March 13, 2022

There’s nothing quite like your first day as a business owner.

For me, that was five years ago today, when we hit “publish” on the first stories for SiouxFalls.Business.

As a new business owner, in an instant, you’ve put yourself out there to let the marketplace be your judge. You find out right away – and then many days, months and years going forward – who’s your friend, who has your back and who you want to emulate.

I launched my business quickly, and not many people knew it was coming. My goal was to secure enough advertising partners that I felt I could sustain it financially and then get going as fast as possible. Spring was approaching, and there was a lot of business news to chase.

I didn’t know Gary Gaspar that well, but we’d had one conversation that made me think he’d be receptive to the approach to advertising I wanted to take.

So I emailed Gary. I told him I had some changes and potential opportunities I wanted to discuss.

I think he emailed back within the hour and set up the meeting for the following day.

I walked into his office with an idea and a mocked-up website. After maybe a 30-minute meeting, I left with a one-year agreement for Interstate Office Products to become an original sponsor of SiouxFalls.Business.

It’s hard for even me, who works with words for a living, to describe what having someone believe in me that early in business meant. And it’s impossible to forget it.

Gary wasn’t alone. We launched with more than a dozen such partners, many who signed up with equally fast and firm confidence in this business, and nearly every single one remains a partner five years later, as we’ve added dozens more.

What’s unique about our advertising for our partners is that it takes the form of storytelling. And that means I’ve gotten to know all of them, including Interstate Office Products, in a way that goes far beyond the typical, more transactional relationship between a publication and an advertiser.

It is one of the most rewarding parts of what I do. And telling the stories of these businesses has done more than anything else to show me the best road ahead for my own business.

Few have exemplified that for me in the same way as Interstate Office Products.

Put simply, this team just does things right. They plan. They strategize. They meet or beat deadlines. They catch mistakes before you do. They’re always kind, always professional, always accommodating. They even pay their bill ahead of when it’s due. And that’s just been my experience as a vendor.

I also have interviewed dozens of their clients over time – at least one every month for five years – and to a person they overflow with praise for Interstate Office Products. There is zero prompting needed in these testimonials. They love their workspaces, love their customer experience and really love the team that made it all happen.

A culture like that starts at the top. And as CEO, Gary Gaspar epitomized the commitment to excellence and work ethic I’ve just described. We would talk often about what drove his business. I think it’s summed up by what he wrote in his own job description on LinkedIn:

“We create meaningful work environments where you become your best.”

That’s the big “why.” It’s why they do what they do, why it’s about more than helping clients decide what desks to buy and where to place them. It’s ultimately why people want to join their team and why businesses become customers and repeat customers.

That’s what leaders do. They set the vision, help others understand the “why” and then guide them toward executing the work to make it all happen.

Gary didn’t just do that within his own company. He brought that same perspective and insight to organizations that benefited from his volunteer leadership, especially on boards within Avera Health. He once spent a solid 20 minutes explaining a nuanced change in health insurance to me, and after grasping about 25 percent of it, my only real takeaway was how lucky they were he ended up as board chair.

Essentially, I know few people as “together” as Gary, which is why his death last week left me in disbelief as I know it did so many others who called him a friend and colleague.

I sat down last year with his sister, Sheila, son James and longtime executive Kristi Christensen to reflect on the company’s history and future for a story on their 50th anniversary. At the time, they teased Gary because some younger members of the family tired a bit of hearing one of his signature phrases.

“Life is not that hard if you do what you’re supposed to do,” he was known to say.

And in so many ways, he’s exactly right. So many of our problems are of our own making.

But, sometimes, you can do everything “right” and things still happen outside of your control. You can eat right, exercise right, avoid risk factors and still end up with a terminal illness. You can have the executive coach, belong to the peer group, seek care and have the support of family and close friends, and whatever is happening in your brain can still get the better of you.

One of the most profound things the Gaspar family did to honor Gary’s legacy was to share with all of us that he died after battling depression.

I could have had to write “a cause of death was not disclosed” when I wrote the story of his passing and let the speculation take hold. Instead, the family did what I know Gary would have wanted. They used this moment to remind all of us to seek help and to make sure we’re reaching out to others.

The past two years have been so difficult in so many ways for so many of us – and uniquely so for those who lead businesses. It feels, at least for me, like this is an opportunity to reset how we care for ourselves and connect to others.

For instance, I’m reminded that the Interstate Office Products office is literally steps from my own office. I used to stop by at least every six weeks to do my interviews with members of the team. And when I did, I’d nearly always end up in conversation with Gary afterward – generally starting with business and then progressing to development and city issues. I’d stop by James’ desk to joke with him about something. I’d pop my head in Sheila’s office or wave on my way in or out.

Now, more often than not, I use a Zoom call to do interviews with their designers. There’s no great reason why, other than I’ve learned that if I do that, I can schedule more work on either side without breaking to leave the building.

But that also meant I missed all those other interactions. The 20 minutes I probably would have spent checking in with Gary or the rest of the family were used to fit in one more phone call or write one more story. And, in the final analysis, we all know which are the moments that matter.

I’m grateful I still had many of them. But of all the lessons I’ve learned in business the past five years, this reminder that the human connections matter most is a powerful one. As Gary showed us, you never know what someone else is dealing with. I now feel like I want to reach out to everyone in this business community I haven’t gotten to connect with as much as I used to, just to make sure they’re doing OK. Because I’m sure at least some are not.

And if that’s you, I will just repeat what Gary’s family shared. Please honor his legacy by reaching out anywhere for help. Talk to someone you trust, call 211 or literally walk into any medical facility and they will get you where you need to be.

I know that the stories we will tell going forward for Interstate Office Products will reflect Gary’s incredible legacy. This is a whole team full of people who do all the right things, including when no one is looking.

They will continue doing what Gary said – creating meaningful work environments where you become your best – just as they’ve spent the past five years helping do that for me.

Interstate Office Products CEO Gary Gaspar dies at 56