ABOVE PHOTO: Cutting the red ribbon on their impressive new facility, from left: Ishmail Shahid, VP sales and govt. relations; Lin Thomas, chairman /CEO at SUPRA Office Solutions, Inc. and EMSCO Scientific Enterprises, Inc. and Derrick Suswell, chief financial officer at SUPRA Office Solutions. (Photo by Richard Wah)
By Constance Garcia-Barrio
Three African American entrepreneurs—Lin Thomas, Derrick Suswell, and Ismail Shahid—have given new meaning to the phrase “Bring home the goods” by opening a 70,000- square-foot facility at 48th and Jefferson Streets in West Philadelphia. The building cost $25 million.
“This was a blighted area for the last 30 years,” said Lin Thomas, president and CEO of SUPRA Office Solutions and EMSCO Scientific Enterprises. “Frankly, it was an eyesore.” EMSCO, an office supply firm, occupies 30,000 square feet of the space. An adjoining 40,000-square-foot sophisticated biorepository houses an area for storing both human and animal cells at extremely low temperatures.
The ribbon-cutting for the building, which sits on 9.6 acres of industrial land, took place Friday, June 9. City Councilmember Curtis Jones, community members, state Senator Vincent Hughes, who helped secure government funding for the endeavor, and other supporters attended the event.
Thomas, Suswell, and Shahid bring homegrown passion to the businesses.
“I was born at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania,” said Suswell, chief financial officer at SUPRA Office Solutions. “I was raised in West Philadelphia in a single-parent home. Growing up, I liked to imagine myself becoming a support for my mother, but she died while I was in 12th grade. I hope I’m making her proud every day,” said Suswell, who attended Peirce College.
Ismail Shahid, executive vice president of sales and government affairs for SUPRA/EMSCO, also gained smarts and drive from his West Philly roots.
“My father was an entrepreneur,” said Shahid, who had also attended Peirce College. “He had a trucking company. My mother was in politics,” Shahid added, noting that some people have an aversion to political matters. “Politics is an actual tool,” Shahid said. Politics plus research helped the new facility take shape, he pointed out.
“We got an RCAP [Redevelopment Capital Assistance] grant to help build and revitalize with the intention to grow employment and opportunities,” Shahid said. The partners also made the most of being in a Keystone Opportunity Zone, an HUB Zone, and a Promise Zone, Shahid said, speaking of federal and state programs that encourage development.
Lin, like his partners, drew on his West Philly rearing to bring SUPRA/EMSCO into being.
“I lived at 60th and Vine, then we moved to 55th and Pine,” said Thomas, who graduated from Morgan State University with a degree in accounting. He also earned a certificate from the Advanced Management Education Program at Northwestern University.
In addition, Thomas served as an assistant to U.S. Congressman Parren J. Mitchell, founder of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“Mitchell initiated legislation that called for sharing federal contracts with minority businesses,” said Thomas, who, in time, moved back to Philly. “I established an accounting firm in Old City.”
Thomas, Suswell, Shahid, and the late Ken Carter, a fourth partner, put the idea of a new facility on the drawing board in 2019; but funding posed a challenge.
“We had to persuade banks that we’re an up-and-coming firm,” Suswell said. “We did it with conservative [financial] projections. We had contracts in place. We showed that we would at least remain flat during COVID-19. Everyone was pulling in the same direction.” Programs like the New Market Tax Credit—a federal financial program that aims to stimulate business investment in low-income communities with a federal tax credit—helped attract bank backing for the envisioned facility,” Suswell added.
The proposed building and land purchase hit another potential problem when Ken Carter died of COVID-19, but that death strengthened the other partners’ resolve to go on.
Suswell, Shahid, and Thomas anticipated a rising need for cryostorage—storage at -80 degrees and at -180 degrees—after careful consideration. They spoke with customers in the pharmaceutical and biological research fields to pinpoint a soon-to-boom field, Shahid said.
“You need cryostorage for studies in immunology,” Thomas said. “The research involves using our own DNA to fight illnesses like cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and more. California has its Silicone Valley [known for technological advances]. Well, this is ‘Cellicone’ Valley.”
We should see tremendous growth and be able to employ more people,” Suswell said.
Which brings the partners back to sowing seeds on their home turf.
“Our commitment is to growth and development right here in West Philadelphia, in the African American community,” Thomas said, “and we have room to expand.”
“We’re a legacy company, not a lifestyle company,” Suswell added. “We want to hire at a living wage. We want to create careers, not jobs.” The partners said that they also assist the community by making meeting rooms available free of charge and by offering internships to students.
“Internships provide not only work experience, but access to strategizing, to looking to the future,” Thomas said. “We hope that this enterprise will serve as encouragement, as a beacon of what can be done,” he said, mentioning the development of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street and successful African American businesses in Philadelphia, past and present. “We have the capability to achieve what we want.”
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