

Little Rock certainly doesn't want to be impediment to good stuff happening the rest of the state, so why don't we all just figure out a way to work together? I've gotten a lot of great feedback from everybody from our US senators, our US congressman, our governor, my legislative colleagues, our county officials. Everyone is excited about it. Where are the other cities and counties around us? Cities of Conway and Benton, Bryant, Lono, Cabot, Mayflower, they all are like, “We want to work with Little Rock,” but I think we need the leadership in Little Rock that can build those relationships like I've done in the legislature and get things done.

[0:43:46.0] KM: Let me tell everybody that you're listening to Up In your Business with me, Kerry McCoy and I'm speaking today with senior director of US Programs at Winrock International and Arkansas Congressman, Warwick Sabin, who is running for city mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas in the November 2018 election.

I think you just pretty much told us why you want to be the mayor. I read on your website – let me see, I have a quote from you on your website. It says, “I'm running for mayor, because Little Rock has been standing still for too long, while we see other dynamic southern cities leading the way with fresh ideas. Our leadership has just settled for the status quo. It's time for that to change.” Most everything you said today, somebody came to you and asked you if you would take a job. I don't think you've ever applied for job in your life. Even running for congressman, somebody came to you and said, “I think you'd be good at this position.” Did someone come to you on the mayor and say, “I think you'd be good to this,” or did you just – is this one that you just think, “I'd be great at this,” and decided to do?

[0:44:51.3] WS: I love that question, because I've never really ever thought about it that way and that's really interesting. This one definitely came from me. In fact, almost the opposite happened, because when it got made known that I was looking at this, people were like, “Why would you want to be mayor? You've already been in the legislature and isn't that a step down to go from state government, city government?”

I've never seen it that way at all, because to me, all of the most innovative public policy in the United States right now is happening in the cities. Congress right now is dysfunctional. They're not getting anything done in Washington. State government is hard too. I can tell you from – there are three terms. If you look around the country like I said, there's all this really exciting stuff happening at the city level. Then with Little Rock being our state's largest city, our capital city, our center of commerce, our center of media, all of that, the opportunity to do some really great things here is huge.

Then being mayor, you're in an executive position. You can really set a policy agenda, you can really get out there and work with people every day. For me, the job itself sounds so exciting and it was definitely something that nobody really came to me about. I said, this is really what I want to do. I feel very prepared for it.

[0:46:00.3] KM: Does your term in the house, is it different? Is it going to end when the mayor starts, or are you going to have an overlap, or are you're going to have to quit one?

[0:46:08.2] WS: No, there's no overlap. Actually, it's perfect because all I did was not run for re-election to my House seat. My term will go through the end of this year. Then on January 1, God willing, I'll be sworn in as mayor of Little Rock.

[0:46:20.2] KM: What’s the first thing –

[0:46:20.6] TB: Who's running for your position in the House seat that you support?

[0:46:24.5] WS: There's a Democratic primary between Tippi McCullough and Ross Noland.

[0:46:28.1] TB: Who should we vote for?

[0:46:29.6] WS: I'm not going to say that.

[0:46:31.0] TB: Who are you rooting for?

[0:46:32.8] WS: There's a tradition that if you're the incumbent, you really don't get involved in a way. By the way, they're both excellent people.

[0:46:39.8] TB: Either way, we win.

[0:46:41.7] WS: No question about it.

[0:46:42.7] TB: Okay. Sorry, I just needed to know.

[0:46:44.8] KM: No, that’s a good question.

[0:46:45.3] WS: That’s okay.

[0:46:46.3] KM: If you were thinking it, somebody else was thinking it too.

[0:46:48.0] WS: That's right.

[0:46:50.1] KM: What's the first thing you want to do when you get in office?

[0:46:51.8] WS: That is a great –

[0:46:52.2] KM: If you get in office.

[0:46:53.9] WS: Well, there are lots and lots and lots of things I want to do. I don't know what the first thing would be. I mean, we have definitely have to have a plan in place to get the crime situation under control in the city. I think that there are a lot of great things that we can put into place to do that. I think we need to have a strong effort to support our public schools here in Little Rock, and I've got a lot of ideas about how we can bring people together to partner with the school district, create some plans, make sure we're getting an elected school board back in place, but give people the confidence that we are going to get our schools in a place where people don't want to move out of the city, or feel they need to put their kids in private schools.

[0:47:31.3] KM: Do you like charter schools?

[0:47:32.6] WS: Well, I don't think we need to wage any battle against charter schools. I think what we need to do is focus on making our public schools the very best that they can be. I think if we put our effort and our time into that, the other problem takes care of itself.

[0:47:46.7] KM: What's the answer to crime? We had the police chief on this radio show about, I don't know, six months ago or something. He said, “It's not us.” He said, “We can't be parents to everybody.” He said, “Parents have to parent their children,” and they want the cops to be parents. He said, “We can't be parents.”

[0:48:02.9] WS: Well, it's not a good enough answer though, because the reason why human beings organize themselves as units in the first place, like the beginning of politics thousands of years ago was to ensure their own safety. I mean, it's basically safety in number. The first priority of any government is the protection of its people. We have got to get the public safety piece right. Right now, it's hard to recruit people into the city to live here; number one, because of our crime problem. Number two, people don't feel safe. People are getting hurt, especially our violent crime spiked in 2017 in a way. That was really remarkable.

[0:48:39.2] KM: Wasn't that from one incident?

[0:48:40.2] WS: No, no, no. Not at all. You need to look at the numbers of rapes, murders, assaults and battery, all of the things that the numbers literally spiked in a really significant way in 2017, but it's all because we've got two problems on the enforcement side, we allowed our police to have too many vacancies to where they're spread too thin and literally could not respond to the criminal activity that was happening. We cut back on community policing, which was an outstanding strategy that worked really well in Little Rock; helped us get our crime rate down the last time. It spiked –

[0:49:10.7] KM: We cut back on it, because we’re just understaffed?

[0:49:13.1] WS: No, we cut back on it just because the decision was made. I mean, there was no reason to under staff the police in the first place and there's no reason to cut back on community policing. We need to make sure that we're back on that. We need more coordination among city departments, so that it's not just the police that are in essence responding to spikes in criminal activity, but it's code enforcement, when in certain neighborhoods, abandoned houses are being used for criminal activity, or it's when there's a lack of lighting, or a lack of youth programs that are keeping kids off the street.

I mean, we have the ability through good leadership to marshal the resources necessary to address crime where it occurs. We need to have these measures in place. We need to be working with the state government to lower the caseloads for our parole officers, which are the highest in the country right now.

There are things we could be doing. A good example of that is the fact that the governor himself stepped in and created that task force, if you remember a few months ago, with federal, state, county law enforcement officials and that actually did help make a dent helped us get some arrests and cut into some of the drug activity. I mean, I think it was sad that the governor was the one who had to get involved in dealing with what in essence was a Little Rock issue. We need to take responsibility and we need to put a plan in place that everybody understands, so they know stuff is happening, and we're able to chip away at this thing.

[0:50:30.9] KM: A lot of people are moving to Downtown Little Rock. That's a good sign.

[0:50:34.7] WS: It's a great sign, but I think that if you talk to people – I mean, people sometimes are nervous about going downtown to shop or whatever it is, because they're just – there are these incidents and we need to increase our police presence.

[0:50:46.0] KM: What about the homeless? It seems like that’s a lot.

[0:50:48.9] WS: Well, that’s a big issue. Again, I think we can take that on through better coordination among all of the resources that exist already in the city, because one of the things I talk to a lot of the folks that are involved with the nonprofits, the religious organizations, the government agencies that are all addressing different parts of the homelessness problem. One thing they say the city could really do is help create more awareness of the resources that exist, which helps increase access to them. Then once we understand the universe of services that are there, the city itself can maybe fill some of the gaps that aren't being filled, like maybe around temporary housing for people who just need a place to go, to get back on their feet so they can have a place to live and get clean, so they can go look for a job and all of that stuff. People are homeless for different reasons.

[0:51:34.5] KM: That's right.

[0:51:35.6] WS: Sometimes they are evicted from their home, sometimes they lose a job, sometimes they've got a health problem or a mental health problem, or they're trying to escape domestic abuse. If you take each person as a human being and you're able to again get them access to those services that in many cases already exists in the city, they just don't know they're there, or don't know how to get to them. The city can help do that and it's worked in other cities around the country.

[0:51:59.7] KM: The police will – the police know all the homeless people. The police go up to the homeless person that they know and because they know their issues, could probably take them to somewhere?

[0:52:09.3] WS: That's part of it. Actually, if we had street teams that weren't actually the police that we're doing some of that work, I think that would take some of the burden off the police. I think that's important for us to be able to do here in Little Rock is to not criminalize homelessness and not try to just push people out of sight, but actually more efficiently get them what they need so that they are not homeless anymore.

[0:52:29.9] KM: Tell everybody how they can get in touch with you.

[0:52:31.8] WS: Well, the best thing is to go to my website, which is sabinformayor.com, S-A-B-I-N-F-O-R-M-A-Y-O-R.com and there's all kinds of information and ways to get a hold of me there. Also, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn.

[0:52:49.9] KM: Facebook has your events. Your website, sabinformayor.com has about you and lists your accomplishment. If you want to know when your events are, go join you on Facebook.

[0:53:02.1] WS: Sure. Yeah.

[0:53:03.4] KM: I guess, that’s just Warwick Sabin.

[0:53:05.1] WS: Yeah. It's pretty easy to find. I mean, I've got a weird first name. It’s W-A-R-W-I-C-K.

[0:53:10.4] KM: Yeah. Everybody kept asking me how you say your name. Warwick, but it’s with a W in there.

[0:53:15.4] WS: Yeah, I always tell people it's like Greenwich, Connecticut. You don’t say the W in the middle.

[0:53:18.1] KM: It is. It’s exactly like that.

[0:53:20.0] WS: I answer to anything.

[0:53:22.5] KM: What's your ultimate career goal? Do you have any idea? I've had such an interesting and varied career, I have no idea where it’s related.

[0:53:28.7] KM: You're still young too.

[0:53:29.8] WS: Well yeah. I mean, I'm 41 so I don’t feel –

[0:53:31.6] KM: You finally hit 40?

[0:53:32.6] WS: I did. I’m over the hump, so –

[0:53:34.4] KM: Because you’ve gotten every accolade and awards you can get for under 40 and there's a lot of them out there. Such and such under 40, such and such under 40.

[0:53:41.8] WS: Not anymore. Now I’m an old man.

[0:53:44.2] KM: Still, 40 is pretty darn young. You don't know what you want to be ultimately?

[0:53:49.9] WS: I think, as long as I’m doing work where I feel like I'm contributing to the community that I'm making where I live a better place, there are a lot of different ways to do that.

[0:53:59.0] KM: You're a problem solver.

[0:54:00.0] WS: I do like to solve problems. That’s true.

[0:54:01.6] KM: I can tell. You're like, “Oh, give me the city of Little Rock.” You're like rubbing your hands together. “I want to solve the problem.” One word to sum you up.

[0:54:11.1] WS: Determined.

[0:54:12.6] KM: I like it. This is a great place to end our interview right now. I've got a present for you and Tim, always gets together for everybody. Sorry for a lot of crackling noise to our listeners.

[0:54:25.6] WS: Oh, that is so cool.

[0:54:26.8] KM: It’s a desk set.

[0:54:27.9] WS: I know exactly what that is.

[0:54:29.3] KM: That's the United States in the middle. Arkansas, because you love it and New York where you were born.

[0:54:34.4] WS: That's really cool and very thoughtful. Thank yThank you.

[0:54:37.2] KM: You're welcome.

[0:54:37.7] WS: I love that. Nobody's ever done that for me before.

[0:54:39.8] KM: Thank you for coming on.

[0:54:40.7] WS: Thanks for having me.

[0:54:41.6] KM: You're so interesting. I look forward to being your friend forever.

[0:54:44.6] WS: Thank you.

[0:54:45.5] KM: Tim, who is our guest next week?

[0:54:46.8] TB: Next week, you are going to be at your son's wedding and we are going to play a repeat of the Mark Abernathy interview that we did, which was a really good interview.

[0:54:56.2] KM: You're mixing up my sons.

[0:54:59.2] TB: It’s not his wedding. It's his graduation.

[0:55:00.7] KM: That's right.

[0:55:01.4] TB: It was the wedding last time.

[0:55:02.7] KM: That’s correct.

[0:55:03.2] TB: This time it’s a graduation.

[0:55:04.1] KM: That's right. Get my kids straight, Tim.

[0:55:07.3] TB: It’s Jack, right?

[0:55:08.2] KM: It’s Jack. He’s graduating from his masters and moving on his PhD in New Mexico. The whole family is going out there, which we've never had anybody do all that in our family.

[0:55:20.1] WS: That's awesome.

[0:55:21.0] KM: You have to be proud of him. Yeah, Mark Abernathy. We decided to rerun him, because his show is so entertaining.

[0:55:29.2] TB: It was a good one.

[0:55:30.2] KM: He's done a lot, a whole lot. Talk about a risk-taker. I mean, mover, shaker, he's a chef, he's an entrepreneur, he's a great storyteller.

[0:55:42.4] TB: Absolutely.

[0:55:43.1] KM: You will laugh. It's a funny one. He tells some funny stories. When you work in the restaurant and music business, which he does, he's got lots of funny stories. You have to have a sense of humor to do that.

[0:55:55.2] TB: Absolutely.

[0:55:56.7] KM: All right. Thanks again Warwick.

[0:55:59.0] WS: Thank you.

[0:55:59.3] KM: Warwick Sabin, good luck.

[0:56:00.3] WS: This was fun.

[0:56:01.0] KM: Good luck.

[0:56:01.7] WS: Thank you.

[0:56:02.7] KM: If you have a great entrepreneurial story you would like to share, I'd love to hear from you. Send a brief bio and your contact info to –

[0:56:09.3] TB: Questions@upyourbusiness.org.

[0:56:12.1] KM: Finally, to our listeners, thank you for spending time with me. If you think this program has been about you, you're right. It's also been for me. Thank you for letting me fulfill my destiny. My hope today is that you've heard, or learned something that's been inspiring, or enlightening, and that it, whatever it is, will help you up your business, your independence, or your life. I’m Kerry McCoy and I'll see you next time on Up In your Business. Until then, be brave and keep it up.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:56:46.2] TB: You’ve been listening to Up in Your Business with Kerry McCoy, a production of FlagandBanner.com. If you’d like to hear this program again, next week a podcast will be made available online with links to resources you heard discussed on today’s show. Kerry’s goal, to help you live the American Dream.

[END]