Rodney Boyd, 53, founder and partner with the Nexus Group, a full-service government relations and lobbying firm, was afforded a valuable educational experience as a child.
From the age of eight until he was sixteen, Boyd worked at the “House of Good Care,” a popular shoeshine parlor on the corner of Marcus and St. Louis Avenues. It was a hangout where the city’s Black who’s-who (politicians, preachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and hustlers) hung out, swapped tall tales and conducted business all while having their shoes expertly shined.
Customers of the parlor during the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Boyd remembers, included JB “Jet” Banks (the late former state senator), William (Bill) Clay Sr. (former congressman), Wayman Smith (the late Anheuser Bush Executive), Michael and Steven Roberts (entrepreneurs and politicians) and many local notables.
“Every kind of man came into that place,” he recalled. “So, I’d listen to them talk about what they were doing or what they were planning to do. And, in that environment-much like a barber shop-their guards were down, and these men would just talk. I got to see such a diversity of men while working in that place and it really enriched my vista.”
Not only was young Boyd exposed to the social and political happenings of the city but he also said the seeds of entrepreneurism were planted within him as well.
“I knew, from the age of 8, 9 or 10, that I could-on any given day in the ‘70s-walk out of that place with $50-to-$100 dollars in my pocket, then go home where my grandparents were just overjoyed because I was able to generate more money than some of the older guys. That was my first exposure to entrepreneurism.”
Boyd added: “I felt like I received a doctorate at a very young age. It was instilled in me that the entrepreneurial path was one I was going to be on. Even before I knew what a corporation was or what it meant to ‘make it,’ I had some abilities to take care of myself; to develop a skill set of providing a service in my own environment.”
By the time he was in high school, Boyd had chosen his life’s vocation.
“I remember when I was a freshman in high school and the career counselor asked me what I wanted to be. There was no pause, no hesitation. I said, ‘I want to be a lawyer but the kind who works in government.’”
From his experience with high profile customers at the shoeshine parlor-especially politicians-Boyd surmised that government shaped and influenced people’s lives. “There’s so many things I think are wrong that if I can get into that space, I think I can make a difference,” he told the school counselor.
And so, he pursued the path of law.
After graduating from Cleveland ROTC High School, he enrolled at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. In his senior year at Lincoln, he asked a professor how he could get “real experience in politics?” The professor arranged for him to have an internship at the state capitol. He wound up becoming an intern for the entire Black Caucus.
A constant comment from Black politicians in Jeff City was “I think I know you.” He rarely disclosed where from, but he figured it had to be from the “House of Good Care” shoeshine shop. The familiarity with Black politicians aided his career.
At the end of his junior year at Lincoln, Boyd enrolled at the University of Missouri in Columbia where he studied law and prepared for the LSAT (law school admission test). He graduated with a law degree in 1996.
Boyd had already served as a legislative assistant in the Missouri General Assembly and clerk for the Missouri Supreme Court. Before he graduated, another colleague, who had joined the city’s first African American mayor, Mayor Freeman R. Bosley Jr”s staff as city attorney invited him to be his intern. After Bosley lost to incoming Mayor Clarence Harmon, Boyd joined his staff as an assistant city counselor, assigned to the Prosecution Division.
Harmon wasn’t particularly fond of wrangling with Jefferson City politicians. Because he had some experience, Boyd was chosen to lobby for the mayor’s Administration.
“That’s when my career as a lobbyist was born,” Boyd stated. “There I was a lawyer and a young, virgin lobbyist and I realized this is something I would really like to do.”
He turned down an opportunity to work for Mayor Francis Slay’s administration, choosing instead to lobby for the city in Jefferson City as an independent contractor.
“I was an entrepreneur with my own lobbying firm. I was off and running.”
Boyd opened his own legal lobbying firm and started racking up numerous clients in need of strategic governmental relationships with lawmakers and state agencies.
Boyd procured contracts for city and state governments, helped get more than 70 legislative proposals passed in Missouri and Illinois, helped with the creation of new tax credit policies, and assisted in the creation of new law enforcement statutes and more.
In 2006, he joined the firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, (now Dentons US LLP) based in Chicago with offices in St. Louis doing lobbying work. To grow his own practice, in 2018, Boyd cofounded and launched the minority-owned Nexus Group. The firm specializes in public policy and regulation practice in the government sector, focusing on state and local legal, governmental relations and public policy services.
Boyd has had an illustrious career. He said his major mission has been to make a difference and leverage opportunities for those “still stuck in North St. Louis.”
The reason he’s been able to fulfill that mission, Boyd added, stems from learning to listen and being listened to when he was a kid at the neighborhood shoeshine shop.
“The one thing I realized is that someone is always listening, always,” Boyd said. “So, be very prudent about what you say and how you say it. In every environment I’m in, I carry myself in a way that when I say things, I’m not going to be ashamed of later and I only say things that I sincerely plan to accomplish.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.
I am proud of Rodney and pleased that I played a part in his journey.