Not many men would have the confidence to walk around downtown Bethesda in a bee costume. But that’s what Jason Schwartz is doing on a recent spring afternoon. He’s on a mission to introduce locally produced organic snacks to the Washington, D.C., area, and the attention-grabbing garb attracts swarms of curious onlookers who gratefully accept his free cookie samples.
The costume also reinforces the name of Schwartz’s business, Bkind Vending. Schwartz, 40, founded the business in 2010 after several years in subprime mortgage lending made him “toxic” to potential employers, he says.
The Potomac resident’s journey from banking to bees began in Rockville, where he grew up. Family connections in real estate and banking placed him on what he calls “the predictable path,” and after graduating from college in 1992 he worked at a series of banks, eventually becoming regional sales manager for the subprime division at First National Bank of Tennessee.
“I fielded 200 calls a day and drove so much that I had a fax machine and a copier and a full office in my car,” he says. “It wasn’t necessarily who I was, but I told myself my purpose was to provide security to my family.”
During the height of the property boom in 2007, Schwartz landed at a large mortgage company that he prefers not to name. “We were making money hand over fist,” he says, “but they started asking me to do things that were unethical, like forging documents to say that people could afford places they couldn’t afford. No amount of money was worth it to me to stay.”
He quit after seven months and found work in the mortgage division of another national bank based in Tennessee. “It was less money, but I could sleep at night,” he says.
Still, the experience at the previous mortgage company troubled him, and he started talking to a career coach about options outside of banking. In 2009 he launched his own executive coaching firm. “It combined my spiritual journey with my knowledge and experience of sales,” he says.
During the recession, however, his client list dried up, and returning to banking was no longer an option. “I was perceived as toxic because of my background in subprime,” he says. “No one wanted to talk to me or bring my résumé to their hiring manager.”
Out of work and out of ideas, Schwartz decided to build a clay oven in his backyard to keep himself busy. It was supposed to take a weekend; it took more than four months instead. In the process, he taught himself how to bake bread and was the happiest he’d been in years.
Then, “one day my kids had a meltdown in front of the vending machines at the [Jewish community center] because I wouldn’t let them buy any of the snacks. There were just no good options,” he says. “So I came up with the idea of healthy vending.”
Schwartz funded Bkind with money he’d saved from working in the mortgage industry. He talked to “anyone and everyone” in the local organic food business, attending natural food shows and visiting markets, introducing himself to producers he wanted to represent. “My intention was to find the best of the best snacks,” he says. “They had to be exceptional on their own, their companies had to be committed to environmental and social responsibility, the serving size had to be grab-and-go, and the price had to be reasonable.”
Selections that made the cut include Yogavive Apple Chips; Earnest Eats Baked Whole Food Bar; Tasty Brand Organic Fruit Snacks; and gRAWnola, a raw foods version of granola. The snacks cost 95 cents to $3.99.
Last year, Bethesda Green chose Bkind for its business incubation program, which involves introducing Schwartz to potential investors, among other things. “Jason is in an untapped market right now,” says Dave Feldman, executive director of Bethesda Green, “and he is in a strong position to succeed because of the integrity of his brand.”
Schwartz now has a partner and investor, and Bkind distributes snacks in 50 locations, including Brooklyn’s Deli and Sunoco gas station in Potomac and Brookland Market in Washington, D.C. Schwartz’s snacks are also in vending machines at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington in Rockville, site of the meltdown where his business concept was born.
“People want to eat in a healthier, organic way, and Jason’s there with a great product offering at the right time and the right place,” says Asher Epstein, a Bkind adviser and managing director of the University of Maryland’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Schwartz hasn’t yet drawn a salary, but expects to be able to write himself a paycheck later this year. It will be a fraction of his subprime salary—just $30,000 to $40,000 a year to start, which is what he used to make in a month. But he loves what he’s doing—so much so that he showed up at Bethesda Green’s formal gala last year in his bee costume.
“Not one of us forgot about Bkind after that,” Feldman says.
Alison Buckholtz is a Potomac writer and the author of Standing By: The Making of an American Military Family in a Time of War (2009).
