Speaking with Brad Gessner revealed a few key lessons: Don’t be afraid to tackle new projects. Don’t be adverse to moving. Have a supportive spouse.
While some of those may be more easily attainable than others, there are definite actionable takeaways for all from his story.
Gessner has been quick to identify as “a San Diego guy. I’ve lived in North County San Diego most of my life. I never intended to leave.”
But leave he did, to take a chance on an opportunity at a time in his life he thought his venue management career was over and his teaching/consulting career was here.
Before Gessner embarked on his highest profile challenge to date in the venue industry, he had a solid reputation as a great convention center manager, and he did it in the highly political atmosphere of San Diego. He understood public versus private all too well.
In July 2012, he left his job at manager of the San Diego Convention Center, enrolled at San Diego State University to get his masters in hospitality and tourism management, and started promoting his new consulting business. He well knew this business is about relationships and he had plenty of talented friends in the convention center business.
Then he got call from Bob Newman to start a new convention center division for AEG Facilities with the primary goal of winning the contract to run the L.A. Convention Center. “I went to work for them in October,” Gessner summarizes succinctly, but it was an agonizing three-month transition.
The call to join AEG Facilities came out of the blue. He had not applied for it. He did not know Bob Newman personally.
His name was on Newman’s radar because of relationships, like Tom Morton, who worked for Gessner when he was deputy GM at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Morton then worked at the Long Beach Convention Center and the Albuquerque Convention Center for SMG. Later, Tom Liegler and Greg Smith called Gessner about the Anaheim Convention Center, because Smith was going to retire, and Gessner recommended Morton, who got the job. Now, Morton had recommended him to Newman.
“I told my wife when I got the call from Bob, but I wasn’t interested in fulltime work anymore. I thought maybe I can work this and do a consulting deal,” he remembers. “Debra encouraged me. She said she would live in L.A. ‘Let’s give it a try. If we hate it, we can always come back.’ It was the best move I ever made….but it was the most challenging by far.”
He was putting in 20 hours a week on his masters studies and 60 a week in the new job. “I was a department of one initially, with all AEG Facilities’ vast resources.”
He came home one night to their downtown condo and Debra said:
“You look really tired.”
“I feel like a fat kid at boot camp. Everyone at AEG is sharp and Ivy League and works extreme hours. They are bright people. I always considered myself one of them, but when you run with thoroughbreds, they push you.”
The new convention center division at AEG Facilities was a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” moment in Gessner’s life.
The City of L.A. was about to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the privatization of management of their convention center, which had been managed by the City since first built in 1972. For AEG, it was an important piece of business because it was a vital component of AEG’s existing L.A. Live! Campus, which also includes Staples Center, Microsoft Theater, clubs, restaurants and retail.
“They felt having operational control of the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) was imperative to ensuring the economic viability and sustainability of their assets at L.A. Live,” Gessner said. Talk about pressure. He was charged with making that happen.
Gessner not only developed AEG’s proposal, but also sought to refine AEG’s process for bidding on public facility management for future bids, based on his knowledge of how municipalities work.
To do that, he led a team of employees from virtually every department within AEG, AEG Facilities and AEG Ogden, in addition to hiring and working with several consultants, to prepare what became a 1,600-page proposal outlining all aspects of AEG’s qualifying experience and resources and plans for the venue.
Early January through the due date of March 1, 2013, he helmed the bid process, reading and editing each section of the bid many times and working with each department to refine every aspect of the proposal. He was satisfied the proposal addressed every aspect of AEG’s experience and resources and met each requirement of the City’s RFP, except for one sticking point.
This RFP required bidders to provide the previous three years company financials for the City’s Evaluation Committee to review in order to show that the bidder has the financial capability to execute the contract.
“For all our competitors that are publicly-traded companies, this was not an issue. But for AEG, a privately-held company owned by one man who was opposed to sharing the company’s financials with anyone, this posed a challenge,” Gessner said.
The powers at AEG opted to provide a statement that AEG was financially sound and offer to sit with City representatives to discuss and review AEG’s financial capabilities if necessary.
During AEG’s last review meeting before submitting its proposal, Gessner shared his concern.
“The City could disqualify us as being ‘non-responsive’ to the financial requirement. Based on my experience on the public sector side of the table, I believe we should provide the financial information.”
But the AEG President & CEO vetoed that move, as he felt the City wanted AEG as a bidder and wouldn’t disqualify AEG for not providing what he felt was proprietary financial information.
A week later, the City disqualified AEG for being non-responsive.
“Our management team was floored. We convened a quick meeting and the agreement was we would submit a request for reconsideration to the City, which we did immediately. We were granted a meeting with the City’s Chief Administrative Officer, City Council Sub-Committee and the City Attorney to appeal our disqualification.
“The day before the meeting we all met to discuss and rehearse our appeal, which mostly consisted of us saying we were an L.A.-based company evaluated to be worth more than $8 billion, and that as a privately-held company, we shouldn’t be required to share proprietary financial information that would end up in the public domain.”
Both AEG’s lobbyist and its President and CEO were well connected within the city and both felt the city would acquiesce and allow AEG’s proposal despite the technicality.
Gessner offered another scenario, predicting the City would determine it couldn’t legally allow AEG back into the process and that it was in their best interest to scrap this RFP process and reissue it with less stringent reporting of financial information. Since there was only one other bidder, eliminating AEG would hinder the City’s ability to negotiate a favorable management contract. This option negated the likelihood that the competing management company would have solid grounds for a protest.
The lobbyist and the President of AEG Facilities scoffed at Gessner’s alternative scenario, to the point that he offered a $20 wager this is what would happen.
“This will be the easiest $20 I’ve ever made,” one said.
“The City did exactly what I predicted. As we were leaving the meeting the lobbyist graciously came up to me, handed me a twenty-dollar bill and said something to the effect, “I’m going to listen to you from now on.”
The rest is history. After submitting the new proposal with less stringent and “confidential” financial information, AEG was awarded the contract.
And that’s what Gessner means about this being the most rewarding endeavor of his storied career. Not just $20, but the stretch he made to figure it all out and bring public and private entities together.
“Accepting this new position within a new organization, moving to a new city, and taking on this project was definitely out of my comfort zone. But we only grow when we stretch ourselves.”
In the seven years Gessner helmed AEG Facilities convention center division, he greatly expanded his skillset, something his future students as an adjunct professor in event management at San Diego State University will benefit by.
In mid-March 2020, he retired, though he continues to work for ASM Global (the new AEG Facilities) as a consultant, just what he thought he wanted to do in 2012.
He and Debra moved back to San Diego (Encinatas) a year ago. And they bought a 12-acre pecan farm in Comfort, Texas. Gessner will spend half the year farming in Texas and half the year surfing in San Diego.
“I bought a working farm on the Guadalupe River from the original owners. It was founded in 1976. It has a home and a barn and producing pecan trees. It’s a little piece of heaven there.”
Finally, Gessner is going for Comfort. — Based on a true story as told to Linda Deckard
Photo: Ron King, Rip Rippitoe and Brad Gessner at an IAVM event. (Courtesy of Venues Today)