Bert Waugh rose from door-knocking real-estate agent during double-digit interest rates to owner of a firm later acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. Guided by faith, he founded Transitional Youth to break the cycles of homelessness through family-style homes, counseling, and the Braking Cycles coffee and bike shops that restore dignity and purpose. His life’s work proves that love, structure, and opportunity (not circumstance) determine a person’s future.
Key Takeaways:
- Persistence Builds Opportunity:
Bert began his real estate career during a brutal 18-20% interest-rate era, succeeding through sheer persistence, literally knocking on hundreds of doors. His story underscores the timeless power of consistent, face-to-face prospecting and resilience in hard markets. - Leadership through Service:
Rising from agent to president and eventual owner of his company, Bert’s leadership was rooted in serving others. Even in business, he viewed success as a platform for impact, not just profit. - Purpose Beyond Profit:
After achieving financial success, he founded Transitional Youth in 1991 to help homeless and at-risk youth in Portland. The organization provides housing, mentorship, counseling, and job training, focusing on rebuilding lives through love and stability. - Faith in Action:
Waugh’s faith is central to his mission. He believes transformation starts with genuine care, community, and spiritual grounding, arguing that most homelessness stems from broken families and lack of love, not just economics. - Scalable Compassion:
His model, beginning with feeding the homeless and growing into homes and training programs, shows how small acts of service can scale into lasting community change when paired with structure, persistence, and vision. - Legacy of Transformation:
Thousands of young people have passed through Transitional Youth’s programs, with near-zero incidents and many success stories of former participants becoming stable, contributing adults. Bert’s work exemplifies how business acumen and moral conviction can combine to create generational impact.
Links & Mentions
- Bert Waugh on LinkedIn
- Transitional Youth, founded by Bert Waugh, provides outreach, support, and housing to homeless and at-risk youth. They seek to transform both hearts and lives through compassion, guidance and the grace of God.
- Braking Cycles is a non profit bike repair and coffee shop formed by Transitional Youth to offer hope, tangible job skills and real-world knowledge to young people.
Bert Waugh Interview Transcript
Paris Vega (00:00.848)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the first customers podcast. Today, we’ve got a great guest for you to listen to. Bert Waugh is with us today. He started a career in the real estate industry back in 1983. He started working for a company that he was eventually made president of in 1991, and then he bought the company himself in 1996. Then that same company was bought
by Berkshire Hathaway in 2013. He now describes himself as one of the most blessed men in the world because he’s able to fulfill his passion and his purpose for decades after he started a nonprofit called Transitional Youth. Because of the impact they’ve made through this organization in the community in Portland, Oregon, the FBI actually awarded him the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award in 2016.
So Bert, welcome to the show. You’ve got an amazing career, amazing life story, and appreciate you making time for us today.
bert (01:08.894)
Thank you, Paris. Great to be with you.
Paris Vega (01:12.24)
All right, let’s start off by talking about way back when you first got started and right along the theme of the show, how you got those very first customers. I guess it was in the real estate industry, but if you had any other sales related experience before that, feel free to go back further. But how’d you get your very first customers?
bert (01:35.87)
Great, thank you. I actually started my working career with the Travelers Insurance Company and started their management training program and then launched with a partner, the insurance agency from scratch. And then that was in 1967 and then in 1969,
He and I had left and started our own agency. And then I sold that to him in 1981.
from 81 to 83, I was riding a tractor on our property. And my wife finally said, I think it’s time to go back to work. And so in 1983, I got my real estate license and started my real estate career. First day on the job, it was 18 % interest rates. And then I made it went to 20. So that was an interesting time to start my career, but I was very blessed.
in that era and with those interest rates, business was a little tough. But I was a ferocious door knocker and my first customer, I was knocking on doors and went to actually was ended up at a commercial building along. I was knocking on houses, but commercial building walked in and he had a decoupage company and I asked him if he’d ever thought about selling and
lo and behold, he was thinking about selling. So that was my first customer, my first listing. And that in itself is really an amazing story, but that was my first customer.
Paris Vega (03:29.04)
So in real estate, the version, I guess, cold calling or cold knocking, you’re literally just walking up to people’s houses or was it a business and just asking if they want to sell?
bert (03:39.55)
that’s how I got started, is I was just knocking on doors and introducing myself.
Back in that era, we were taking the market area and I was looking at 500 homes and I figured if I had knocked on 500 homes and I got to look them eyeball to eyeball, then they know me. Some have do that on the phone, but I like to knock on doors and introduce myself and get to know people that way.
Paris Vega (04:12.976)
And how many do you have to knock on or back then? What was it like before you actually got a customer? How many did you have to go through?
bert (04:22.718)
What I was working at is I figured how much money was I making on every time I knocked on the door. And I figured that I could make about $400 every door I knocked on. And back then, the average sale price was about $75 ,000.
Not a huge average sale price back in that era. But I loved knocking on doors. I just loved prospect.
Paris Vega (04:53.648)
Right.
Paris Vega (04:58.832)
That’s amazing that the average price of a home was $75 ,000 back then.
bert (05:03.518)
Yep, yep, well the first house I bought in 1971 was $12 ,500.
Paris Vega (05:15.024)
Ha, wow, 12 ,000 you said?
bert (05:19.262)
Yep. Yes.
Paris Vega (05:20.816)
can’t even get a new car these days for that much, hardly. That’s incredible. Good old inflation.
Man, okay, so yeah, the commissions may not compare to today’s commissions, but overall value of the dollar was so much higher back then. I mean, it went way farther.
bert (05:42.718)
Well, one of the top agents, I saw her in one of our training classes early on, and she ended up being our top agent for about 25 years in my company. We were just out to dinner at their place not too long ago, and I asked her, because she contacts 100 people a day. She has to do 500. She figures she does 500 contacts a week.
And I said, how much are you making an hour now? And she said, I’m making $2 ,400 an hour prospect.
Paris Vega (06:17.36)
What prospect?
bert (06:19.326)
That’s how she keeps track.
Paris Vega (06:22.672)
Now, how do you figure that? I guess you’re just looking at your close rate and how many it takes to get a close and then how much that. OK. Man, so she was making that much back then. That’s now. Gotcha, gotcha more recent, OK? Wow. And prospecting, so that’s the very kind of beginning of the sales process when you’re just.
bert (06:27.518)
or she’s divided.
bert (06:33.31)
Yes.
bert (06:38.206)
No, that’s now. That was just, yeah, it’s just now.
Paris Vega (06:52.112)
I guess making contacts, qualifying the potential leads. Okay. Back when you were doing that kind of door to door with the houses, did you know roughly kind of what the percentage was of like how many houses you had to knock on? I understood you said it averaged out to about $400 per door you knocked on. But how many of those I guess would result in a sale out of 500 or whatever.
bert (07:20.638)
Well, that’s going back a long ways now, so I don’t know if I can get that. But I remember Stan Wiley, because that was the Stan Wiley was the owner of the company. And he shared with me, he says, Bert, let me just tell you how I started my business. I was door knocking. And he said, I’d go up to the first door I walked up on, my knees were knocking louder than I was knocking on the door.
Paris Vega (07:24.208)
Okay. Yeah.
Paris Vega (07:48.016)
you
bert (07:49.438)
That was my baptism.
Paris Vega (07:51.408)
Yeah. Okay. And throughout the time that you were in real estate, was that kind of the main way that you continued to get sales and your team got sales or did you kind of evolve over time and try different kind of advertising methods or anything like that?
bert (08:11.07)
Well, I started in 83. Stan Wiley asked me in the first part of 1985 to come up and run the company. Just starting to come out of the recession that started in 1979. I said no the first time. I was really enjoying what I was doing. And then…
He got me again in June of 1985 and really pressed me to come up and run the company. And so that’s when I did. I started, got out of sales and I went, in fact, I had seven leads going. I referred all those to somebody in my department there and just started running the company. So I was no longer door knocking and no longer prospecting. Now I was running the company.
of about 400 agents at that stage.
Paris Vega (09:12.368)
400 agents, wow.
Okay. And then when you became the president, you ran it for several years and then ended up selling it during that sales process. Were you having to kind of pitch the company to several different potential buyers or was it clearly just that one buyer coming in to buy the company?
bert (09:38.526)
Well, I became president in 91 and then bought the company in 96. In 98, one of my twin sons was going to law school back in Boston and I didn’t see any other Stan Wiley signs back in Boston. And so I started searching the market because I knew we were no longer a Northwest real estate company. We were a national industry.
not just Northwest. So I started looking at different organizations and I finally chose Prudential and became the franchisee of Prudential and we were called Prudential North of Properties. And then I bought another company at that juncture and moved us to about 800 agents at that juncture. And then had a long run.
up until 2008. And in the meantime, and we’ll come back to that in 1991 when I became president, I started a nonprofit. And that’s the purpose in my life. The passion was the real estate side, but just very, very difficult time from 2008 to 2013. And I’d become
Paris Vega (10:48.752)
Okay.
Paris Vega (10:53.904)
I see.
bert (11:05.822)
really good friends with Ron Peltier who was running Berkshire Hathaway Home Services organization. And so start talking to them and then that’s when sold to Berkshire Hathaway in 2013.
Paris Vega (11:21.936)
Gotcha. OK, so you weren’t like shopping it around to other organizations, really. OK, so there wasn’t as much of a sales process on that. Some of the companies we talked to, they kind of go through a similar process, getting their first customers as they go through when they’re trying to sell to investors because they’re trying to kind of pitch the whole company, you know, as a sale. But OK, that’s cool. So it came from kind of a personal connection and then.
resulted in the cell there.
bert (11:53.054)
Well, I was very close friends with Ron Peltier and I just absolutely loved the way that Home Service of America was building their operation. At that juncture, we were number 19 organization that they purchased. Now they have something like 40 something. And, but their mission was we want to
We want to be talking with either one, two, or three top companies in the community. And we really want to work with a family organization. And that was really us. And so it made the transition really easy. They’re a fabulous organization. And it was great for our agents. It was a really difficult time for me personally, financially, with
keep the company together and my nonprofit together too. So, but it’s so well run that it was, we didn’t skip a beat, our agents didn’t skip a beat either. It was a wonderful improvement for them too.
Paris Vega (13:09.2)
Really cool. All right. So you mentioned the nonprofit started in 1991. Maybe give a little background on how that idea came about and that process of starting a nonprofit.
bert (13:16.51)
Yes.
bert (13:25.374)
Thank you. Susie and I got married in 1972. And two years later, she gave birth to twin boys. And then 18 months later, another son. And at that juncture, I was starting to walk the streets of Yamio County.
bert (13:56.782)
Newburgh, Oregon if you will, asking youth that are living on the street to come into a coffee shop and just start trying to help youth on the street. And I would then bring one or two home at a time to live with us and get them through the high school that we were, the community we were living in.
Paris Vega (13:59.024)
Okay.
bert (14:21.534)
I didn’t really figure out until 2010 what a bad husband I was for my wife because I never asked her if it was all right. I just bring these kids home to live with us. She always smiled and never said no, but I didn’t really realize what I was putting on her with already three with diapers. But that was really my heart. And I knew early on that that was really my purpose was breaking cycles of these kids living on the streets.
And so when I became president then of the Stan Wiley Company, now I had an audience, a good size audience that could help me financially start building this operation. And the Lord had put on my heart in 91 to feed downtown Portland, have houses, independent living and homeownership.
and really have never wavered from that. It took a couple of years of planning and putting money together in the operation. In 1993, then we started feeding downtown Portland, and we fed down there until COVID hit in 2020. Now we have five houses, three for girls and two for boys.
and go up north Vancouver, Washington is across the bridge from Portland, Oregon. And we have a boys house there. And then we have a house for Unwood mothers. The boys house goes from 18 to 24 and the house for Unwood mothers and their babies is 14 to 24. And then we have a girls house out in Damascus outside of Portland.
Paris Vega (15:56.848)
Mm -hmm.
bert (16:16.638)
and that’s for girls 18 to 24. Then we have a boys house in Wilsonville, the area that I live now, and that’s for boys 18 to 24. And then last year, we opened up another girls house. We don’t tell anybody where that is except it’s in Clackamas County, because that’s strictly for girls coming out of sex trafficking. And that’s been a big, big jump for us.
And then we have, so for all these years, really feed downtown, houses, independent living, home ownership. About six years ago, I was an unpaid executive director for 25 years. And then had a woman who is now the executive director, Ronna Maul Ellis came.
to be part of TY and now is the executive director. She had a vision of a coffee shop and a bike shop, which for me, that’s Portland, Portland’s bikes and coffee. So we opened up Breaking Cycles coffee and bike shop. And that’s been fantastic. And then a very large church in Vancouver, Washington across the Columbia.
Paris Vega (17:33.84)
Great name.
bert (17:42.302)
built a coffee shop and then gave that to us to run. So now we have two coffee shops, but one with a bike shop. And just, I’m so thrilled with that part of our growth because last year we mentored, trained, helped develop 60 youth. We pay them as apprentices to go through coffee and bike shop training. Really happy with that.
Paris Vega (18:09.648)
Well, it’s obviously a powerful story, a beautiful mission. I mean, it’s kind of the core, like actions that any of the world’s religions tell people to do as far as being a good person or like, you know, giving back, doing good in the world. You take care of people who are kind of in the worst situations. So I love that aspect of what you’re doing. But I’d like to hear.
kind of going back to the very beginning a little more about what was going on in you or as a person at that time that kind of made you go from just any normal person, you know, successfully working in the business world or, you know, going to their job every day to saying, I’ve got to do something now and literally inviting somebody into your home. Because I think that’s a pretty big,
transition point, you know, where, you know, everybody can see, you know, if you’re, especially if you’re in a big city, there’s lots of pain and suffering going on. But what was it that brought you over that threshold?
bert (19:23.646)
I really think that it started back when I was in high school.
bert (19:34.014)
long before I had my walk with the Lord.
but I was a pretty good athlete, good basketball player.
bert (19:46.206)
My parents moved into a new school that weekend before I started high school. So I didn’t know anybody. But because as a pretty good athlete, developed some good friends. But all of a sudden, my sophomore, junior year, a group of these individuals started shoplifting downtown Portland. And what really hurt me
was they take shaving cream and the youth and the homeless people down on Burnside still today, they were down there foaming it. And that really got me. And so I lost those friends. I still played basketball with them, but not really friends. And I really think that was the foundation of my heart for the disadvantaged and the homeless.
Paris Vega (20:25.712)
Hmm.
bert (20:47.55)
than all these years later when I started feeling that I was really.
bert (20:56.926)
I started walking the streets, as I mentioned, in Yamil County and met these youth, one boy sleeping in the rose bushes in December in the park.
Paris Vega (21:11.344)
What do you mean by you started walking the streets? Because I imagine you’ve been in the areas, you’ve been in the city living and doing life. So what do you mean by that? It sounds like something specific that you started doing there. So I’m curious what you mean by walking.
bert (21:25.438)
A friend of mine had a coffee shop in…
McMinnville, Oregon. Now I played basketball at Oregon. After my second year, I transferred to Linfield College and that’s in McMinnville. So I knew the town really well. And I just felt pressed to go down on Friday and Saturday nights and bring the kids in that I found on the street and to share.
my story, share with them, and have a cup of coffee with them. And then to see if I had a bedroom available. You might hear from one of my kids say it, and I think they were joking, but never knew who was gonna be sleeping in the bed next to me. Now they all had separate rooms, but. And I think that another impact
for me, but this is in the early 80s. I was doing some volunteer work downtown Portland and I’m sitting up in a high deck playing cards with a group of young boys. This is before my nonprofit. And this mom and dad stopped out, threw their daughter out and she walked into the coffee shop, or into the dinner and
I looked down there and it was this little blonde haired blue eyed little girl. My wife’s a little blonde haired blue eyed little girl. And I guess I had the most horrified look on my face. And one of the boys looked at me and said, this is her last night of innocence.
bert (23:16.35)
And that really got me.
interesting enough when I’ve said
Paris Vega (23:23.088)
Do you mean she was being put into like trafficking at that moment?
bert (23:27.294)
Yep, her parents kicked her out of the car. Yep. And twice I said, okay, you know, I mean, I just turned 81, so I’m not young anymore. I’m just going to walk away from all this. Well, the Lord put in that those two nights, the Lord put the vision of that girl’s face in my dream. And that’s him telling me, I’m not done with you yet. You’re not finished.
Last year in our coffee shop, I walked in. It wasn’t her, but it was her face. I walked up, walked in there and I saw her there and I start crying. People look, what’s this old guy walking in here and he’s crying. I ran out, ran to the car. I called Ronna, the executive director, the face of my girl is there. Well, she was one of our apprentices that went through there at that time. But it was just another…
clarification of that.
you’re doing what I want you to do and you just keep doing it. And I was just telling somebody this morning, I was helping out setting up a golf tournament for somebody that thousands of youth have come across my path. And I can only recall one that had a mom and dad.
Paris Vega (24:51.6)
Really?
bert (24:52.67)
I know there’s been more, but I can only recall one out of the thousands that have come across my path. And that’s why I just love that our coffee shop is called Breaking Cycles Coffee and Bike Shop. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised that when I’m in heaven, the organization will be called Breaking Cycles because that’s really what we’re doing. I mean, we are giving these youth a wonderful path.
all kinds of opportunities, giving them hope, resilience, and we’re breaking their cycles. We could talk for hours on my stories. I mean, it’s unreal. I’ve got a Daniel that…
I used to take him on my talks when the community was asking me to come and talk and I’d take him with me. When he was eight years old, his mom dropped him off in the streets of downtown Portland and drove off.
I got him at 18. I was in his wedding. You know, it’s that, that, I mean, I’m just, those stories are just so, I was just with somebody that, they just got baptized in the Little Lamott River. We’ve taken busloads for years over Easter up to the ranch, Yakalt, the one in Clark County in Vancouver.
Paris Vega (26:01.648)
Mm.
bert (26:27.838)
And I can’t tell you how many kids we’ve baptized in horse troughs over there. So, you know, it’s just I’ve received so much more than I’ve ever given.
Paris Vega (26:41.52)
Hmm. So it sounds like this is very much attached to like your religious beliefs, your faith, and the fruits of what you’ve done obviously is a huge testament to whatever you believe. So if you would take a minute to, you know, don’t hesitate to be transparent, but explain kind of what your faith is and how it led you to that moment.
again, going back to that first decision to take somebody into your home. Like, why does your faith lead you to do that? Like, how did that happen maybe in more detail? And, you know, feel free to be as, you know, transparent or clear about that side of things as you feel comfortable.
bert (27:33.246)
Well, when I started walking the streets in McMinnville, that was probably eight years before I came to Christ.
So, but I know before, yeah, I didn’t come to the Lord until 1983. So I’ve been walking the streets since 74, 75 up until then. But it just became very clear when.
Paris Vega (27:45.84)
Wow.
bert (28:08.51)
I mean, the Lord was very clear in 1991.
I’d like feeding downtown and we did, we fed downtown till.
bert (28:21.214)
2019 when COVID hit and the riots in Portland started. In fact, it’s interesting. We’ve got a young man at the Wilsonville house here now that was a paid rioter, one of the Antifa guys, downtown Portland. And he’s one of them. Yep.
Paris Vega (28:37.744)
Really? A paid rider. Wow.
bert (28:45.278)
So, the, the, wait a minute.
I’ve been incredibly blessed. I was healed of prostate cancer in 2010.
bert (29:01.758)
My wife and I survived a terrible motorcycle accident and I broke my neck but I never knew it. Never had any pain. He took me out before I hit the ground. I just saw millions of bright lights. I didn’t see anything past that but million bright lights.
Paris Vega (29:27.44)
Mm.
bert (29:27.774)
Next thing I woke up, I heard a woman say, Suzy, he’s alive, he’s alive.
So I’ve had four personal experiences with the Lord in my life. That being.
and just being faithful, 33 years of feeding. Now we still haven’t got back to downtown Portland, so we’re going out to East County now, starting out there. And that’s a…
It’s a wonderful field for us to be in because there’s something like 60 languages in this area of town. Highly violent, but a lot of youth there. A lot of the youth that are out of downtown Portland are now moving out there. And I’m just incredibly blessed. We don’t even call the staff anything but missionaries because it’s definitely a missionary field.
just so blessed with the commitment to these youth. And the one thing I’m really proud of is I haven’t figured out how to spend a lot of time at the girls’ houses. I’m a little uncomfortable, especially an old white guy. I’m involved a lot more with the guys. But what I hear from every single one of them, every single one of them,
bert (30:57.022)
And relatively soon after moving into the houses, I never knew there was this amount of love.
Paris Vega (31:02.928)
Mm. Wow.
bert (31:04.478)
That means a lot.
Paris Vega (31:07.248)
Do you think that’s the cause of a lot of this? And this may not be the side that you’re focused on as much, because you’re, sounds like focused on just taking care of the people as they are. And kind of the reminds me of the Bible verse talking about focus on the widows and the orphans. You know, if you’re wanting to exercise your religion, that’s one of the core ways, you know, you can love God by loving people, so to speak. And the widows and the orphans, the kind of least advantage are one of the best ways to do that.
But what do you think is one of the main causes of these kind of these cycles getting started? These negative cycles? Is it just a lack of love and affection these kids? But do you see any kind of pattern or common cause?
bert (31:55.358)
Well, I think that’s what I would press what I just said a little bit ago. I only know one that had mom and dad.
That’s the key in almost every single one of them.
Paris Vega (32:10.32)
broken families.
bert (32:11.582)
And even that one isn’t very good.
bert (32:18.91)
Yeah.
Paris Vega (32:19.08)
So regardless of the reason the family’s broken, you’re just saying that’s the main cause for all these negative cycles getting started.
bert (32:24.83)
Well, yeah, I had a young fellow that walked into the feeding center. He was 18 years old. He left the house at 14 because he finally figured out that wasn’t normal that I had to sleep handcuffed and sleep in the closet. That was his, that’s how his mom treated him. So he packed his bags at 14, traveling, and he came to Portland. Had a Hispanic boy, he was a gang leader in LA.
Paris Vega (32:40.72)
Whoa.
bert (32:54.302)
Mom gave him, thank goodness, Mom gave him a one -way ticket to Portland.
bert (33:03.614)
He came into our feeding center and he had the most gorgeous smile I’ve been to about everything. After he graduated from our program, I took him to lunch.
And I said, Sal, you had me at your smile. And he said, Bert, I know, I used that for no good for a lot of years. He says, you know something, I knew that the Lord was with me because I can still feel and hear the bullets go past my ears. I was at his wedding. He and Alyssa, his wife just bought a house. I was at their closing of their house over in Vancouver at the end of last year.
Those are just some of the real rewards. I’ve been to many weddings. My wife makes blankets for all the new babies.
Paris Vega (33:55.023)
Yeah.
bert (34:01.086)
that come and I think I was in three weddings last year. I don’t know how many blankets for our kids that are not married and they’re having their babies.
Paris Vega (34:15.024)
Well, you’re doing critical, amazing work, transitional youth organization, breaking cycles, coffee shop and bike shop. We definitely need more people doing this kind of work. What would maybe be a message to others who want to do something? You know, there’s the way the news is these days and social media and you know, there’s just constant flows of
political cycles and negative things and people it feels like are trying to manipulate the masses with what featured stories they put out there. But into the day, we’re all humans and we’re all, you know, suffering in different ways. And for the people that can, who would like to give back to others and help out, how would you kind of direct that energy?
bert (35:06.334)
You know, again, I’ve been so blessed. I was board chair of an organization called Medical Teams International. And what a life -changing experience that was for me, because I got to spend time in Uganda, in the camps, with the doctors. And that was transformative for me. Got to spend time in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Mexico City in the dumps.
working down there, all those experiences and just the needs. I’ve said for so long, I wish I could take every teenager in the United States to Uganda for a couple days and our country would be a little bit different than it is today. There’s so much need out there around the world, but so much need here too. I’ve said for a lot of years,
bert (36:07.233)
Churches send millions and millions of dollars around the world, but very little local. And that’s another challenge for us in that I’m doing some work in a prison down there for youth, 14 to 24. And it’s hard when they find out that I have a faith -based organization. They kind of shut me down a little bit.
when they dig in deeper and they see the results. And I’m not a Bible pounder, we’re not that.
Paris Vega (36:38.288)
Right.
bert (36:44.254)
We’re just here to transform lives and change their direction and be of help. I’m board chair of goodwill industries here now, too, in these 52 stores. And so that’s been a tremendous blessing, too, because I get to see a lot more exposure and a lot of the gifting that can take place in that community from that standpoint, too. But I mean, there’s just a lot of needs out there. There’s a lot of needs for help and support.
not necessarily always financial. It’s just time and energy and gifting.
So I would just, I mean, I can’t tell you how blessed I have become by just seeing the transformation that the youth make. I don’t know if I’ve got it in my pocket or not. I do.
I, for many years, we would take, busloads of kids on Easter up to the ranch. So we’d have all these homeless kids getting off these buses. They go horseback riding, paintball course, zip line, climbing wall. And one, one year, one Easter, one of the youth was walking through the field with a volunteer.
A volunteer saw a dirty old penny on the ground and out in the field and went down to pick it up. And the youth said, don’t bother. That’s what people feel about us. We have no value, we’re filthy, we’re dirty, they just throw us away.
Paris Vega (38:37.168)
Mm.
bert (38:38.942)
If you go into our coffee shop, you’d see.
bert (38:51.294)
142 ,000 pennies on the floor and all kinds of pennies on the counters and so forth. That’s the transition that our kids go through.
Paris Vega (39:02.608)
Hmm.
bert (39:04.35)
and one of the youth that was up on the property.
saw a dead tree and he said, Burt, that dead tree was me. He woke up one morning and both of his best friends were dead next to him.
and he ends up with the ranch. He cut that tree down and he built the most gorgeous guitar out of that dead tree.
Paris Vega (39:36.976)
Wow.
bert (39:38.11)
So on our 25th anniversary, he was our keynote speaker and he presented that guitar to me. I probably should have had this down here to go to him. I told him I’d be the next Elvis Presley. It never materialized there. But this kid, unbelievable. He’s married now, three kids. He calls me once a month. Actually working for Travelers where I started really my career too all those years ago.
Paris Vega (39:45.808)
Yeah.
bert (40:07.646)
He can read any sheet music, play any musical instrument. Just a great, great kid.
Paris Vega (40:16.827)
You mentioned that once people see the results of your program that they tend to open up and kind of overlook the faith based side of things if they have problems with that originally. Could you talk about what the program actually is as far as like, let’s say a small child or baby or whatever comes through your organization? Like, what does that kind of
process look like throughout the life cycle of going through the whole program? And then maybe what are some statistics if you have any available or what is the kind of results or impact that you know about?
bert (41:01.886)
I’ll start with the results first because I say our success is 100%. And people say, no, that’s impossible. I say our results are 100%.
Paris Vega (41:04.784)
Okay.
bert (41:16.574)
Because every single youth that goes through our program, when they leave, they may have been there a month, been there six months. It’s actually a 12 month, but we’ve had a number of them for a year and a half. We just had a graduation young man at the Wilsonville House. I was just up there last Saturday for his graduation and he’s going to stay on for another period of time.
When they do leave, they leave with the Holy Spirit. So for me, it’s 100 % success.
bert (41:52.926)
When they come in, we’ve got the house directors at each of the houses. And then they’ve got an assistant there. So there’s 24 -7 at the house. We’ve got a high school diploma program for each of them that have not finished their high school. Most of them have not when we get them. They each have a counselor.
They each have but someone on staff that works with them once a week.
bert (42:33.918)
Ronit now calls it the wheelhouse and it’s just building their resume, their experience, their job experience, resume building and so forth to get them ready to.
either finish their school, get a job.
bert (42:58.078)
and then the counseling part of it. We don’t have the financial wherewithal to have full -time, $100 ,000 counselor, but each of these kids do need that. We do give them a lot of service. A couple of the colleges here have youth that are going through the program that do counseling with our youth. But we’ve got a…
Paris Vega (43:12.144)
Yeah.
bert (43:27.614)
a male and a female staff member that works with each of the youth on a weekly basis too. So lots and lots of hands on.
Paris Vega (43:35.792)
Mm hmm. OK, and is it. You mentioned like the one person said something that’s probably going to stick with me as one of the main things for this conversation, but they said, you know, they never experienced love like this or they didn’t know that love like this existed. So is it kind of like giving them a family type atmosphere if they’re living?
there because you mentioned there were house directors. Is that what that or part of the program is? Is it supposed to be kind of like a family unit or?
bert (44:11.646)
Yep, yep, absolutely. Yep. Yeah, they.
Paris Vega (44:15.568)
Okay.
bert (44:21.854)
We’ve had a little bit of bigger challenge with one of the boys houses since COVID and not feeding. A lot of our youth came through the feeding center, jail, foster care, word of mouth. That’s changed a little bit. So right now, the boys house that was up in Yakal is now,
Yes.
bert (44:53.054)
It’s called the Ritz Family Ranch, but all of a sudden now it was without any youth in there for a few months. And so now we’ve moved a family in there. It’s a young couple, 18 and 20 year old with a young child and she’s pregnant now too. So we’re just seeing that this is a new model for that facility up there, because we can probably put two to three families in there. So we got the first family moving in there.
So that’s something new for us too.
Paris Vega (45:26.288)
So the families are people who are volunteering to work or they part of the program like coming in to be served by the program. Okay.
bert (45:34.014)
They were homeless, this young couple homeless, and so now they’ve got a home for their little one and then she’s pregnant too.
Paris Vega (45:44.528)
Gotcha.
bert (45:46.846)
Yeah, it is a family unit. I mean, they’ve got jobs to do, they’ve got around the property too, and then the meals, they eat together.
So it ends up being a family unit. Right now, the one in Wilsonville, we’ve got six young men in there and I’ve never seen such a cohesive group of guys. It’s fantastic to see.
Paris Vega (46:14.8)
So yeah, what’s the size of like a given house or like how many people do you put together that your directors can kind of manage?
bert (46:24.062)
six to seven except the house with the moms and babies really could only have four. But six or seven at the other houses.
Paris Vega (46:40.24)
Okay.
And is there a, what do they call it, like a recidivism rate, that kind of thing for, I guess, jails and that kind of thing? Or is there a similar kind of a statistic where you’re measured by, you know, taking people out of, whether it’s addiction or different things like that?
bert (47:01.374)
I just lost you. Do you still see me? Are you still standing?
Paris Vega (47:04.4)
yeah, yeah, I can still see you. Sometimes the the feed that we see during recording can be lower quality, but the actual end recording will be much higher quality than whatever you’re seeing now. Did you lose my audio?
bert (47:19.437)
No, I got your audio, but not the video.
Paris Vega (47:22.096)
Okay. Yeah, it should be.
bert (47:30.75)
We do have a lot of grace. And so we have had people that…
that have left. Our policy is if you do leave, you’ll have to leave for 30 days. But then you can come back and most of them come back.
The only time that you’re not allowed to come back, if you’ve brought drugs, alcohol onto the property and brought a brother or sister down, there’s no grace. You can’t come back.
Paris Vega (48:15.344)
Gotcha. To prevent like drug dealers and that kind of thing from trying to manipulate the system or whatever. That’s understandable.
That makes sense. Wow. All right. So are there any. Kind of major needs looking forward or kind of big goals that you’re you’re looking at or that the organization has of future milestones and maybe. I know you mentioned specific houses, but what’s maybe the overall current size of the organization and then like your your organization’s future?
goals.
bert (49:01.246)
Well, I think we’re right now we’re working really hard on getting the outreach up and going right now. It’s out in the Rockwood area, which is a pretty high risk area out of downtown Portland. A lot of the youth have moved out that direction. So we know that there’s a lot of need. So we’re looking for a facility there right now. We’re just out there on the streets on the weekend, starting taking small steps out there for that. But.
bert (49:35.518)
People are surprised and we’ve got five houses.
pretty limited staff.
bert (49:45.054)
For most of my career, we had maybe a, well being an unpaid executive director for 25 years, it helps on the budget a little bit, but.
People still are surprised that we can do what we do with about $800 ,000 with five houses and the staff that we do have. But that’s always a need for all nonprofits. I think communities expect nonprofits not to make any money, but we’ve been very blessed. And in 33 years, we lost money one year.
And the other thing that I’m really, really thankful and pleased with is that we’ve never had one incident, we’ve never had one problem with any of our youth and especially with any of the neighbors. And that’s kind of hard to wrap your mind around either with these kids as challenges as they can be.
Paris Vega (50:27.76)
Wow.
bert (50:57.31)
We’ve just been very blessed that way. And even one year we had a boys house and a hedge. I didn’t know this at the time, but we were there like three or four years and on the other side the hedge was an all girls house and we still had no, didn’t have one problem.
Paris Vega (51:13.232)
Hmm. Wow.
That’s powerful. I mean, I think it maybe is a testament to how the proper order of things goes into place when people are put into a loving environment, like they’re supposed to be at that age. And Ronzi, kind of like what, I think it was Mother Teresa that said, like, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family. It seems like that’s kind of part of the message here. It’s like,
bert (51:40.798)
There you go.
Paris Vega (51:45.744)
You can do a whole lot by making sure you take care of your own first and then so you’re not creating new problems for society, you know, and then kind of expanding out from there to look around and see if there’s others you can help around you.
bert (52:00.286)
We had two brothers come through one of our houses. And I’m telling you that the relatives were gang leaders in their small community. And it was really something.
bert (52:19.806)
I was in, well, both brothers are now married. One just had a baby and now he is associate pastor at one of the churches, Downtown Portland Churches.
Paris Vega (52:36.656)
that came through your program.
bert (52:38.238)
Both of them came to the program and then there was a 13 year old daughter sister. Tragic story of the parents and then so the other brother has adopted the sister and put in. She’s finally in school now. She was didn’t go to school for 13 years.
bert (53:00.638)
Living in a trailer.
Paris Vega (53:05.072)
And I know we’re coming up on the time we had scheduled here, but if you could take just a minute and maybe describe how others in other cities could maybe duplicate some of what you’ve done. Cause I know like logistically, there’s a lot that had to happen and I know it’s fueled by purpose and
love for these people who are struggling. And so you kind of have that drive to break through whatever barriers that come up. But I’m sure there’s a whole lot of a headache and things you had to figure out to like get a first house and figure out, you know, let alone bringing somebody into your home and then, you know, where are they going to stay and all that kind of stuff. Like if somebody wanted to start a program or something in their city to help people in the way that you guys are, because maybe there aren’t.
necessarily programs like this in every single city. Could you give a rough outline of how to start something like this?
bert (54:12.51)
Well, for me, it was trying just to be obedient to what the Lord was leading me to do. And I was fortunate enough that I was making, now I was president of the organization, so I had money. And it still took a couple of years before we ended up starting feeding downtown Portland. So I get asked that a lot. A lot of people have some great ideas, but they don’t have the financial…
background or situation to be able to launch that. So from the financial standpoint, it’s important. But I’d be more than happy. Burt at BurtWa .com Transitional Youth is the organization. I’m certainly on that website also. But and my telephone number 503 -789 -4313.
anybody can contact me, text me, write me, email me, call me, be more than happy to talk about setting up in our 33 years. The first house, so we started feeding, as I said, in 1993. I didn’t open my first house until 2005. And so opened up two houses in 2005.
And then 2010 opened up the ranch and then where we are today. But I was introduced to a lady that had a house for boys and girls. She did not have a job, a paying job for two years and yet had the support to bring in these boys and girls, but she really needed help. So I took over the house. That was my first house. Took over.
Paris Vega (56:10.704)
And so before you had houses, you just literally had more kids living with you personally.
bert (56:17.406)
No, no. When we started feeding downtown, we were working with the youth on the street and then trying to help them get, whether it’s the team challenge or outside in or new avenues or Janice, just helping any organization that we could help until the right situation came up with the houses.
Paris Vega (56:45.456)
Gotcha. So you were being kind of a connector in the community to help them get into the existing organizations. Okay. Cool. Well, Bert, thank you so much for all that you’ve done, you know, for humanity, for society, for the city of Portland, Oregon. I was actually born in Portland, Oregon. I moved away when I was like three years old, so I don’t have much history up there, but, you know, thank you for all you’ve done in that sense, but also
bert (56:52.19)
Right? Right.
bert (57:10.846)
Yeah.
Paris Vega (57:14.96)
Thank you for your time today and you’ve already handed out all your your contact information. So anybody listening feel free to contact Bert and Let’s get more of this happening around the world because this is definitely what we need So thanks again, Bert
bert (57:33.694)
Well, Paris, thank you very much and thank you for taking the time to do this podcast. I appreciate it very much and God bless you. Thank you.
Paris Vega (57:41.863)
Thanks. All right, everybody, we’ll see you on the next episode. Bye.
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