WV Executive

The Right Man for the Job
Justice, the new owner of The Greenbrier, is anything but ordinary. A lifelong businessman with an intimidating stature and a heart of gold, Justice has taken on one of the most ambitious risks imaginable during the current recession—purchasing a multi-million dollar resort to save it from bankruptcy.

His open-mindedness and ability to negotiate has served him well over the years as a business owner and particularly as a coal operator. His old friend Florine was associated with the United Mine Workers, which made their relationship even more interesting. “A lot of times, business guys and coal operators would line up on the other side of the fence from labor, and it was really an unlikely marriage of friendship. I never tried to align myself on one side of the fence from the business aspect or from the employees. I am at home with the employees. I would be the guy that would enjoy the company picnic a whole lot more than a fancy gourmet dinner. I would be the guy to say that I was really proud of my affiliation with the unions and the work that we were able to do together. Naturally we had our disagreements, but we always worked through them.”

Aspirations of the Entrepreneur
Justice has a lifelong passion for business that began when he was just a child growing up in Beckley. “(Back then,) I thought that there couldn’t be anything better in life than running a sporting goods store. I thought that was the greatest thing in the world. I could sit and talk to all the people that hunted and fished and I thought nothing could be better.” His early realization that his career could be focused on something he enjoyed, like fishing and hunting, then led to his deep attraction to the art of business. “I had always been really intrigued with business—just the jazz of the game that you have with running your own business and all the integral parts that you’ve got to bring together all the time.”

Bluestone Farms was his first attempt at entrepreneurialism. In 1977, just after receiving his MBA from Marshall University, he started the farming business without really knowing anything about farming. “It sure was a big learning curve to get up to speed as far as the agronomy end of agriculture. We started out with just a really small operation in West Virginia and grew it to, at one time, the biggest cash grain operation east of the Mississippi.”

The most important lesson Justice learned from that start-up was that there was no business more difficult to be involved in than farming. “It carries with it intangibles that you have no control over—like the weather, and it also carried with it an extremely tight profit margin. That resulted in many years with us on the short end of the stick. It was a tremendous training ground. You learned to communicate with lots and lots of different people. You learned how to market—you had to market at your very best level. The biggest thing—you couldn’t make any mistakes. You just really had to be on your game.”

Recently, Justice had as many as 47 different businesses, all in different fields or with different specialties, and he says that the key to success is running each business as its own profit center. “You have to have the same level of passion for a business that is going to make $19,000 a year as you have for a business that could make $5 million a year. If you’re running a lawn and garden John Deere dealership or a cotton gin in Lake City, South Carolina, the potential of those businesses is not equal to the potential of Bluestone Coal or The Greenbrier, but you still have to have just as much passion for that business at that level.”

The New Kid in Town
Justice moved to purchase The Greenbrier not only because the timing was right but because the area was facing three distinct losses. The first was that CSX, who had served as a steward of West Virginia for 100 years through their ownership of The Greenbrier, was leaving town on a negative note. The second loss was a loss to the people. Haunted by a cloud of uncertainty for two years, families were falling apart as jobs were disappearing and benefits were being destroyed. The third was The Greenbrier itself—West Virginia’s national treasure needed to not only be rescued but be restored to its previous five-star status.

“The worst thing in the world that could happen is this treasure be diminished. It’s a way to get more certainty and a better conclusion to CSX, a way to save these people and a way to absolutely preserve this treasure. Dad would have said, ‘If it’s really hard, it’s going to take a couple of days. If it’s impossible, it will take another day.’”

One of the first things Justice plans to do is build an underground casino on the property to drive visitors to The Greenbrier. “I am not a fanatic about gambling…but there needs to be additional amenities here that attract guests,” Justice says. “It’s necessary that the casino be added in a tasteful way that blends with the elegance of the hotel.

“It has to be in the center of the hotel…because it’s got to be very convenient to guests. Over the top of it we’ll probably put a reflecting pool with little fountains on the sides—again, an extremely tasteful blending with this hotel. I think it will be one of our centerpieces and I think our guests will be astounded with its elegance.” Construction is set to begin in August and Justice hopes to have it completed by early spring.

An additional investment Justice has made has been to purchase the 20 percent of the Sporting Club that was owned by an entity outside of CSX and was not included in the purchase of The Greenbrier. “It can be a wonderful compliment with the new Greenbrier,” he says, explaining that sporting club members and hotel guests will be the only ones permitted in the new casino. Justice is also considering additional amenities that will provide energy to the resort while maintaining its class. One option would be a teen center for the younger guests, and he’s toying with the idea of renovating the movie theater into a location for live plays.

It’s never been doubted that saving The Greenbrier would require an individual of might and ingenuity, a business-minded character with an entrepreneurial spirit. With Justice’s dogged determination and business savvy, those around him know that he’s worked hard to achieve success and that giving back to the community is important to him. What he will tell you, though, is that he learned a long time ago from his father how to handle difficult situations like the ones The Greenbrier has seen in the recent past.

“He’s the kind of guy that would say, ‘If you can’t get it done in 24 hours then you’re going to have to work nights.’ He would also be the guy that, when I stood in front of his desk as an 18 or 19-year old and told him, ‘Dad, there wasn’t anything I could do’—I’ll never forget this ‘til I die—all of the sudden a bulk of a man who played football for Purdue University came flying across his desk, grabbed me by my shirt, slammed me right down on the desk and said, ‘Damn you. There’s always something you can do and you better damn well always remember that.’”

Boy, did he do it this time—and he has the gratitude of the entire state of West Virginia as a result.