MELVIN KEEBLER ∙ LYNCHBURG, TN
VP AND ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER AT THE JACK DANIEL DISTILLERY
As the Assistant GM at the distillery, I oversee nine different departments. I'm a member of the Brown-Forman Global Production Diversity & Inclusion Committee and Brown-Forman Employee Resource Groups, BUILD and BRAVE, supporting Black and veteran employees. I help ensure Jack Daniel's is fulfilling its diversity and inclusion goals with valuable insight into the Nearest & Jack Advancement Initiative's potential impact.
Last year, we celebrated entrepreneurship for Black History Month. This year, we’re honoring families starting with the Green family legacy. Tell us why it’s important to celebrate families for Black History Month?
Last year there was a focus on Black entrepreneurship during Black History Month. It’s very important that we continue to uplift Black entrepreneurs. This year, we’re pivoting to focus on family–specifically on our Green family legacy beginning with the relationship between Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green and Jack Daniel. It’s appropriate given the turmoil this country has seen and this great story of Nearest Green and Jack Daniel’s friendship. That story can be healing. It’s already made a positive impact and a huge influence on our company. I think it can be healing for this country. This story is so impactful and so important. Now that we know how great that friendship was, why not celebrate it and use it as a time to heal this country?
There have been six generations of the Green family working here since that time and it’s been impactful not only for legacy but also for helping us tell the story. Currently, we have three descendants of Nearest Green working here: Debbie Staples, Jackie Hardin, and Jerome Vance. Without them telling their stories sitting on their front porch with their grandmothers and their uncles working here, and the contributions they made at Jack Daniel’s–that has been more impactful to me, but to know three of the family members who work here and I know them personally, it makes me absolutely proud.
How does the Green family play a role in what you do at the distillery and how have they impacted you?
The Green family legacy has impacted me because it’s such a wonderful story between the friendship of Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green and Jack Daniel. It is felt from the time Nathan and Jack operated the distillery and I can feel it every day when I come into work. That sense of working towards a goal and purpose. The sense of how important family is and it’s felt in this community even today. I don’t know of a friendship or a collaboration that is as long-lasting to an industry like Nathan Green and Jack Daniel’s friendship was. Not only were they great whiskey makers, but they instilled a sense of pride in the brand and a sense of pride in the family and purpose. I don’t consider my coworkers just coworkers. I consider them as extended family. I think Nathan and Jack felt the same way about each other.
What’s a special memory you have with the Green family?
I started working at Jack Daniel’s Distillery almost 20 years ago. I got to know Debbie Staples, Jerome Vance, and Jackie Hardin (from the Green family) shortly when I started working here. I did not know about the legacy of their family. What I knew of them when I met them was that they are just down-to-earth good people. We became friends way before the story of Nathan Green and Jack Daniel became national. I knew about the story before it became widely known. As the story emerged, some of my most fond memories while working with them was letting them share the memories they had about their grandmother. We worked long hours on the Nearest Green exhibit at Jack Daniel’s visitor center. We would laugh, cry, and get upset. It felt just like my biological family. The most important impact they’ve had on me is welcoming me to Jack Daniel’s. The Green family is just as much a part of the history at Jack Daniel’s like Jack and the Motlow family. It was them welcoming me into part of their lives. I’m so proud to know each and every one of them. They call me their adopted brother and it makes me feel proud.
What are the most important factors when considering building upon the Green family legacy?
The most important factors are family commitment, adherence to making a great product, and being proud of that product that you make. It’s about celebrating the relationship of two men regardless of the age difference between them and the difference of their skin color. The idea that Nathan and Jack became best friends and the product of the friendship is felt today. I don’t know of a more impactful legacy. My challenge is to learn from that legacy and friendship, pass on some of those great foundational ideas that were there and try to bring this world together. They created one of the most iconic whiskeys in the world, but if I think about it, just as important is that a formerly enslaved man became best friends with a young white boy in the late 1800s. The friendship that they had makes me think about if they can do it then, why can’t we do this now?
What’s the biggest challenge when building upon the legacy of Nathan ‘Nearest’ Green?
My biggest challenge is just having the appropriate platforms and avenues to share the good news. It’s a wonderful story. It’s a story that descendants of Nathan are extremely proud of. It’s a story that Brown-Forman and Jack Daniel’s have accepted and embraced. It’s a story we’re proud to tell. I want it to be not something that’s just told at the moment. In the midst of the racial injustice, the problems we’ve seen in this country in the past years–every organization out there has a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Every organization out there wants to do things to try to uplift disenfranchised people. I don’t want this to be the trendy thing that happens now. Like the friendship that Nearest and Jack developed so long ago and it lasted to today–I want the diversity, equity, and inclusion to be just as long-lasting. So my challenge is what can I do today to make sure people are still talking about the important aspect of working together tomorrow.
