From Her Father's Glass Shop to HR Reform: How One Woman's Mission to Preserve Dignity Changed an Industry

Lisa I. Perez, SPHR, SHRM-SCP is the founder and president of HBL Resources, Inc., a human resources consulting firm dedicated to transforming the way people are treated in the workplace. With a mission to ensure "no matter how tough the conversation, every employee walks out of their manager's office with their dignity intact," Lisa has spent 35 years proving that compassion and business effectiveness are not trade-offs.

Her journey began at age eight in her father's glass shop in Brooklyn. Laval Joseph Brown Sr. owned Brown's Glass Shop, a multi-generational family business inherited from his father, Leroy Brown. The shop smelled like dry curing wood. It had glass display windows facing the street, frames lining the walls, and a massive desk where customers were served. One day, Lisa's father let her answer the phones. Something clicked. "I knew at the age of eight that I was going to own a business one day," she would later recall.

But the shop also taught her a harder lesson. She watched her father carry the weight of business ownership through dinner table conversations where he shared his struggles. Her mother, Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez Brown, worked as an accomplished legal secretary at a law firm, providing stability when the glass shop faced financial difficulties. Eventually, her father transitioned to the New York City Housing Authority for steadier income. The burden of entrepreneurship left its mark on young Lisa, even as she absorbed the pride that came with building something of your own.

Lisa started her career as a receptionist and legal secretary, following in her mother's footsteps. She found the work unfulfilling. It lacked human connection. So she pivoted to hospitality, starting as a front desk clerk. She fell into human resources by chance, working as an administrative assistant in an HR department. It was the perfect blend of people and paperwork. She stayed for the next three decades, rising from front desk clerk to Corporate Director of Recruitment and Succession Planning within ten years, eventually becoming Vice President of Human Resources for major hotel companies managing over 1,100 employees.

The defining moment of her career came after September 11, 2001. As Director of Human Resources at the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort in Miami Beach [a luxury resort complex in South Florida], Lisa coordinated the layoff of more than 200 employees as the hospitality industry collapsed in the wake of the terrorist attacks. She could have processed the layoffs quickly, checking boxes to satisfy legal requirements. Instead, she built what became known as, the "layoff binder"—a comprehensive system ensuring every terminated employee received personalized information about job opportunities, re-employment services, medical benefits extensions, and government resources. The Department of Labor requested a copy to share with other employers as a best practice.

The conversations took 35 to 45 minutes each. Lisa trained the executive committee on how to deliver the news with compassion, kindness, and concern. One employee, a man named Jose from the purchasing department, sat back in his chair after hearing he'd lost his job. He looked at the binder. He looked at Lisa. Then he leaned forward and said two words: "Thank you." Once he left, Lisa broke down crying after that conversation, the only time during three days of layoffs when she cried at work. Jose's gratitude for the respectful way he was fired became the proof that her approach worked.

But compassion without dignity proved impossible in some corporate environments. At the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort, new management refused to give an employee her paycheck because her ID had expired, even though it remained a valid employment document. Lisa challenged the decision and ensured the employee received their check that day. She soon left the company when she realized the culture had become incompatible with everything she believed about human dignity in the workplace.

Years later, another incident solidified her resolve to launch her own firm. As Vice President of Human Resources earning a six-figure salary, Lisa had committed to take her daughter to her eighth-grade dance to help with hair and makeup. When a client meeting ran late on that Friday afternoon, the new CEO told her to "do what you got to do"—but not in a supportive way. The weight of the ultimatum landed heavy. After giving years to the company, this was her reward. She called her husband to take their daughter to the dance. She stayed at the meeting. She was miserable. That day, she decided to relaunch HBL Resources.

Lisa had first attempted to start HBL Resources in 1999 but lacked the entrepreneurial skills to sustain it. She spent the next 12 years learning. She took on various ventures, including Amway and Creative Memories to develop business acumen. On August 13, 2011, she relaunched HBL Resources. This time, she was ready.

Under her leadership, HBL Resources has become an approved provider of HR recertification credits from both the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI). Lisa has received two Silver Stevie Awards from the American Business Awards, one for Entrepreneur of the Year and another for HR Professional of the Year. She was honored with the 2024 City of Miramar Hispanic Business Award and has been recognized by organizations including SCORE, the South Florida Business Journal, and the Florida Hotel & Motel Association. She is a contributing author to the USA Today Bestselling The Younger Self Letters: How Successful Leaders & Entrepreneurs Turned Trials Into Triumph (And How to Use Them to Your Advantage). She's the author of The Complete Manager Makeover: Transforming the Human in Human Resources®. And she’s founder of National Management Training Week, a national movement to elevate leadership development across industries.

The company delivers fractional HR support, strategic consultation, and The Complete Manager Makeover® curriculum, a foundation-first training program teaching managers the fundamental skills others assume they already have. While many consultants focus on advanced leadership development, Lisa identified a critical gap: 60 percent of employees cite poor management as the reason they leave their jobs. Her curriculum addresses the basics that managers need but rarely receive.

Today, Lisa continues to lead with conviction and purpose. As a consultant rather than an employee, she can distance herself from companies that don't align with her values, something she couldn't do in corporate roles. She knows that business owners who reach out to an HR consultancy are already interested in doing things right. Her family, daughters Jacqueline and Amanda, husband Mark, and sister Xenia, contributes to the business, carrying forward the multi-generational family business model she learned in her father's glass shop.

Lisa's work rests on a simple principle born from personal experience: dignity and business success are inseparable. Whether coordinating layoffs during a national crisis or teaching a first-time manager how to give feedback, the standard remains the same. Every employee deserves to walk out of their manager's office with their dignity intact. It's not just what Lisa teaches. It's what she's lived, what she's fought for, and what she's walked away from jobs to protect. The little girl who answered phones in her father's glass shop knew she'd own a business someday. She just didn't know it would be built on the foundation of making workplaces more human.