While I always write The Drift from a very personal point of view, over the last 18 years I've perhaps only used this space three times to speak about something truly personal. This is one of those rare occasions.
I invite each of you reading this post to think of someone in your career who somehow changed its course. For me, that guy was Ed Gazich, and he died last Friday. I wish you all could have known him.
As a 22-year old college student I interned at a regional ad agency south of Los Angeles where I met Ed, 25 years my senior but with the outlook and enthusiasm of a teenager. On my very first day at the shop, Ed took me under his wing and - quite simply - made me fall in love with the advertising business. A seasoned "account guy," Ed started his career in the halcyon days of the 1960s, working legendary campaigns for Volkswagen at Doyle Dane Bernbach. When we met, he and his wife Barbara were the kind of fully-committed Californians that only ex-New Yorkers can be. But he was my connection to Madison Avenue and the golden age of creative. Before advertising was a science - perhaps even before it was a business - it was a creative playground informed by art and Hollywood and commerce and real-world experiences. It was all bigger than life, and so was Ed Gazich. The stories of legendary pitches melded into celebrity commercial shoots and always seemed to end with side-splitting laughter. Our business could use some of those stories today.
Like many kids in their 20s, I was adrift and wondering what the hell I would do with my life. Ed and Barbara's house in Laguna Beach was my second home, and over cold Dos Equis (our account) we'd talk about the future and what might be. On one of those endless evenings, Ed was the one who told me I'd be a very good magazine rep - the exact conversation that started me on the path that brought me here. Without Ed Gazich and his kindness to a clueless kid from suburban LA, maybe I don't end up here, writing and sharing with you. There's no way to know. But I do know that my life is less interesting and my passion for advertising is less intense without him.
In recent years, our friendship continued mainly over email. To the end, Ed never stopped sharing his humor and stories and railing about what was not right in the world. He talked too loud, told jokes that were not always appropriate, laughed from the bottom of his feet and shared anything and everything he had.
Why am I telling you all this? Because not all who make a difference end up recognized and eulogized. Because this was a life that mattered, and that had a profound and lasting influence on mine. Because as I try to share completely with those I teach and mentor, I know that I learned some of that from a guy named Ed Gazich.
You should have known him. He'd have loved you.
