Marcia Bahr

Photo: Jeff Silker

Curtain Call

Seasoned Mankato marketing and communications professional shares wealth of wisdom from radio, franchise restaurant, telecommunications, and healthcare industries.

Mickey Goldmill, Mary Maxwell Gates, and Hamilton Jordan. Although often forgotten, all played a behind-the-scenes role pushing others out onto the public stage. Fictional Goldmill trained chicken-chasing Rocky Balboa to beat brash-bashing Apollo Creed in front of a national television audience; well-connected Mary Maxwell Gates helped maneuver son Bill Gates’ Microsoft into the national limelight; and Hamilton Jordan quietly engineered Jimmy Carter’s improbable White House run.

Add Mankatoan Marcia Bahr. For more than 20 years here, she has lived vicariously through the businesses and organizations she preps for the stage. Their public acclaim has been hers enjoyed, but only backstage.

Since 1990, chronologically, 46-year-old Bahr has been a KXLP-FM account executive, Domino’s and Subway marketing manager, Midwest Wireless vice president of marketing and communications, Alltel marketing consultant, and currently, director of marketing and communications of locally owned, 120-physician Mankato Clinic. She has been a faithful backstage helper for South Central College, Salvation Army, and Mankato Clinic Foundation. Along with others, she quietly co-owns Jersey Mike’s Subs of hilltop Mankato.

Perhaps no one person regionally has more top-tier marketing and public relations experience in more industries. Though generally unaware of Bahr—who today remembers Mary Maxwell Gates?—southern Minnesotans certainly recognize the names of businesses she has helped build up. One of her finest accomplishments was her backstage role helping Mankato-based Midwest Wireless take a bow and final curtain call in 2005-06 after selling to Alltel for $1.075 billion.

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Describe your involvement with the Area News Consortium.
It meets once or twice a year for networking, so when a community crisis occurs, we all know the communication contact at different organizations. It consists of people from healthcare, area counties, City of Mankato, MNDOT, the universities, and the American Red Cross. We share email to keep each other informed about local happenings. For example, I receive City of Mankato email about road closures the same time the newspaper (Free Press) does. It’s helpful for our planning. The first time this group was put to the test since I became a member was when H1N1 flu hit and suddenly we had a plan to vaccinate over 5,000 people. Having those relationships in place helped communicate and plan what needed doing.

In regard to H1N1, discuss how the decision was made to remove magazines and children’s toys from Mankato Clinic lobby areas?
The public was concerned about germs and we wanted to do whatever necessary to reduce that concern. We removed magazines and toys for a time. We also had masks for patients available, which we encouraged them to wear if they were experiencing H1N1 respiratory symptoms, and we had hand sanitizer everywhere.

Was your decision made to relieve the fear or to halt the spread of germs? If it was for the latter, then why were magazines allowed back in? The germs are still there.
We discussed that at length. We were seeing a decline in patient satisfaction scores concerning the comfort of our waiting areas because we didn’t have anything for patients to read. Some patients really wanted those magazines back. In fact, we learned some people enjoy coming to the Clinic just to read magazines while waiting. It was their only “me” time during the day.

Tell me about your family when growing up.
I had two sisters, but lost one 15 years ago to lung cancer. I’m by far the baby of the family. My dad was a taxidermist with a shop in our basement and my mother worked in the post office. My family is outdoorsy and enjoys hunting, fishing, and hiking. My father had his private pilot’s license, owned a plane, and often flew us to our cabin in northern Minnesota, sometimes after church on Sunday just to mow the lawn and fly back. Or we would fly somewhere to eat. We knew where all the restaurants were within walking distance of airports. Ours is a close-knit family. I was raised like an only child, but feel I’m part of a much larger family because of my oldest sister, who has four children not much younger than me.

Did what happen with your sister with cancer prepare you for what you’re doing at Mankato Clinic?
Yes, I think so. I’ve seen what families with illness go through. My sister still living is a registered nurse. When families need to come together in times of crisis, often you (automatically) start playing the family role you played growing up. When my sister was sick with cancer, my dad died suddenly—we lost them both in a five-month period in 1997-98. My sister (the nurse) was the caregiver and talked to the doctors and translated for the rest of the family about my sister’s (and father’s) condition. The role I played was in event planning, such as the funerals and making sure everything was in place so my mom didn’t have to worry about details.

When my dad died from what was probably a heart attack, I’d been at Midwest Wireless only a few months and had just had a baby. He was out deer hunting and was using a pistol because of earlier losing the use of one arm from a stroke. Since I was a little kid, he had said he would die with his boots on doing what he loved. (Long silence.)

People often end up with their careers trying to fulfill a deeper need within themselves. You’ve personally been through two healthcare-related crises with your family and now you help your employer prepare for healthcare-related crises.
I’ve seen the connection. In a crisis—whether in public relations or healthcare like H1N1—I believe I have the inner strength to be calm and figure out the next steps that need taking. I believe that comes from having gone through what I’ve been through.

Take me through your career path.
I loved business and took every business class Braham High School offered. I lasted one semester at Bemidji State as an accounting major. I realized soon there was no way I wanted to be an accountant forever.

You would just marry one later.
Exactly. (Laughter.) I looked through the course catalog and everything I read about mass communications sounded interesting: writing, working with media, broadcasting. I would be out talking and working with people and not always tied to a desk. My dad accepted my decision to change majors only after I graduated in 1987 and landed a sales job at a Bemidji radio station. I thought it was a great way to get into the news department, but then the news director seemed unhappy and suddenly that job didn’t look fun. What I liked about my job was putting together advertising plans and seeing results. I loved planning promotions. It was fun being creative and getting businesses excited about advertising.

Can you mention one instance of doing it?
In high school, I loved classic cars. My dream car (which I never had) was a 1964½ Candy Apple Red Ford Mustang with an automatic 289. I don’t drive a stick. For high school graduation, I got a white 1967 Mustang with a black vinyl roof. My parents and I split the cost. I loved that car—it was my baby. When I was selling for the Bemidji radio station, a body shop owner there had an older Mustang he wanted to sell and along with another radio sales rep I thought we could get that car rebuilt and give it away as a promotion. We asked all these businesses to trade ads for new tires, a whole new engine, new metallic blue paint—I still have the pictures. All summer we drove that car in parades and events. When a business bought a radio remote, customers could register to win the Mustang. We later did the same promotion at KXLP in Mankato after I moved here to work for them.

When did you move here and why?
My husband and I knew there wasn’t much opportunity in Bemidji. He had an accounting degree. We decided in 1990 that whoever found a job first, that’s where we’d move. Literally, the next week, my old boss from the radio station in Bemidji, who was then working in Owatonna, said Chris Painter at KXLP in Mankato needed a sales representative. One account I would have in Mankato was Domino’s Pizza, owned by Kevin Bores. One day while I was calling on Kevin, he slid over a job description and said he was too busy to handle marketing. He said he and his partner, Subway owner Dave Gruenzner, felt the same way. He wanted to know if I was interested. My heart was pounding. Everything sounded exciting. I thought it would be fun on the other side of the desk and buy rather than sell advertising. The position involved advertising planning and placement, working with store managers, and public relations.

What did you learn about sales by being on the other side of the desk?
Some salespeople calling on me were doing consultative selling, meaning they sold what they believed would work best for me in terms of our marketing goals and reaching our key demographics. Then there were salespeople just wanting to sell what they could earn commissions on from special packages. I could tell the difference. When in radio sales, I knew clients that were busy with so many aspects of running a business they didn’t necessarily have a marketing plan, but knew they needed to promote their business. The next advertising person walking in probably got the sale, even if it wasn’t the best choice for their business. When I was with Domino’s, some sales reps attempted to sell advertising without considering my marketing plan. They were trying to sell a package because a bonus was attached and not because it fit my needs.

What did you learn from Domino’s and Subway?
How to create a marketing plan and an advertising calendar and how to manage a budget while getting the biggest bang you can for your buck. I also learned it was important to get involved in community events and to give back to the community. It gave people opportunities to understand and try your product. People like doing business with locally owned companies that care about the community. It’s part of being a good corporate citizen.

Being involved with Domino’s and Subway, you were no doubt introduced to having to prepare for public relations challenges. Food can get people sick despite adequate prevention measures, for example.
That was where I had to draw from my college experience. We had a situation in which an employee under 16 was working longer hours than he should have been. We were fined. The State of Minnesota sent us a copy of the news release they sent to the local media. I don’t remember the kid’s name, but he was a good student and his parents didn’t mind him working past nine o’clock. He looked older than 18. The store manager may not have realized he was underage, plus employees would trade shifts at the last minute. Early on, we were very open with the media, it was in the paper one day, and it faded away. You have to be open and honest and transparent with the media.

Is that more your training or your personality?
Both. If a situation occurs and you know it’s going to the media, you’re better off being upfront and sending out a news release stating your side of the story first. “No comment” is not an option.

After five years with Domino’s, you went to Midwest Wireless. That must have been a big change going from pizzas to cell phones.
Oh, it was. (Laughter.) It was like drinking water from a fire hose. A friend’s husband had started there as an engineer and mentioned they were looking for a marketing person. The more I researched, the more I realized this company would grow. I was eight months pregnant and went shopping for the most professional-looking maternity outfit I could find. They wanted a second interview. I was seated in the room before (President) Dennis Miller came in. At the end, he asked if there was anything else I wanted to say. I didn’t know if he knew I was pregnant because I had been sitting down. So I said, “You do realize I’m eight months pregnant.” He said, “Well, yeah!” (Laughter.) So I got that job and worked two weeks before taking a six-week maternity leave.

You mentioned the excitement of going up in your father’s airplane. Was working the next eight or nine years with Midwest Wireless an airplane ride?
Oh, it was like being (Elton John’s) Rocketman. (Laughter.) It was nothing like an airplane ride. It was so much faster. It was always straight up as fast as possible.

While we’re on it, tell the story about Dennis Miller and Rocketman.
One of my public relations goals at Midwest Wireless was to get Dennis Miller on the cover of Connect Business Magazine. Finally, when you asked him to be on the cover, we got the biggest kick out of your calling him “Rocketman.” The day the magazine broke, we had an upper management meeting. I had a boom box under the table cued to Rocketman. As Dennis entered the room, the music blared. Of course, he knew I did it.

With the changing technology, did you even have time to assimilate everything?
It was constant change. It was always hard work. It was always fun. I remember days just walking down the hall thinking, “I don’t believe I get paid to be here.” This was my job, it was so fun, and the people were great. You just can’t replicate that culture. Many times, I was pinching myself. Was this real? Are we really in Mankato, Minnesota, doing what we’re doing with this company? It was the biggest secret in town. People didn’t understand how technologically advanced we were versus the industry. In some areas, we were first in the country. Who did the first two-way text messaging in the United States? AT&T claims it, but that’s not true.

How difficult was it keeping secrecy when Midwest Wireless received bids from Verizon and Alltel?
Here is a secret: Verizon never kicked the tires. Everyone assumed they were interested, but they weren’t. Most organizations looking at Midwest Wireless were private equity firms.

Here’s a favorite Dennis Miller story: the day of the Midwest Wireless auction, I was on the telephone with a New York public relations firm discussing the news release announcing a private equity firm was purchasing us. Dennis comes running down the hall saying, “Hold up. Everything is fluid right now.” I didn’t know what he meant, but told the public relations firm to put everything on hold. Here only hours before the signing of an agreement with a private equity firm, Dennis was hearing from Alltel’s CEO saying they wanted to buy us. Initially, their offer wasn’t in the ballpark. At the last minute, Alltel offered more than $1 billion. We re-did the news release and implemented a communications plan. It had gone down to the wire.

But this wasn’t the only challenging communications issue regarding the sale. Earlier, the Midwest Wireless board in August 2005 had decided to evaluate business options and hired an investment bank to explore opportunities such as a possible sale. This was a completely confidential decision and only a handful of people at Midwest Wireless knew. But one evening in September, Dennis Miller called me at home saying he learned the Wall Street Journal knew of the sale. So we needed a plan and fast. Along with a public relations firm, we worked late getting a plan together knowing next morning a Wall Street Journal story would break. Our plan focused on getting our employees in the loop first. Dennis sent everyone an email at 6:00 a.m. We had employee meetings in our auditorium and teleconferences for employees in other communities. Then the press began calling.

The next day was tougher because The Free Press announced Midwest Wireless was for sale and wanted to know what this meant to the community, employees, and customers. The headline said Verizon would probably be buying us. Everyone assumed Verizon.

That happened in September 2005, and you closed in November with Alltel.
We actually signed the definitive agreement with Alltel in November and the deal closed October 2006. The deal had to pass FCC and Department of Justice approval, and Alltel had to divest of some businesses. That process took almost a year. In that year, we had to run business as usual not knowing our future. I was proud of my staff for keeping focused. Sales were great that year.

When people remember Midwest Wireless, they often think of the male actor who was on your billboards, print, and television advertising. Who came up with that advertising campaign?
David Mann was the face of Midwest Wireless. For a long time, our TV advertising consisted of voiceovers and graphics, but in 2001, to create the message we wanted, we needed a spokesperson speaking directly to the camera. Because it was winter, we decided on a TV shoot in Atlanta because in winter it looked like Minnesota in spring. We searched for a spokesperson in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Minneapolis—the latter on a whim, figuring if we found someone local we could more easily continue the campaign.

I watched 100 audition tapes and liked the first one I saw from Minneapolis. We kept coming back to him. He looked Minnesotan. By this point, our demographics were getting younger. Initially, we were selling to businesspeople, but by 2001 cell phones were becoming more an everyday device and we were attracting younger customers. We wanted someone with the “cool teacher” look. We didn’t know then David had such a great voice and we ended up using him six years for radio and print, too.

While with Alltel, what drew you to Mankato Clinic?
I stayed with Alltel eight months to help with the transition knowing March 31, 2008, would be my last day. In February, Roger Greenwald, then Mankato Clinic CEO, called saying their director of public relations was leaving. (That position later became director of marketing and communications.)

It’s one thing selling pizzas and cell phones. Was the learning curve steeper with healthcare?
It was a huge change. However, it had been more difficult transitioning from food to technology than technology to healthcare. My job as a marketing person is to always look through the eyes of customers. I had been a healthcare patient before, but had owned a cell phone only six months before starting at Midwest Wireless and the technology was changing. It was more difficult than learning healthcare. When Mankato Clinic changed over to electronic health records and created a patient portal for patients to access records, I had already experienced something like that at Midwest Wireless.

You were talking about electronic health records. About 20 months ago, Mankato Clinic had a potential breach of health information involving 3,200 patients. An employee’s laptop was stolen.
It was stolen from an employee’s car. It was against our policy to even leave a laptop in a car and against policy to have patient records downloaded to a laptop. But it happened. At that point, we did not have encryption software on our laptops. Fortunately, the information didn’t list Social Security numbers or financial information. We learned a very valuable lesson from this incident. Now encryption software is loaded onto all laptops and also software that eventually erases everything on the hard drive if you try to get in without the right password.

Out of 3,200 people, at least a handful had to be angry.
We sent a letter to all and posted the letter on our website for a year. Since then, we had someone gain access into the Main Street Clinic and steal laptops, but because of the lesson learned from the first incident, there wasn’t any employee information on them. Plus, the police caught the person very quickly and it was determined there was no attempt to access any information off the laptops.

As for our patient portal, it is completely secure and a huge convenience for our patients to be able to access their health records online. Our portal is safer than your online banking information. To access it, you have to visit the Clinic in person with a picture ID and then we send you an invitation to the email address of your choice. You can only have access to your own records. If you want access to your children’s records, you have to go through another process.

You have so many locations in Mankato. Why not combine them under one roof, such as at Madison East?
We’re working on long-term strategic space planning. We’re running out of space and have many options going forward. We own the green space near our North Mankato Clinic, so we could consider building there for potential future growth or at the least replace the aging North Mankato building on Lookout Drive. We also own about 20 acres on the Wickersham Campus that would definitely be an option for expansion. But we first have to consider any expansion options from the patient’s point of view. What is most convenient for them? For example, many like going to North Mankato because it’s small, easy to park, and you know everyone. Most users of our internal medicine services at our Main Street Clinic don’t like the idea of driving all the way to Wickersham. Also, many of our patients ride buses and there isn’t a bus route to Wickersham. There’s more to decision-making than having one building where everyone can go. Multiple locations can be convenient for patients. Madison East has been a great option. We have shifted most of our non-clinical departments there to free up space for clinical departments. The parking is great and the location central to the rest of our facilities.

You see your physicians’ human side. What one thing would you say to our readers about them?
First and foremost, they all have their patient’s needs in mind. Sometimes patients may not feel that way because healthcare has become so complicated with regulations and insurance companies, which creates extra work for physicians. This can be frustrating for the physicians because they find it difficult to dedicate as much time as they would like to patients. Physicians like face-to-face time with patients and healing and helping. That’s why they became doctors. Things are changing so rapidly in our industry for them due to healthcare reform. It’s getting more like the wireless industry where change is inevitable and coming faster and faster.

And you have been well prepared for change.
Yes, I feel like I’ve been down this road before and we are well positioned as a clinic to focus on it.

What about Jersey Mike’s Subs on the Mankato hilltop?
My husband and I own it with partners Mike Nolan and Kevin Bores. Kevin called out of the blue to say he was starting something fun and asked if my husband and I would be interested. We’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. Although Kevin handles most of the marketing, he does consult with me. My husband does bookkeeping and payroll. Our son works there. My husband had an easier time making the decision to buy in. I’m more conservative and frugal and like saving. Our plan is to have more than one store. We have to see if Mankato can support another location and what markets we would consider next.

Jersey Mike’s is unique because everything is fresh. We slice the meat in front of you. We slice all our vegetables and roast our beef every morning. We try having a friendly, outgoing crew that badgers you a bit in a friendly, fun, East Coast-like way.

What makes for a good marketing professional?
In southern Minnesota, it’s really important to be a generalist. You need to know something about everything. You can’t just be focused on public relations or event planning or building an advertising plan or your media mix. You have to understand the business side and your return on investment for your marketing dollar and how those pieces relate. Gather the market research you need to make informed decisions and create a marketing plan with measurable goals and objectives. You must know your target market.

What are some common mistakes people make in marketing?
Not understanding their target market, so they spend money reaching the wrong people. You can’t be everything to everybody. You have to know what your brand stands for. For example, at Midwest Wireless, we went through a strategic planning session to define our identity. Could we compete on operational excellence, being consumer centric, the high-tech leader first to market with all the cool things, or being the brand giant, like Coca-Cola? In this session involving upper management, we had people in each camp. Engineering thought we were the high-tech leader and some thought it was operational excellence, and so on.

We soon realized the only place we could compete well was in being a customer centric brand and so we re-launched a branding campaign with the tag line, “We answer to you.” It’s one thing to have a tag line, but another to live up to it. But we knew we were already living up to it. The biggest mistake is being everything to everyone.

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Culture Club

CONNECT: You mentioned the fun environment. What was there about Dennis Miller that helped create the culture?

BAHR: He was fun and liked joking. He was open-minded. At times, he seemed a curmudgeon unable to change his mind, but if you had your facts together and went with an idea, he listened. Many times, he changed his mind. He said to me the other day he often went into meetings with senior managers with a set plan. But nine times out of ten, he said, we would develop a different plan. Everyone participated. We thought things through and bounced ideas. Marketing and engineering knew what each other did.

For example, after our sale, we did a presentation in Little Rock to Alltel on how we chose cell site locations. You’d think only engineering would make that decision, but marketing and sales were also involved. In our algorithm, everyone’s votes counted. Obviously, engineering’s vote was worth more, but if our sales director knew we could get press if we put a cell site in a certain town because that town had been asking for one—we might place one there. Or we might place a tower in what seemed the middle of nowhere because it was near a business that used 350 cell phones.

Getting to know you: Marcia Bahr

Born: July 12, 1965.
Education: Braham High School, ’83; Bemidji State University, ’87.
Organizational involvement: Messiah Lutheran (North Mankato), Salvation Army board, South Central College Foundation, Mankato Clinic Foundation (president), Area News Consortium, and MoJo Sisters Literary Guild.

THE ESSENTIALS

Mankato Clinic
Address: 1230 East Main Street
Mankato, MN 56001
Web: mankatoclinic.com
Telephone: 625-1811