In this very special episode, Daniel Frazee, Executive Vice President of Rancho Mesa, interviews Founder & President of Rancho Mesa, Dave Garcia, on his personal background, career in baseball and insurance, why he decided to start his own business, some of the people who helped him along the way, and much more.

Show Notes: Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter.

Director: Alyssa Burley

Producer/Editor: Lauren Stumpf

Host: Daniel Frazee

Guest: Dave Garcia

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, "Movin' Up" by Dan Lebowitz

Transcript

[Introduction Music]

Daniel Frazee: Welcome everyone to our “Getting to Know” series. I have the unique opportunity today to sit down and speak with Dave Garcia, Rancho Mesa's founder and president. As I think many of you know, Dave typically is the one interviewing our fantastic group of carrier partners, employees and anybody within the insurance industry, really. But today, I have the opportunity to be on the other side of the table asking him the questions. So, welcome, Dave, and thanks for joining us in StudioOne™.

Dave Garcia: Dan, it's my pleasure. And I have got to be honest with you, it's a little bit more nerve wracking on this side of the table than on the side that I'm usually on. So, take it easy on me today, okay?

DF: I'll see what I can do. Can't make any guarantees, but just excited to be able to spend some time with you. And really, I think there are a lot of people from employees here at Rancho and also within the insurance community that are going to be interested in hearing what you have to say. So before we kind of dive into your work experience and ultimately your foray into the insurance world, I'd like the listeners to hear more about your personal background. So, walk us through maybe your family history, heritage, where you were born/raised, and what life was like in the Garcia household growing up.

DG: Okay sure, Dan. I'd be happy to. So, we're actually I'm a second generation Spanish descent. My grandparents on both sides of the family were immigrant families here in the United States, they all located in Saint Louis, Missouri. I didn't know one another prior to moving to St Louis. And then my mom and dad were first generation American. So, not a long history here in the country. My dad, through his career, was in a lot of different cities, so I was actually born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And when I was roughly two, two and a half years old, my dad took a job here in California and we moved to El Cajon. So, El Cajon is really where I grew up, and it's really all that I knew. I have two older sisters, their joys and my life. They've been great to me. I was an antagonistic little brother. One was very nice to me and one kept me in line. So-

DF: Got it.

DG: I owe something to both of them.

DF: So, let me backtrack a little bit. You mentioned your father and your mother. Talk about what your dad did, if you would. I'm sure the listeners are interested, but what was his line of work and how did he find the love of his life, really?

DG: Sure. So, back in Saint Louis as an immigrant family- this is kind of interesting, it’s probably where I got a lot of my core values- is my dad was the only male in the family of five. So, he had four sisters. He was right in the middle. And his father sadly passed away at 36 years old. So, if you can imagine my grandmother, who was about four foot ten, spoke no English in a foreign country with five children and no husband. Life was tough, but back in those days it was very communal. A lot of cousins, nephews, uncles, aunts. So, everybody kind of raised everybody. And I think for my dad, he was looking for a way to like, how do I support my mother and the family? Education was really important, but it wasn't an option. My dad did not. He graduated high school. That's as far as he went. But sports was his outlet, so he was a really excellent soccer player from Saint Louis and also a really fantastic baseball player. So, they're not in existence anymore today they’re the Saint Louis Cardinals, back when he was there, it was the Saint Louis Browns. And my dad signed a professional baseball contract as a 17 year old to go out and play baseball. So for him, I think in talking to him later in life, it was a need to get out of Saint Louis and try to make something for himself and his family, but also to provide money to the family to help support them. His sisters were all very successful, independent women who went on to do great things on their own. But my dad's life out of Saint Louis was through baseball. So, my dad passed away when he was 97, and from the time he was 16, 17, he worked in professional baseball up until the time he passed away. So he was in professional baseball in various degrees, from a player to a minor league manager to a scout to a major league coach, to a major league manager. So, baseball was kind of, with me growing up, was our family business. But what was really kind of unique and special about my mom and dad is nothing we ever did was who we were. That wasn't important to them. So baseball wasn't who he was. What was most important to him as the person he was. And that got pushed down to me and my sisters on a daily basis. Suddenly we knew, I knew, I didn't need to play baseball. That was not what was going to make my dad happy. What would make my mom and dad happy was if I turned out to be a really good human being. So, I owe a lot of that guidance early on to them, which freed me up to do a lot of things. The sky was the limit. They allowed me to dream whatever my dreams would take me.

DF: Thank you for sharing that. That's really interesting. Part of that, I didn't know. So, can you talk a little bit more about some of the additional lessons you learned from that period of time and maybe as you made it over to El Cajon as you were growing up, any challenges during that window you can share and/or lessons from that?

DG: Sure. There's about a 10, 11 year age difference between my sisters and I, and my dad was gone a lot because in baseball he would go wherever whatever team he was associated with, wherever they needed him. My mom would stay in El Cajon with the family. As my sisters went off to school and started to go beyond college and be married and things like that, it really was a lot of time, just my mom and I. So, I didn't really spend as much time with my dad as most people would imagine. My mom was unbelievable. She had absolutely the strongest will, freethinker, no limits. And I got a huge dose of that from her. I loved her dearly. Used to take her fishing. She loved to fish. So, the minute I got my license at 16, I would take her fishing every single Sunday. And I have so many funny stories of my mom and I sitting at the lake and trying to catch trout in the rain. You know, it's just it was super fun. But what was important to my dad was he didn't want to not ever see me. And so when he was managing in the minor leagues, in towns like Fresno and Salt Lake City, as soon as school would let out in May or June, back then, I would go live with him. So I, at a very young age, starting at seven, I became kind of his 26th player on his team, and he treated me like a man at that age. And I'll give you a couple quick funny stories on that. What I mean by that. But, you know, it was important to him that, you know, I just was seen and not heard and things like that. But, you know, he would allow me. He would always if I wanted to play baseball, I would have to ask him. He would never say to me, “Hey, Dave, you want to go out and hit some balls?” And my nickname back then, this is probably going to come back to haunt me. There was a TV Western guy named Hopalong Cassidy, and back when I was a little kid, the thing to do was to get a Hopalong Cassidy gun belt, you know, and you wear it around the house playing cowboys. Anyway, from that, my dad started calling me Hoppy, and so that got shortened to Hop. So there's a lot of men out there to this day that don't actually know my name. They still, when they see me, would say, “Hey, Hop, how you been?” So I was Hop back then and he'd say, “Hey, Hop, you want to, you know, let's go play” or whatever. And away we go. And so initially we do it way before any of the players got there. And because he didn't want me to be in the way and I would do my workout with them. And then during batting practice, he'd let me go in the outfield and shag, which at seven years old, I had no chance of catching a ball off a man's bat in the outfield, at least initially. So, there was a pitcher who made it to the Major leagues. His name was Gary Ryerson. He took a liking to me and he said, “Hey, Hop, I'll tell you what, I will give you a quarter for every fly ball you catch.” And I'm like, “Really?” And a quarter back then was a lot, you know. Okay. And so of course, first day I catch zero or one or whatever, but very quickly I got very good. And so one day I took him for two and a half dollars and my dad found out about it. He said, “Give the money back to Gary. You can't do that. Gary, that game's over.” You know, no longer can Hop, take your money, you know. So it was a lot of fun, but he made me grow up, be really responsible. You know, once the game started, he would send me to the bullpen, like, I need you to, you know, take care of yourself and go. And so when we would go on the road, on a road trip, he would give me meal money, just like the players. And so when the game ended, most players go out, have a meal after the dinner. Nowadays they have food in the clubhouse. Back then you didn't. So they would go to the local hotel restaurant or the Denny's or something like that. My dad wouldn't go because he didn't want to be with the players, but he knew that I needed to eat so he would give me my meal money and I would tag along with the players and go to these restaurants, order my food, pay my own bill, tip the waiter, waitress. And that wasn't unusual to me. That was just what we did. And so without, I don't spend all time talking about these stories because they're endless, but they really helped shape me. So, that went on for several years like that. And then when I was in seventh grade. So I was 12 years old, my dad managed winter ball just to make ends meet. There was not a lot of money, probably a low middle income kind of family and so he would take jobs all year long just to make ends meet. So, he got a chance to manage down in South America for one of the teams in the winter leagues. They run from October to about February. And he knew that that was his normal time to be home and see me. I wouldn't be able to see him. And then he'd leave again for the next season. So, he convinced my mom in Holy Trinity School in El Cajon to allow him to take me out of school, take my books with me, take the lesson plan with me, and make sure that when I came back in February, I was at the same level as everyone else in the class. I doubt that could happen today. They allowed it back then and so I was a very responsible little kid because I was raised like an adult. And he would just say, “Hey, you got to get this work done. I expect you to be here and there and away we go.” And if he went on a road trip and they were going to fly, he wouldn't allow me to go because he didn't feel like the planes they flew on were safe. And he would said to me, “Your mother would kill me if something happened to you,” you know, so what he did instead, which again, you know, hopefully this time has expired on child labor laws or something, but he would just give me meal money, you know. So whatever it was, I'm going to be gone for four days. Here's your Bolivians, here's your Bolivia. Every day at 4:00 in our little apartment that phone's going to ring every day at 4:00. You better pick it up. And he goes, besides that, get your homework done, get yourself fed, and I'll see you in four days. And so when I think back on that, I wasn't afraid. Ever. I'm in a foreign country. I literally don't know anybody but my dad. I don't speak the language. And he had the confidence in me to know I would take care of myself. And I think that's a rooted thing inside me that he helped bring out. That confidence that, you can do it. I know you can do it. And you know what, it's really interesting, when somebody else believes in you even more than you believe in yourself, it's much easier to begin to believe in yourself. And I don't know if he intentionally tried to do that or if that was just his way of parenting, but that was the byproduct. I became very comfortable, confident, independent, wasn't concerned with new environments. I just knew I could handle it. So thankfully, nothing bad happened. My mom did not kill my dad because something happened to me. But those were two really life shaping moments for me that I so enjoyed that time with my dad, you know, because I didn't get it like a normal kid.

DF: That's really special. Really special. So you've talked about your experience with your dad in particular baseball. Talk to listeners about your own playing career. I mean, I know this. Not a lot of people know it, but you were and I can say it a very, very good baseball player. So talk about your love of the sport and then maybe how that transitioned into coaching yourself.

DG: Yeah. So baseball, again, it wasn't something that anybody put on me. I put it on myself. So I just really enjoyed the game. And I had a big advantage over a lot of kids because spending all those years with my dad in the game, in the dugouts, I really understood the game. I really knew how to play the game at a higher not physically, but mentally at a higher level than most kids my age. So I never I never played Little League. My dad grew up poor. They didn't do Little League, so I didn't do little League. So I never played organized baseball until Pony League. So when I was 13. So the first time I ever batted against somebody other than my dad, I was 13 years old, but I just loved the game and I played all the time. I just I would go hit rocks in the field by myself. I'd go throw a ball against the garage. I just couldn't get enough of it. So I wasn't very big guy, I was pretty average in size and all those things, but I played a lot, so I had the opportunity out of high school. My dad was with the angels at that point. I think the angels kind of as a kindness to my dad drafted me in like the 30 something brown. But I knew I was not physically mature yet. I was going to go to college, so I went to University Arizona to play baseball. They were the defending national champs. Got there, had a good season, transferred back to Grossmont Junior College here in San Diego to make myself eligible to be drafted as it is today. If you're at a four year university, you have to either have completed your junior year or be 21 years old to be drafted. If you’re at a junior college, you could be drafted any time. So I opened myself up to that draft and was selected by the Yankees and off I went, dream come true, and without going into great detail, I spent two and a half years playing. I realized the ability to play the game to the level I wanted to play wasn't there for me any longer, so I actually quit, which is probably the only thing I've ever quit in my life. And it was the hardest thing I ever did. And the cool thing about my dad is I remember calling him from Spring Training, I’ll probably start crying now, like “Pop, I can't do this anymore.” And he said, “Hey Dave, Hop, come on home. Baseball's a hard life. It's no big deal.” And I'm like, wow. He let me off the hook. You know, here's a guy that at that time he was managing the, what was then the California Angels. And I'm in my mind like, I'm about to make this phone call and I'm going to really disappoint my Dad because I'm quitting and I'm quitting baseball. And he just totally like-baseball? You don't need baseball. It's a hard life. Come on home. You do something that you want to do. I’m like wow, that was very freeing for me to do. But it also lit a fire in me to never let somebody- So my career baseball, somebody kind of took the love of the game away from me. I allowed that person to do that. That will never happen again. And I was very- as I raised my sons- clear to them to not ever let somebody do that to you. You choose what you know is best. And one of the things that I learned from that experience is: I discount when people tell me I'm really good at something, and I discount when people tell me I'm really bad at something because inside of me, I know. I know if I'm good or I know from that. And when you get caught up in what people are saying about you, you have a tendency to try to live up to somebody else's expectation, either good or bad. And so, I let that happen to me in baseball. It was a tough lesson. I made sure it didn't happen to my sons and it's never going to happen to me again. So, hard lesson. Love baseball. Been a big part of my family. And you know, here we are today.

DF: Well, let's shift gears a bit and talk about your own family.

DG: Yeah.

DF: And if you can just- I’ll leave that open and let you kind of fill in the gaps and you have a wonderful family. So, share with the listeners what you can.

DG: Yeah. So I'm very blessed. As I mentioned, I have both of my sisters are still here with us, my mom and dad both past. My wife Charlotte's awesome. She's been somebody that's encouraged me, much like my dad, to dream and just go after it and don't know why she felt that way. But she's always believed in me. And sometimes as much as I want to be confident, you do, you let doubt come into your mind. And when somebody else says, “no, no, no, you got this, you can do this.” I'm like, okay, now I'm not just going to do it for me. I'm going to do it for you, too. And so for me, it's that I've never been a person about me and more about whatever I did I'm trying to do for me, but also more importantly for somebody else, like provide for my family or make somebody proud of me and things like that. And so, Char and I, we have a blended family of four sons. Two, I can say now, work here at Rancho Mesa. I'm excited about that. We, that's a whole other topic. And luckily for me, they're my best friends. My sons are my best friends. My oldest son is in private equity up in the Bay Area, so we don't get to see him as much as we'd like, but super proud of him because he kind of, he went off on his own and chose his passion. And then my other son works for Google and he's done really, really well there. So I'm blessed. I've got all four of them are married. Three of the four have children. So we all know God has a sense of humor. I have seven grandchildren and six are girls. So, you know, it's a total new experience for all of us. And we're fired up for it. And the girls are- they're no different. They're just- I didn't know they would be no different, but they're no different.

DF: That's called a power shift.

DF: Power shift. Yeah. And, you know, the great thing about it is I'm really kind of lining myself up as I get older and I'm going to need, you know, attention and care. Pretty sure my sons are just pat me on the head and go about their business. But between my granddaughters, my wife and my daughters in law, I'm kind of covering my bases with all of them to make sure at least one of them, you know, will look after me.

DF: Okay, so let's transition now. You've talked about growing up, how you got to El Cajon. Certainly your time with your parents and baseball. Let's kind of transition now to life after baseball. So, talk about your first meaningful job after graduating. I would just say you're an Aztec too, right? From San Diego State, and what you took from that.

DG: Yeah. So, San Diego State, as I mentioned, I was drafted and signed my baseball contract after my second year in college. So, after I got out of baseball, I still needed to go back to college. So I went back to San Diego State, worked at Safeway as the general merchandizing clerk. So, my shift was 10:00 at night ‘til 7:00 in the morning. I would strip the floors and then relax the floors three times a week. So it wasn't fun, but it was what I had to do. Got out of college and both my, one of my sisters and her husband both worked at Xerox, and I didn't know anything about Xerox at the time other than I knew it was a copier machines. So, I interviewed there and got a sales position with Xerox and come to find out that Xerox is the leader in sales training in the country. So, they have a big training facility back in Leesburg, Virginia. It’s back in the forest, you got to go through a guarded gate. They train everybody on how to sell. And I was lucky enough to be a big part of that. And so then after having a territory and selling, my role became sales manager where I was taking kids out of college and training them for a year, and then the next year I'd get more kids and train them again. So, the sales process was really rooted into me and I had done well and Xerox was intending to move me corporately to advance my career, and I really had no desire to leave San Diego. So, they were okay with that. And I would just kind of take different positions within the region, but not leave San Diego. At the same time, another gentleman from Xerox, who I did not know, had left, and he was a neighbor of a person who owned an insurance agency. And they got to talking kind of over the back fence. And this owner of the agency was wanting to do some different things within the company and needed somebody to come in and kind of help him with his manage his accounts. And this guy was a very polished Xerox salesperson, so he brought him in. And when that person came into the agency was Pacific Insurance Agency here in San Diego, and it was a large regional agency, probably had 100 employees of pretty good size. He looked around and said, “hey, you know, have you ever thought about just hiring professional salespeople and then teaching them insurance rather than taking an insurance person and trying to teach them how to sell.” And the owner was willing to go along with that kind of a concept. So, this one Xerox guy reached into Xerox. I didn't know him, but he reached into an HR person who knew us both. He described what he was looking for. She said, it's Dave, and she put us together. So it honestly, you know, it took me 18 months to make that change because I'm leaving a fortune, you know, 50 company. I'm wearing a suit and tie every day and I'm going to go sell insurance over what, a coffee table and try to talk somebody into something they don't really want? That's not for me. But he's like, “No, no, no, no. It's business insurance. You know, you're going to learn, you know, vicariously. You're going to get to be a part of that company and you're going to protect not only that company, you're going to protect all those families that work within that company.” Like how does that work? And then he started to explain it to me.

DF: And what year was that?

DG: So, that was 1987, and it was right around- Drew one of my sons is here, his birthday's April 22nd, and there's a video at his birthday party of that year of me saying to the camera, okay, I just left Xerox and I'm starting this new career and I'm going on record as saying, this is either the dumbest thing I've ever done to the greatest thing I've ever done. We'll find out. And off I went. And kind of keeping the story to a brief, brief as I can make it. What I found out when I got into the insurance industry was, you really were going to now be rewarded by how hard you worked and how good you are. And I really like that. You know, I'm willing to go against any of my competitors, one on one, and take my chances, but without any other influences like that. But what I found out when I went to this agency was, there really wasn't a lot of structure, sales process, things like that. So I was kind of like, okay, what did I get myself into? Luckily for me, and God's been so important in my life, that just, has put great people in my life throughout my entire life, is Xerox was a big part of that. So that process, that Xerox just ingrained in me, I just kind of adapted it to the insurance world and I didn't really know what success was in insurance. I didn't really understand that. So, I saw no limitations. So, if it was a large account I wrote Scripps Clinic at one time, I had no idea it was a large account. You know, it didn't- it was just an account. But in the insurance world, like, wow, that's a big account, you know. So, I got off to a pretty good start with them. And then I saw it as an opportunity for some of my other friends within Xerox. So, about every 18 months I would reach back into Xerox and bring another one of my buddies into the insurance world and with each one I brought and they were all like me, were successful. It was easier to recruit the next one because there was more than just me that that made it work. That company that I started with allowed me to buy into the company and become a minority partner in that agency, which I’ll forever be grateful to Glenn Dethloff and Max Gillicks. They were the two principal owners that showed that confidence in me to be part of that group. And then in, and I could be a little bit off on this, I would say I think it was in 1992, they made the decision as the majority leadership to sell the agency to Arthur J. Gallagher. And for the next five years, I worked as the assistant Vice President of Gallagher here in San Diego. And that much like Xerox, just took me to a different level. That national broker, like Gallagher, and the type of people that were within Gallagher, just really great people. And I was a sponge. I wanted to know everything. They taught me a lot about agency management and about really higher level forms of insurance that we really weren't involved with. So, when we talk about- and we've done many podcasts and articles on loss sensitive plans from captive self-insurance deductible workers compensation, things like that, that was all new to me until Gallagher acquired us. So, it gave me this foundation again, much like Xerox did, of this knowledge that I didn't know I didn't know until I knew it. And then I realized, most of the people out there don't know it. So how do I make that- take it to my advantage? So, that got me to Pacific Insurance. And then after those five years, I just felt like there was accounts here in San Diego that were- I felt we needed to be more customer centric than I thought we were being. So, I just felt like maybe there was another way to do this. And Char at the time was- my wife at the time was- running a region for a specialty work comp carrier. So she spent her whole career on the workers compensation side and I ran it by her and just said, you know, what do you think? Could we do something where we could bring national broker expertise and services but remain customer centric? And she goes, “We can do that. I think we can do that.” And so I said, okay, then you've given me the encouragement to do it. I'm sure most of the people, if you're listening and you’re a business owner and entrepreneur, you're- my story and your story can be very similar. You start a company, you have no money, you have a dream, and then you just make it work. I think this goes back to my parents. It's like, you control your effort. Nobody else controls your effort. And then Coach Fisher at San Diego State’s become a friend and I've been with him when he’s said that to his players. He said, “Fellows, I do not coach effort. If I have to coach effort, you're at the wrong school, go somewhere else.” So I've always taken that to heart. So I just figured I'm not the smartest guy out there. God gave me only so much of that ability, but I can control how hard I work. And so if I can, maybe I'm not as smart as you, but if I can outwork you, I got a pretty good chance of winning. So that was kind of the premise to get it going down, Dan, and now we can tell a lot of funny stories about those early days, but that was the premise. And then within about a year, my wife's company was bought by another company and culture change, and then she became unhappy there and I convinced her, or she convinced me, or well, she'll probably blame me that I drug her into this. But she became a partner with me every day in the office to help grow the business.

DF: So then, Rancho Mesa open for business, when?

DG: Yeah, July 1st of 1998. So it was myself and my- what we called then- Account Manager from what was Pacific to Gallagher. Same person. She came with me. So she took a giant leap of faith because we didn't have much to start with. And the businesses that I had, there was about eight companies that I'd been their broker for years that took a leap of faith with me when I started Pacific. Had they not followed me to Rancho Mesa, Rancho Mesa would have not succeeded. Honestly, I've just been a blessed guy. So many things have just fall in my way that shouldn't. That did. And then I worked hard enough to try to make the most of those things.

DF: And where were you located originally? I think some people may know that, but yeah, may not.

DG: Yeah, this is kind of funny because everybody is like, “Hey, Rancho Mesa, that's kind of a cool name. How'd you come up with that?” And this is when you'll find out that I'm really all not that smart. So I was living in Rancho San Diego and I, I really kind of identified with like, you know, Mayberry RFD, little small town. So I found this little office space in downtown La Mesa. So I'm like, what should I call the company? I'm like, I know Rancho (Rancho, San Diego) Mesa (La Mesa)… Rancho Mesa. And so that's how we named the company. And we were in this, oh, gosh, this awesome location with a terrific building superintendent named Les, that to this day, I owe him a debt of gratitude. He was just awesome. He would do anything I needed to help pull wires through walls or whatever it was. And then two people. Dan Carey. He was one of my clients, really good friend. And then another friend that was another- he was a broker in another agency named Jim Catrine. The three of us couldn't furnish the office. I think we've done one of the flashback Fridays, so there's a picture of this, but a buddy of mine owned- bought a company up in Culver City and he knew I had no money and he knew I needed furniture. So he said, “I tell you what, Dave, I just bought this company. You guys bring a truck out, you just I'll give you the key. You walk into anything you want, furniture, whatever. Just load it up and take it, it’s yours.” I'm like, “You want me to pay you for it?” He’s like, “No, just take it.” So, the three of us, three knuckleheads go up there like we. We don't even know what we're looking for. We're grabbing telephones that don't work once we get back, because, you know, they had to have a- they had to be sequenced, you know, into the line. We didn't know that. So we grabbed telephones, we grabbed chairs, we grabbed bookcases. We grabbed a big conference room table that we'd probably, I don't know, 500 pounds. So, you know, in the meantime, you know, I was coaching Little League and trying to make sure we had enough money to pay the little bit of payroll, you know? So it was fun. It was fun. It was work, but it was fun. And then shortly thereafter, some really meaningful people came into my life that really helped grow the company.

DF: Thanks for sharing. That gets us to that point. So let's just kind of shift gears about philosophy.

DG: Sure.

DF: You know, has there been a maybe an overriding philosophy or philosophies that you focus on as you've grown the company. Any phrases or mottos, anything that kind of comes to mind because, you know, 25 years is a long time. So, there's been a lot of change through that. But what has been your philosophy through that window?

DG: So I think, you know, culturally we talked about trying to, you know, bring this national broker expertise with customer centric. But I think the overriding theme that's just been a part from my childhood forward was this ability to try to dream and try to follow your dreams and try to make your dreams come true. So Carl Sandburg has a quote that says “nothing happens unless first you dream.” And that- when I read that, I felt like I was reading my life’s bibliography. You know, I was like, there it is. Or biography. Like, there it is. That’s exactly what I want. Everybody that comes through our door that works at Rancho Mesa, I want them to follow their dream and I want them to understand that nothing's going to happen without those dreams. And I'm really proud of that because so many of the things that we've been able to do over the years were not my dream. They were somebody else's dream within the company and I was just a beneficiary of, you know, tagging along on their dream and trying to help them if I could achieve their dreams. So as we started to grow, people would ask, “Well, what is it? You know, how big do you want to be?” Or those things? I'm just never been that person, you know? I'm like, I'm not really trying to do that. But I said, you know what I really want to do is… I'm not really trying to be like one of the best agencies in San Diego or one of the best in California. To be honest, I'm trying to be the best. I'm trying to be one of one. And so those words just came out of my mouth one day and I was here with somebody that I owe a lot to, Alyssa Burley, and I said, “Hey, what do you think of this? What if we ran that into one word? Made that one word and capitalize the O's?” And she encourages me a lot. And she said, “Yeah, in fact, why don't we try to trademark it?” I'm like, “Can you do that?” And she goes, “I think so. Let me find out.” So we actually trademarked that. We created a word. It's “oneofone” and it's one word. And the cool thing about it is this, I think if I say that to anybody, it doesn't really require much explanation. Everybody understands what a one of one is. But what everybody also understands is you'll never be one of one, because whenever you reach a level, there's always another level. And it's like the summits, you know, if you're a mountain climber and you see the peak and you climb it and then you get to a time, you're like, oh my gosh, and you realize there's another peak. That's exactly what we're trying to do at Rancho Mesa. That is something we will never achieve, but we'll always be reaching to do. If that makes any sense.

DF: It does. It does. And, share with the listeners how the agency has moved towards being so niche and/or industry focus. Where did that concept come from and you know, why do you think it matters?

DG: Yeah, I think early on and Dan, you were a huge part of this thing and I don't know if we're going to get an opportunity for me to share some of what I feel about you and how you've helped the agency over the years. But you and I were the original two, you know, here. And you came here 23 years ago, very near the beginning. And I think when we got together, we had a like mind in a lot of different ways, really like minded internally, like we- are clocks were the same there. And then business wise we're very similar as well. We enjoyed competing. We wanted to do something we were proud of. And so in order to be successful, we started off by saying, you know, we can't just be everything to everyone, so let's figure out a way that we can kind of specialize and get good at something. And construction insurance was something that you and I both kind of had a liking for. And then I had some human services, some nonprofit account. So we said, how about if we do those two things and just those two things? And occasionally we might have a restaurant or manufacturer or something like that, but for the most part specialize in those two things. And we just felt like by doing that and not being a generalist, we were able to provide those clients a better level of service and expertise than somebody who only wrote one of that type of business. And so that was our initial premise. It's proven to be pretty accurate. I think what we've learned over the years is initially we specialized in construction. Each producer in that side of our business focused in on construction, but multiple trades. As we've grown, we've realized there's another one of one level there. There's more that we could do. And what we figured out we could do is we need to specialize within the specialty, and that is by far the best thing that's changed- it’s one of the best changes we've ever made. So now we have people within those units that focus on a particular industry only within that construction silo and their abilities to serve the needs of those that client base far surpasses anything we could have done separately of that. So, I think it's taken Rancho Mesa to where we're now licensed in all 50 states. We have clients currently, I think in 23 different states. We see no barriers, we see no mileage distances. We just have a group that says, okay, if we're going to write somebody and they're in Nebraska, how do we serve their needs as if we were in Nebraska with them. And just try to create those strategies. But I think by being a specialist within that industry and we sit down to talk to them, we're not just talking to them about insurance. We understand the issues within their industry. And I think, you know, if you just think of it in in medical terms, you know, there's specialists within the medical industry. You know, so if you have a very serious orthopedic injury, you're probably going to go to an orthopedic doctor not just a general practitioner, not the general practitioner doesn't know medicine. They certainly do, but they're not going to know what you need in particular. And that, I think, is kind of where we're heading is we're to continue just to specialize in those different areas.

DF: And maybe the best example of that is the NALP program. And the focus that both your boys now have on. You want to talk a little bit about that?

DG: Yeah. So, I think that's something I would give Drew, who runs that program for us, a ton of credit. Drew is a, he's a visionary. He has tons of dreams. He's brought a million ideas. But he realized when he first got here that he needed for him to get his head around just one industry. And that one industry that he just really related to was the landscape industry. Then got involved with the National Association, the NALP, peer groups within those industries and has devoted the seven years that he's been here solely to that industry. And I think what we've seen is his abilities to impact that industry far and wide, not just clients that we serve, but we're able to serve clients or businesses that we don't actually write their insurance. We're able to provide them tools to help them grow their business as well. You know, there's probably just in California, there's 200-300,000 landscapers. We're not going to be the broker on all 200,000, but we certainly could impact all 200,000 with some of the tools that we could provide them at no cost so that they could just better their business. And then we will work directly with any number of our clients across the country. So, I think that really opened our eyes and it's developed a lot of things that we probably don't have time to talk about from our key performance indicators, our dashboard that tracks, we benchmark people against their industries, we have a, we just launched a safety app that has dedicated trainings by industry. So, there's just a lot of things that have spiraled off. We talk a lot about kind of like an iceberg. You know, everybody can clearly see the peak above the water. What you don't see is what's below the water. We've got people here with underwater vision. Just everybody here sees below the water. So we take an idea and then find out, oh my gosh, it applies here, here and here as well. And so that's for me, super exciting. You know, everybody wants to know when are you going to retire? Everybody can hear from me first. I'm not retiring. This is what I love to do. And- but what I love is the Rancho Mesa family. They're an extended part of me that I probably mother hen too much sometimes, you know, I want to make their lives just perfect all the time, but I thoroughly enjoy coming to work every day and seeing everybody here.

DF: Well, you mentioned that, that was part of my question. I mean, can you talk a little bit more about what the company has meant to you personally and maybe also what you pull from it every day?

DG: Yeah. So there's no question that I think everybody would relate. Like, you think you're doing something for somebody. Let's say you get involved with a charity because you think it's the right thing to do and you participate in some event and that's great. The normal experience then is, wow, I got back way more than I just gave. That's how I feel at Rancho Mesa. It's something that I come in every day with a lot of- try to come in with a lot of energy and things like that. But I ended the day drawing more energy than I'm providing. So the people here, the attitudes, it without them, I wouldn't be the same person for sure. So it's a cliche to say, “Hey, we're family” and all those things. And I want to believe that in the heart of hearts, many of our people do feel like this is a family. And to me, without doubt, it's my family and there's not much I wouldn't do for this family if it was within my power. So, for me to come to work, insurance is the means to come to work and provide, you know, security for our families. But it's the people that provide my inspiration, my energy and my love to come- want to come to the office every day for sure. There's no question about that. So, I'm not a good liar, everybody. So, now one of the lessons my from my dad mom taught me was, “hey, just tell the truth because you always remember what you said so you don't have to backtrack.” So that's exactly how I feel. So, it's a pleasure to come and I'm excited to see where we're going to go. You know, that's what's so cool, because if we're just status quo, I get bored and people know if I get bored, then their life's going to get busy because I'm pushing them for new ideas. And that's what's exciting, because as much as we're doing now, I talked to Alyssa all the time and we're like, “Wow, we get so much going on” and then we look at you and go and “you know, there's going to be something else.” There will be something else. And we don't know what it is yet, but we'll find it.

DF: Well, and you just talked about the excitement. I mean, we're moving! Talk about that. We're moving in a couple of months. We're celebrating 25 years. There's a lot to be excited about.

DG: Yeah, we're- oh, man. I think, you know, it was a business decision when, you know, we grew too fast and we outgrew the space that we had in Santee and we couldn't find a building at the time to accommodate all of us. So we took some space back in downtown La Mesa, really close to where we started, and separated the office into two. And that was a necessary business practice we had to do. It was not what any of us wanted to do. And so we've looked at trying to build a, you know, find some land, build a building, all those things. COVID hit, you know, slowed everything down. Finally, as it often happens for us, just, God put something right in front of us to make it work. So, we're excited. We're going to be moving to Mission Valley, real close to the new San Diego State Snapdragon Stadium. We're designing the offices now. We should- all things go as planned- should move in the first week of April. So, our first day in the office should be April 10th. And I'm already it's like Christmas to me. Like I cannot wait for day one and see everybody there, like, all at once. It's just you can't wipe the smile off my face. It's sincere. It's like I literally cannot wait. And I don't think that's a feeling that's not shared amongst a lot of us here. I think everybody is. It's kind of like, you know, when you're in school, you're waiting for summer vacation and it's like how these last two weeks you're just dragging. That's how it feels. Like we just want to move, like, let's just get over there and get after it. And so we're super excited. It's going to be a different look to the office. It's going to be called industrial/rustic. Our offices here in Santee are more Spanish Hacienda style, so it'll be a new style, fresh look. We're going to build out our own studio there because we've, you know, the success of the podcast and our videos, we just see that as another tool to use to get our message out to people to try to help them. So, we're super excited about that. I don't know. There's nothing I mean, we're just pumped.

DF: That's exciting.

DG: Yeah. How do you feel about it? You ready to make the move?

DF: Absolutely.

DG: Yeah.

DF: Absolutely. This is- there's a lot to be excited about in the next few months.

DG: Yeah

DF: I want to make sure I take the time to thank you for, you know spending so much time with us in StudioOne™, sharing with the listeners more to your story. Everybody has a story, and I know I learned a couple new things, although I love hearing all of your stories and I love how it all came together. I think what I would say from all the employees at Rancho Mesa, that we appreciate you and we honor what you built to this point. So many of us have been here for many, many years. It's just a real honor to work alongside you and with you. And we're just grateful that you spent the time you did with us today. So, thank you and look forward to another 25 years.

DG: Yeah, I really appreciate it, Dan. And, you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that you were one of the cornerstones of my life in a lot of different ways, not just in the business world, just how you are with your family, how you treat other people. You know, I've learned a lot from you, and I will continue to do that. And vicariously, I've been a part of your family and, you know, I love your wife and your children just like they're my own. And it's fun to watch them. You know, 25 years ago, your daughter Ella was born. She was the first baby born to an employee of Rancho Mesa. And now she's graduated college. You know, so excited to see where life takes Ella. So, I’m pealing to you, Ella that- love to have you here at Rancho Mesa. Some way, some shape. Just remember, I'm one that got you that chocolate cigar 25 years ago.

[Outro Music]

DF: Yes.

DG: So, anyway, thanks, Dan, for your time today. I really appreciate.

DF: Thank you. And thanks to all the listeners for joining us. And we'll talk soon.

Alyssa Burley: This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa. Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. For more information, visit us at ranchomesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.