David Maricich, President and Chief Creative Officer of Maricich Health, recently appeared as a guest on the Generation Excellence Podcast. This podcast showcases the accomplishments and lasting legacies of multigenerational family businesses.

Founded nearly four decades ago, the agency has evolved from a small healthcare publishing firm into a full-service healthcare marketing and branding powerhouse, spanning three generations.

A special thanks to Jamie Michelson, President & CEO of SMZ Advertising and our TAAN Worldwide agency network affiliate, for hosting this insightful conversation and spotlighting Maricich Health’s journey.

This podcast is dedicated to the memory and spirit of agency founder Suzanne Maricich, who passed away in September 2024.

Links to the Podcast:

Transcript:

ANNOUNCER: Things change from one generation to the next. Attitudes, politics, technology, even lifestyles. But when it comes to business, there’s one thing every generation has in common, the pursuit of excellence. Welcome to Generation Excellence, a conversation with next-gen leaders of family businesses who are working to preserve the past and innovate the future. And now, here’s the host of Generation Excellence, and a third-generation business owner himself, Jamie Michelson. Jamie? 

JAMIE MICHELSON: Hello again. I’m excited to share this episode of the podcast. Our guest is David Maricich, President, COO, and Chief Creative Officer of Maricich Health, a marketing agency and consultancy in Irvine, California. David has many skills, one of which is surfing, which we briefly discuss. He brings that calm surfing vibe to what he’s learned over decades as the second generation, along with his brother, of a unique family enterprise. At Maricich, they talk about working with clients as navigators. I hope you enjoy navigating our wide-ranging conversation as much as I did. And thanks so much for joining us on Generation Excellence. Hello, David. Welcome to the Generation Excellence Podcast. So glad we’re finally doing this. 

DAVID MARICICH: Yes. Hey, Jamie, great to be here. 

JAMIE: And I’m finding you in your office in Irvine, California, correct? 

DAVID: That’s right. Here in Irvine, it’s a beautiful day, and the sun is out, and it’s a beautiful summer day here. 

JAMIE: I was fortunate to get to meet David as a new member of TAAN Worldwide, a global network of mar-comm, digital, and media firms. We met, and I got a little bit of your story, so I know enough to ask some questions about it. But I want to let you tell it, because I want to really mess it up. And one of which is, the understanding that yours is a business that your mother started, created, maybe literally at the kitchen table. And it’s evolved to what the business is today. But if you could tell the story of what the original business was, what she was doing, even as a much younger person, and whatever involvement you had in those in those early days. 

DAVID: It’s an interesting story. It starts back in the 1970s. We were all in Fargo, North Dakota. It’s funny because I share the story with any new employee that joins our team.  I have old pictures and I think it really helps give them context. But we all got in a Mercury Montego 1971. It was brown with a faux leather top, and traveled from Fargo, North Dakota to California. It was a great decision by my parents. My dad is PhD chemist, and he was teaching at North Dakota State University, and my mom was raising kids, and they came out to California. And at that time, my mom was ready to enter the workforce; she had three kids at home, and was ready to forge a way ahead. She had skills in writing and English—she taught English at one time. She found herself working at a hospital in Southern California called St. Mary Medical Center, and was one of the first females in the boardroom there. She was the Director of Marketing. They didn’t even know what marketing was in a hospital. She ended up launching what was the first advertising campaign for a hospital on the West Coast. There was one hospital in the East Coast that had done an advertising campaign. She saw that and showed it to the board and said, “we need to do that here.” And it got approved!  

Then she oversaw a campaign that became ‘St. Mary’s Cares for You’ with a heart in the ‘o’. We all had the T-shirts. So we were kind of groomed for this role in healthcare marketing from very early days with exposure to my mom’s career. Then she went on to another role at a larger hospital in Newport Beach called Hoag Hospital and created a program there that is really recognized around the world now called Project Wipeout. That’s where they educate kids about spinal cord injuries and not diving headfirst into the ocean. That’s still in existence to this day. I remember when she produced that, there were films– remember back in the days where they would put films in schools to teach about public health, don’t get abducted and things like that? There was a ‘Project Wipeout’ film with Ted McGinley from Happy Days– he was the main star of it. I was on the beach in Newport Beach watching a real production. I think I was about 10 years old. Other side of the camera though. I was just watching on and getting to see, essentially, marketing happened. But I had no interest in this business. And I went off and… 

JAMIE: For your mom, what was the original sort of vision of the business that she created? 

DAVID: That’s a great question. There was a transition in about 1986, where she had spent enough years in the boardroom, about 10 years, and really wanted to go on her own. The big epiphany was, one, my brother moved out to go to college, and there was an extra room in the house. Two, there was a new thing called a Mac computer, and a style writer that could do beautiful prints. She started a home desktop publishing and advertising business, and got immediately hired by her previous employer, Hoag Hospital, to do projects, and started working with all types of businesses. And just a really scrappy one woman show that she did essentially for about 10 years on her own. Occasionally, she might have a part-time assistant or something. That was the genesis really of Maricich Health today, but at that time, it was Suzanne Maricich and Associates. Design, creation, production, contracts. She actually did work for In-N-Out Burger. She would take whatever she could get. She got to meet the Snyder family when she did that, worked for a lot of local businesses, and then what really evolved is it became a healthcare publishing business. Her core was doing custom newsletters, writing, designing, and printing. That was the business that I later came into. It was not really an advertising agency; it was a healthcare publishing business. 

JAMIE: Got it. So your brother went off to college, and you were figuring out what you wanted to do next. In conversations like these on the podcast, it’s common to hear one of two things: either someone has no choice but to join the family business, or they want nothing to do with it and have other interests to explore. You fell into the latter group. 

DAVID: That was me. Yeah. 

JAMIE: So, your career began in a very different space, right? The music industry. And I mean, if you share some of those stories and name drop away, if you will. 

DAVID: Yes, it was a lot of fun. I’ve always been passionate about music, and I still am. At the time, I thought, ‘I can really make a go of this.’ I had no interest in marketing, especially not healthcare marketing. I got into school at San Diego State, known as the ‘party school,’ but it was also developing a really cool music scene. I quickly got involved with the college radio station. In my first week, Eddie Vedder’s band, Bad Radio, played a show on campus. There were posters and flyers everywhere, but not many people went. He was so frustrated by the lack of support that he moved to Seattle right after the show. It was a moment that connected me to the emerging music scene. 

About a year or two later, all those Seattle bands started coming down to San Diego and influenced other local bands, creating a scene that caught the attention of record labels. My first big break came when I saw an ad from BMG Music Group for a college rep position. I thought, ‘This is awesome—I’m going to get paid to go to record stores and concerts!’ They liked that I worked at the radio station, and by then, I had started studying marketing. I was figuring out what I wanted to do—still playing music, but leaning more towards marketing. 

BMG had this cool program where they encouraged reps to send in bands they liked to RCA and Arista’s A&R teams. If they liked what you submitted, you’d get some credit. Since I was playing in bands myself and going to clubs every night, I was pretty connected. One night, I was at the Casbah, this tiny, now-legendary club in San Diego, and saw a woman on stage with cool glasses who just blew me away. I got goosebumps as she started singing. After the show, I introduced myself. She was from New York and had flown in for a label showcase but wasn’t interested in signing with them. I gave her my newly minted BMG card, and she handed me a tape. That artist was Lisa Loeb. 

We started corresponding, and I even have letters from her. I sent her demo to RCA and Arista, but they turned it down, saying she wasn’t special enough. Ironically, around that time, Lisa was neighbors with Ethan Hawke, who was starring in Reality Bites. He got her song into the soundtrack, which, funny enough, was released by RCA. Her song ‘Stay’ went on to become the first number one single by an unsigned artist. It was an embarrassing moment for the label, and I think some people lost their jobs over it. Soon after, they called me and asked if I was ‘that kid who found Lisa Loeb.’ They ended up offering me a job in L.A. 

I started working at Zoo Entertainment, a label under BMG, and got lucky. A few weeks after I joined, most of the staff were let go, but they kept me because I was inexpensive. They teamed me up with Matt Marshall, who had signed Tool. At the time, Tool was gaining momentum, and I got to be the assistant A&R on their album Ænima. I spent time in the studio with them at Ocean Way, working with producer David Bottrill, who had worked with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Witnessing the making of one of the greatest hard rock/metal albums ever was an incredible experience. That was a really exciting time in my life, and I thought I’d be doing that forever. 

JAMIE: So to then get involved in what is today’s Maricich Health, was it– you’re done with the music business, you want to change, your brother had joined and calls you, your mom, how did that entry go? What were those conversations? What was the plan? 

DAVID: It was kind of random, actually. I did a few more years, I signed my own band– not my band, but I found a band and that I thought was going to be big time. They were a Weezer-esque type band, of which there were many running around at the time. We recorded with a guy named Mike Clink, who produced the Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction record, and had a little kind of alternative/metal thing going on. Unfortunately, that album did not take off, and there was a lot of volatility at that particular record label. The whole label essentially folded. I found myself out of work, and I had a big decision to make: was I going to stay in L.A. and just, do the job-to-job thing?  I also saw the writing was on the wall with the music industry and Napster and the digitalization of music was happening. 

JAMIE: Yeah. 

DAVID: Also, the decision to live in L.A. versus Orange County, it’s definitely a different lifestyle. At one point, I started my own business, which I ran for about a year. It was an interesting model, somewhat similar to the ‘American Idol’ concept but different. Clearly, it wasn’t the right model, or I’d probably still be doing that today. It didn’t make much money that first year, and my wife suggested it was time to figure out what I wanted to do next. 

I ended up helping my mom temporarily because her assistant had left. I thought it would just be for a couple of months while I figured things out. But one thing led to another. As I got more involved, I realized there was potential to improve things and an opportunity to build something bigger. Around that time, we secured a major contract with Memorial Care, a large health system with five hospitals. They needed custom newsletters for all of them, and up to that point, my mom had only been producing one or two. It was overwhelming, and there was clearly money to be made, so I suggested we turn it into a business. Year after year, we doubled our gross income, and things really took off. 

JAMIE: So isn’t it business out of your brother’s bedroom by this point? 

DAVID: It was out. Yes– we had an office. That was another part that lured me in. She had an office overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

JAMIE: Okay. 

DAVID: In a little town called Seal Beach, California, which is where I grew up. I’m a surfer. I loved the idea of having my surfboard at the office and taking lunch breaks, going surfing. So I thought, “OK, this is another thing I love. I can definitely trade music for surfing.” But funny enough, in the years that we were down there, we were there for about seven years. I maybe surfed three or four times. 

JAMIE: It’s just the idea of being able to do it. 

DAVID: Yeah, the surf isn’t great in Seal Beach. And aside from a rare hurricane swell, it does not get very good. And then you get busy, you just have to get the work done. 

JAMIE: So I think you’re the first person I’ve had on the podcast who’s come into the business from music business. And when we talk about boards, we’re usually meant like serving on a nonprofit or their own business board, not like riding skateboards and riding surfboards. 

DAVID: Yeah. 

JAMIE: There’s a funny saying, if you’re a surfer and work in business, “are we going to have a board meeting?” And that means you’re surfing with your friends. 

DAVID: Yeah, that’s something I do. 

JAMIE: So you’re in this business. Was your brother involved in the business at that time when you first got involved in it? 

DAVID: No, he wasn’t actually. He was first, and it’s interesting, he’s the one who has the most agency experience. He worked at a couple small and mid-sized agencies here in Orange County. So he had a lot of roots in advertising in Orange County. Then he went on and he actually went up and worked for DirecTV up in Los Angeles. Then he came back and got a job at another agency that was doing very well here in Orange County that was more B2B focused. 

JAMIE: Was he doing that with always a sense of, “get my experience outside and then join in?” Or he just kind of was around the business growing up, he liked the industry and just got into it? 

DAVID: I think, yes, he liked the industry. I don’t think that was by design. He wasn’t talking about, eventually taking over and growing the family agency together. Because really at that time, it was more of like a publishing company. It wasn’t so much like an advertising agency. But when he saw that we were growing and that then we started doing a consulting side for change management. We were also doing some advertising for the hospitals as well. So he had an opportunity in that business. He was doing a lot of business development and really looking… he wanted to be a partner. And I think at that time that business wasn’t ready to make him a partner. And he looked over and said, “hey, you guys are doing well.” This is a family. I remember at the time he said, “let’s hook our wagons up and let’s do this. Let’s grow this thing and make it into, evolve it into a branding integrated marketing agency.” And we’ll specialize. I think at that time, we weren’t certain we were only going to specialize in healthcare, but it was a big part of our business. 

JAMIE: You all were certainly probably ahead of all the other consultants that talked to agencies specifically about that vertical specificity. And you’ve had that health focus from what I understand for a long time. 

DAVID: Yes, it’s really been close to 20 years that we’ve only done healthcare. 

JAMIE: And then you create this thing called Brandtivity, right? It’s the bringing together brands and creativity and all these things for… is the intersection of all these components. Is that a new creation of marketing your own firm? Is that something that’s been around for a long part of those 20 years? When did that come into being? 

DAVID: Brandtivity came about roughly seven years ago. We wanted a way to showcase our unique strengths, particularly our healthcare specialty. What sets us apart even further is our multicultural subspecialty within healthcare, where we bridge the gap between the general market and multicultural markets. This allows us to create cohesive, fluid campaigns for consumers who often live in bicultural environments. 

For example, a household may have grandparents or parents who primarily consume Hispanic media, while younger members might speak English at work but switch to Spanish at home. They may all watch a show like American Idol in English but listen to Hispanic radio on the way to an appointment. In this context, they’re engaging with campaigns in both English and Spanish. Often, campaigns are disconnected because the Spanish version is created later by a different agency, which may not capture the original intent accurately. But we handle it cohesively from the start. 

Brandtivity reflects that commitment to diversity, which we’ve been practicing long before the rise of DEI initiatives, particularly around the time of COVID. We started this back in 2010 and ran campaigns in eight different languages here in Southern California over 10-15 years ago. We call this approach ‘cultural infusion,’ a key part of our diversity strategy and team. 

So, Brandtivity adds a bit of that ‘sizzle’ to what we do. We say, ‘When Maricich meets healthcare, anything is possible,’ and Brandtivity is part of that. As with any agency, we’re always evolving, thinking about our next positioning and message to stay relevant to our clients. It’s been seven years with Brandtivity, and now we’re looking at how we continue to evolve. 

JAMIE: Is there anything that is, from the early founding days of your mom starting something, is there a credo, a process, or something that carries forward or that you refer to, or it’s on a wall somewhere? 

DAVID: Yes, ‘Anything is Possible.’ We’re doing a little refresh of our office, and that saying will go nicely as art up on the wall. We come in rolling up our sleeves saying, “yes, let’s figure out how we can get it done.” It’s funny, over the years, sometimes will get teamed up with other agencies that aren’t about that. They are more about saying “no, only if you do it the way we do it.” And it’s not a wrong way of doing it. It’s just a style. 

JAMIE: A philosophy style. 

DAVID: A philosophy. Yes. And so we, we’ve always rolled up our sleeves and jumped in on things. 

JAMIE: I love that you say that because our agency goes back 95 years. That’s one of the few holdovers that we know, like from the founder’s lingo. And it was important to roll up your sleeves because in that era, when you weren’t even supposed to take your jacket off. 

DAVID: Yes. 

JAMIE: They not only took their jacket off with their suit and tie and hung it up, but then rolled up the sleeves, literally did that. And that was like this radical thing, and it held forward of, “yeah, just roll up your sleeves and go to work.” 

DAVID: Love it. Yes. Well, I’ll give you an example of one of these kinds of ‘moonshot crazy, say yes, anything is possible’ things. A few years ago, during COVID, one of our clients, a small preclinical biopharma company, was at an inflection point. They weren’t sure if they were going to go on. They were developing, and they are currently developing a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. At that time, we were like, this is too important. There’s technology here and discovery here that is too important to let go. So we got involved, we became investors, and helped move the company forward. Today, there’s been funding, and there’s a lot of interest in the company. Really, we still are involved in terms of investor relations and communications and decks and supporting a lot of different levels. And now, there’s great energy and movement in that company, and they’re differentiated in the Alzheimer’s space, and this also gets into other neurodegeneration and other conditions being looked at. So we’re hoping, and we’re knocking on wood, that our efforts, our involvement at that critical point will play out for humankind at some point. That’s why we’re so lucky in our business in healthcare.  

We were involved in COVID campaigns to increase the rate of COVID boosters, and that helped to save lives. We had a campaign where we could show the data that our work helped save lives. That is such a special thing. When I look back on the music business, which was fun, and I still love music, but today, to be able to help improve and even potentially save lives in the process, it’s amazing that we get to do. 

JAMIE: That sounds like, when you start talking about the biopharma and that world… your father was a chemist, you said. 

DAVID: That’s right, yeah, PhD chemist. 

JAMIE: Yes, and you said that in the high science world things start to intersect. So as you look at this, so the business is how old now? How many years in operation from its? 

DAVID: Yes, our 40th anniversary is going to come up in 2026. We’re at 38 years right now. 

JAMIE: The road to the 40th, as you look out a little bit, because that’s part of what you do, and healthcare is a huge part of GDP, and a complicated but evolving industry, and it’s going to be around. What are you excited about as you look out? 

DAVID: Yes, it’s an exciting time. And over the last four or five years, there was really an accelerated M&A process in our business. Our type of agency was highly sought after. We just weren’t ready. We enjoy what we do. We’re very bullish. But a lot of our colleagues sold out. Especially during COVID, there was a lot of opportunity to… there was the quiet quitting, right? People were in a position to sell their businesses. 

JAMIE: Quiet quitting, that’s noisier quitting. 

DAVID: Yeah, it was noisier quitting for a lot of our competitors. And so now you have a situation where there are a lot of holding companies owning these firms that used to have entrepreneurs that were running it. A lot of them are on the golf course now, enjoying a little more relaxed life. And then they’ve turned it over to a different type of team that are running these agencies. We see that as an advantage. With the amount of experience that we have hands-on, rolling up the sleeves, working on the campaigns, you can’t just create that. It’s unique. We have clients like Clorox Healthcare, for example. They came to us to reposition that division and really take something that was being viewed a bit as a commodity and really say what’s special about their offering. They’ve entrusted us to do that. We’ve seen and heard a lot of clients saying “we’re just not getting it from our agency. There’s just not that spark. There are no ideas coming in. There’s a lot of activity. There’s a lot of things happening. But that spark and that big idea that we can reposition our division and grow our revenues by tens of millions or more– they’re not finding it.” We see that as a bullish sign that we’re on the right track that we’ve helped out. We’re in growth mode. We also love the entrepreneurial side of things and being involved in the preclinical life sciences company. So it’s fun. We’re getting up and we’re excited every day to work across the health care ecosystem and help people at the end of the day. 

JAMIE: And so you were, we were laughing about both your title and all the hats that it includes, right? So, ops and strategy and thinking about the business. Explain how is it that you and your brother are leading the business now? As in, the process of behind the curtain; a little bit of the ownership and shares and transference from what your mother had founded. Was that an orderly thing? Did she lead it? Did you all do it? Was it smooth? Because from founders to the next generation has all kinds of… there are all kinds of stories. So I was wondering what yours is… 

DAVID: It was very smooth, and we are just lucky to have great parents who were always looking out for the kids. But the business was quite small when we joined. We were able to, my brother and I, really grow the business over the first few years that we were involved. Then in talking to different advisors, it was good tax planning, transition planning, all that kind of stuff to transition shares and do a buy-sell agreement. Very early on, we became equal partners in the business. We became majority owners in the business, but we had equal voting. The proxy side of things, the proxy share. That worked out well because it’s good in businesses to have odd numbers so that you can have that, not just two people, if there are disagreements or a stalemate, but three or five. Then you have a little bit of that imbalance that creates a situation where everyone really must work together to move the company forward. So that’s worked for us for many years.  

JAMIE: So that’s paperwork and governance and all great. Day to day… you’re running a business. Let’s talk about how you and your brother… how do you make decisions together? What’s that dynamic like? 

DAVID: Yeah, it’s really interesting. It’s evolved. 

JAMIE: Are you stylistically? I know you. I don’t know him. Right. It’s your lead. Are you’re sort of working in leadership style similar to? 

DAVID: No, we’re totally different. Which is good, though. 

JAMIE: Yeah. 

DAVID: Yes. He is very, I think, by nature, more external focused. He loves business development. He loves going to trade shows and conferences and being client-facing. Historically, I would like to be more behind the scenes. He tends to be more business development. I’m Chief Creative Officer, always focused on the creative. But in an agency, if you’re overseeing creative, that’s a very external role as well. It’s internal and external. You’re selling in. And there was a period where I stepped back and we brought in other creatives and I participated in the creative. I was more focused on business growth and operations and doing that. But really, in the last five or six years, I stepped back into that, the material role of being chief creative officer. And we’re now both very involved with clients all day long, very external focus. But his primary role is business development strategy, and mine is the creative and some other aspects of the business as well. 

JAMIE: With the various roles we take on, regardless of age, we’re always aiming to improve what we do. In healthcare, ‘getting better’ might have a unique meaning, but we’re all striving for growth. Given your extensive skills and background, is there something specific you’re currently exploring, experimenting with, or trying to better understand for the business and its future? 

DAVID: Yes, absolutely. Historically, we’d hold management and board meetings where we’d discuss a lot of ideas and initiatives, and we’d all be very hands-on. However, we realized we needed to bring in more outside help—consultants, agents of growth, business experts. I’ve been taking on the responsibility of dividing tasks more strategically, rather than trying to do everything as a group. We now have regular check-ins, and this approach has been working well for us. 

In the past, when we tried to do everything as a group—especially in a family business—there were often a lot of differing viewpoints, which I think many listeners can relate to. Those conversations would sometimes get spirited, but we wouldn’t always come to a resolution. Then we’d revisit the same issues, and family dynamics would come into play, which can naturally slow things down. Bringing in a third party has been great for us, helping us move past those dynamics and make real progress. 

Previously, outside consultants often acted more like referees in our group discussions, and we still didn’t make the progress we wanted. Now, we’ve restructured our approach by forming teams. For example, if there’s a project to evolve our media team, we designate someone to take charge of it. I’ll be informed and offer support, but that person is ultimately responsible. This shift has been supported by the RASCI model—Responsible, Accountable, Supporting, and Informed. It’s been really effective for us. Instead of debating things as a group, we now assign responsibility to individuals or small teams, and they make the final call. This has allowed us to move forward more efficiently. 

JAMIE: Yes, I got introduced to that through a financial services client. They have so much to do, and they had to do the same thing. 

DAVID: Yes, it’s a very common way of managing and communicating through a business. I like simple things. I’ve learned over the years that the more complex the model, the less likely it’s going to work. So we’ve really favored simplicity. When I was introduced to RASCI, I thought, okay, this is super simple and you can immediately understand it. And so now our big thing and our whole team does it: Who’s the R on that? Who’s the R? Dave’s the R on that. Okay, all right. Well, he better get it done then. So, yes. 

JAMIE: When you embrace, we’re using the EOS, it can feel a bit overwhelming for outsiders who aren’t familiar with the terminology—they might think, ‘What’s going on here?’ But the key is that it creates a sense of discipline. I’m totally on board with that. I also focus on simplifying things, especially when they start to get complicated. I always try to bring it back to simplicity. 

DAVID: Yes. 

JAMIE: You’ve got your music, and you’ve got work, and you’ve got surfing. Anything else that you do to round yourself out or keep yourself grounded or inspired or even a new hobby you’re taking on? 

DAVID: I think the big thing for us is, we’re empty nesters. My wife came to me a couple of years ago, and she says, OK, we need something we’re going to do together, like, beyond raising kids and stuff. We had skied a little bit, brought the kids up to the mountains here and there. So we said, “OK, let’s get into skiing, let’s buy our own equipment and really go and get the Ikon pass.” We started doing that, going up to Mammoth. And I said, hey, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to take lessons. I’m an advanced skier. She was OK and came in as the skiing consultant. 

JAMIE: Exactly. The third party. 

DAVID: So we did that. My wife was not keen on advanced runs, but now she can go down and ski a lot more together. I’m also trying to take more surf trips with my buddies and get to exotic locales like El Salvador. I was just invited to go surfing in Tahiti, though I unfortunately probably can’t make the Olympic skiing. I mean, the Olympic surfing. 

JAMIE: Yeah, not to Teahupo’o. Or they they say it a hundred different ways. 

DAVID: I would never surf that wave. I mean, it’s not the same wave, but there are a lot of other still very expert waves that that aren’t as insane as that one. So just trying to stay in shape and have fun and enjoy life. You have got to. I work very hard. We all work very hard here. And that balance like Jeff Bezos talks about. He is big on life-work harmony versus balance. 

JAMIE: Versus balance. Right. Because the balance comes over time. You have times where you all work. You have times where you play. It’s not every day that it’s an exact balance. 

DAVID: Yes. The harmony thing that makes a lot of a lot of sense. 

JAMIE: The harmony thing that makes a lot of sense. And then, you know, you mentioned the empty nester thing. One of the things I read doing some homework on your business, you were like at your alma mater and have a daughter there and all that kind of stuff. So is there a G3 in the wings involved in any way in the business? Run it as fast as possible. What’s that plan? 

DAVID: Yeah, it’s funny that you should ask that. Actually, we do have the third generation. The podcast has got to ask it, yes. 

JAMIE: Of course! 

DAVID: Yes. And it’s the third generation. My daughter, Georgi, is in the business now. 

JAMIE: Okay. 

DAVID: She started as an intern. I believe it was even in high school. She came in and did a few things. Then she came back the next year, maybe her first year of college. She planned our team barbecue during the summer. Everybody was really impressed with how organized she was. When she graduated, we both went to San Diego State University, she had met a boy in Denmark during a semester abroad. Now she’s in a long-distance relationship and was really looking for the flexibility of being able to go every six to eight weeks or so and visit, and he would do the same. She came to me and said, “Hey, is there an opportunity?” I said, “Actually, we need, I could just use a personal assistant right now. I’m so busy.” And I knew, we think a lot alike, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And she came in and she was just excellent at that. I had her for about six months to myself. Then people were like, “It would be great if she could do this and that.” So, we promoted her to account coordinator and she’s working on client business now. She’s client-facing on several clients and clients love her. It’s great. She’s likely due for another promotion here soon, but who knows? You know, the story was, I came in not expecting to stay and that’s her current plan. But, you know, here I am all these years later, so… 

JAMIE: Right. I’ve definitely captured some of those stories of, “There’s something to fix and deal with.” And then I’m here all this time, and then, and others. You may have just answered this next question or one of the last few questions, which is, what’s the best idea for running your company or agency that you’ve implemented recently? It sounds like it might have been your daughter getting involved, but maybe that’s not the case. 

DAVID: No, that’s been a great decision. Yeah, I think it, and this is going back a few years, but COVID, everybody had major change during COVID. Our change was to really get back materially involved in every aspect of our business, hands-on, rolling up the sleeves. It has allowed us to really reinvent some things and the way we’re doing it, and bring in new team members. There’s just this kind of renewed energy. This last year, we won more awards than we’ve ever won. Awards are great, but the real award is our clients seeing growth. 

JAMIE: Exactly, right. 

DAVID: We’re seeing great results across the board. We just completed a client survey, and the feedback has been outstanding. Clients are thrilled with the work we’re presenting, and we’re also getting affirmation from industry stakeholders. For example, with Clorox Healthcare’s ‘Protecting with Purpose’ campaign in infection control, long-time infection preventionists have praised it, saying it’s brilliant and that none of our competitors are doing anything similar. Hearing that kind of feedback, not only from clients but also from their stakeholders, is incredibly exciting. It shows that we’re moving the needle and driving real, positive change in their businesses. 

That kind of impact is the most rewarding part. It’s also prompted us to take a closer look under the hood and make some fundamental changes to our business. There are so many areas where we’re evolving, and while I could go on about it for hours, I’ll just say that getting that feedback was the spark. I know many long-time family business owners who have left the daily operations, but I’d encourage anyone who feels their business could use a boost to roll up their sleeves and dive back in. It’s worth it. 

JAMIE: I know, I’ve said to clients, for clients that do an annual meeting, an annual conference, gathering of their team, where the agency is involved, oftentimes we would help kind of theme those things, right? And I’ve noticed, doesn’t matter the business, every fifth year, fourth year, seventh is the year of the back to basics. 

DAVID: Yes. 

JAMIE: You go through all of these things, growth, team, et cetera. Then it’s like, and those may all work. Then you even get some growing pains and that’s when you’ve got to get back to the basics. Then you go on. I mean, it’s a marketing business cycle. I don’t have scientific data on it. I’ve just seen it.  

DAVID: Because you mentioned Bezos. I do that thing as I’m talking to people in these generational businesses. And we’re one, which is we’re distant from the founders. We’re not entrepreneurs. But you still got to have that spirit and spark and hunger and drive. Otherwise, you just get kind of like, oh, we made it. 

JAMIE: Yeah. 

DAVID: You get run over. 

JAMIE: And yeah, and it’s fun too. It’s fun to be involved. And, I mean, there’s always a danger. And you’re not talking micromanagement. You’re just talking about having familiarity with stuff and being a resource and being in it. 

DAVID: Yeah, it’s the difference of actually being, in touch and participating on some level on the actual business product or service. 

JAMIE: Yes. 

DAVID: There was a time when I was more focused on the administrative side of the business, but reconnecting with the work has been energizing. Now, I’m focused on contributing more value, using my years of experience to help improve client outcomes. That experience is too valuable to let go to waste. It’s been really rewarding—and honestly fun—to be back in the mix. 

JAMIE: Are there other businesses, whether they’re clients or that call on you or use you, use your brother as a resource? Do you talk to some of them about some of these things that you’ve done seemingly very smoothly and well? 

DAVID: That’s interesting. The companies we work with, and I’m trying to think of on the vendor side, but most of the client side, very large organizations, some are in the public arena. We’re talking multi-billion dollar organizations, large corporations, as I mentioned Clorox, we also do work with Experian. And then to the family aspect there, we work with startups as well. But many times, those startups are private equity funded, VC funded, and again, you don’t see the family. 

JAMIE: We’re fortunate, we’re that as a business, and we have some clients that are, because they’re advertising, they have budgets, so they’re going to be larger than us often, like yours. But yeah, that are, have maintained or retained that type of structure, and they’re a third generation too, or they’re, and have grown the business, but kept that way of operating versus being public or something. 

DAVID: We do see it a little bit in some of the vendors that we work with. They’ll be family business, and we always chuckle, “Oh, you work with your dad.” 

JAMIE: Right, right. 

DAVID: And we know the feeling? 

JAMIE: Yeah. 

DAVID: Parents and multiple generation business. 

JAMIE: There’s added layers to it. A couple last questions. If you were a baseball player and had to pick out the walk-up music that would play when you come out of the dugout to go up to bat. What would you have playing as they call you up? 

DAVID: Well, it’s funny timing. I just went to the Angels game last night and it was like being in a minor league stadium. There was the most sparse crowd I’d ever seen there. And they were one out away from winning the game. You could hear a pin drop. Nobody was standing and cheering. Then unfortunately, the Rockies then hit a two-run homer and ended up winning the game. So maybe that’s why no one was cheering. They knew they were going to lose. But I would probably have a Coldplay song, maybe not the most pump-up song, but they’re kind of like the band that I would go out of my way to go see. 

JAMIE: Okay. 

DAVID: And then Khruangbin is another one that would be a very horrible like walk-up to the baseball. It would put everyone to sleep, maybe, but I love them. It’s great when I need to get in the zone, I put on Khruangbin. So, that’s my distraction. But I’d probably put a little more, “Sky Full of Stars” or something on to come up and hit the ball and hopefully hit the ball into the stars. Like that, like Shohei Otani did last week. 

JAMIE: I like that! So what I’ve told people, the one common question, I sort of wrap up this series of talking to these people that have these unique family operations—what’s been the most fulfilling thing for you about this generational business that’s approaching four decades in operation? 

DAVID: I always come back to the fact that every day we have the opportunity to help our clients grow their businesses while making a real difference in people’s lives. At the end of the day, we’ve been fortunate to work with companies that are genuinely focused on helping others. Sure, there’s the business side, economic growth, and all of that, but our clients are in this because they want to make a positive impact. They’re not selling candy bars or energy drinks, as Steve Jobs put it—they’re developing new medicines, treatments, or innovations in healthcare delivery, and helping more people access care. Whether it’s increasing membership in health plans or creating public health solutions for underserved communities, our clients are truly changing lives for the better. 

That’s what makes this work so special on a daily basis. And to do it alongside family, and still be able to gather around the dinner table at Thanksgiving with everyone getting along—that’s something we’ve really learned to balance over the years. We’ve figured out how to turn off work when it’s time for family, and that’s been a big part of our success. 

JAMIE: I’m glad you brought that up. I’ll have to ask about that. 

DAVID: Over the years, there were some things that have popped up and then we’re like, “Okay, we’re not going to bring that up again.” Or you see eyes roll at the table and it’s kind of… 

JAMIE: Yeah, “we’re not talking about that.” 

DAVID: We’re very fortunate to have family on a day-to-day basis. There are things you cannot do in a business without family—the honesty that you can have, the ability to move quickly and be on the same page and know, you spend your whole life with somebody, you know what you can do. Some family businesses don’t work out. But once you do it for a few years and you’re able to get over the bumps, you usually can do it perfectly. I think Maricich Health is proof of that. 

JAMIE: So anything else I neglected to ask you about or you’d like to touch on or? 

DAVID: No, I got to get out there to see a Tigers game one of these days. I haven’t been there. Comerica Park would be a nice spot for you to be. A few more fans than I just described. Maybe a little more exciting baseball going on there. All is good. I appreciate you have me on, Jamie. It was great. 

JAMIE: Yeah, I appreciate you riding this wave with me. This was really fun. Thanks. 

DAVID: Yeah, and I’m happy to bring you out on the board. I’ve got lots of boards if you come to California or it sounds like you might be here soon. You’re always welcome to. I’ve got extra boards and wetsuits. Let’s go surfing. 

JAMIE: Oh boy. Okay. Thank you. I’ll see you soon. 

ANNOUNCER: Generation Excellence is a production of SMZ Advertising. Thanks to Joel Bienenfeld, Jeff Martin, and Bridget Georgievsky for help with this program. Thank you for listening. And please share, leave reviews, and contact me if you have any thoughts, ideas, questions.