Page 34 - ChildArt_2021.Q1_Global Creative Leaders

34 CHILDART GLOBAL CREATIVE LEADERS
CHINA’S Headquartered in BROAD Town, near Changsha,
the capital city of Hunan Province in southern
China, the BROAD Group is a global leader in
GREEN industrial climate control, air purification systems,
and prefabricated construction technology that
enables tall buildings and skyscrapers to be
PROPHET built at three floors per day, and winner of the
Champions of the Earth Award by the United
Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).
The BROAD Group’s chairman and co-founder
Zhang Yue grew up in a small town in Hunan and
developed his interest in art in kindergarten. His art
teacher in school taught him all she knew, and as
he gained admirers, his self-esteem grew. He was
the best artist in town and almost everyone in that
little town knew him. His art led him to develop
business communication skills through
commercial art paintings and advertisements.
At 18, he purchased a secondhand Japanese
motorcycle and soon enough he began repairing
it. His family had a secondhand piano which was
totally broken down and no one could play it.
When the repairman came, Yue helped him for
an entire month until the piano was fixed. Soon
thereafter, he taught himself to become a
mechanical engineer.
“These experiences improved my hands-on skills.
I think the education for young people should
focus on how to make stuff by hand, be it in
a factory, a laboratory, or an agricultural field.
Through painting I developed the ability of
observation and expression which helped
teach me mechanical engineering. I developed
this habit of creation, to create things. During
this process I can find the meaning of self-
satisfaction, self-fulfillment and accomplishment.
All of our products in the BROAD Group are
developed and created by ourselves. We have
never copied any technologies from others. That
is the thing that I feel most proud of.” Using his
$3,000 in savings, he started a company in 1988
to produce-non-pressure heating boilers based
on his patented design. His ethic of hard work
and his penchant for inventions and innovation
ZHANG YUE grew the company into the privately owned
BROAD Group, a global business with BROAD
FOUNDER USA headquartered in Hackensack, New Jersey.
At that time, the BROAD Group was the largest
BROAD GROUP taxpayer to the Chinese government and Yue was
the first Chinese citizen to own a private airplane.
CHANGSHA, CHINA He came to own seven, but after realizing
ZHANG YUE CHINA’S GREEN PROPHET
JAN-MAR 2021 35
that private airplanes are not environment-
friendly, he gave up the privilege of using them
and has kept one helicopter for emergency use.
Local media in China compare Zhang Yue to
Steve Jobs’s. “I think I’m more like Thomas
Edison because my inventions cover a
wider range than Steve Jobs’. I have invented
mechanical products, electrical products, and
complete systems. I think my talent is in creation.”
building materials, from a single product to
In this era of global warming, environment
deterioration, and ozone depletion, BROAD
specializes in CFC-free and energy efficient “non-
electric air conditioning” and cooling solutions
for commercial, industrial, and institutional use,
including use in Combined Heat and Power (CHP)
applications. Zhang stresses that “environmental
protection is more important than profit. The
reason why I continuously pay attention to
environmental protection is that technology
development can help with energy conservation
and reduction of carbon emissions. I see that
the more prosperous our world is, the more
dangerous the living environment is. I can’t
do very much in changing the living attitude of
human beings, and I don’t have enough power
to change their conventional thoughts. But what I
can do is to concentrate on technologies, to use
my technologies to bring about change. I have
great determination in this, because I can clearly
see that if we do not make changes right now, our
planet does not have a future.”
He is passionate about environmental education.
“I think that all these things cannot be totally
changed by adults, so we must lay our hopes
in the next generations. I think that we need
a revolution in the education system. People’s
mindset can only be changed while they are
young. I think that’s why we should develop
new curricula for schools and universities. The
pursuits of consumerism and economic growth
should change. Otherwise, within 100 years I can
see that there still will be frequent environmental
disasters happening. By that time, we won’t
have a livable planet.”
He discusses the progress he has made. “Last
year I had some discussions with former UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. We discussed
the textbooks for primary and middle school
students in China, North Korea, South Korea
https://icaf.org