Reasons to brag, but it's not Skip Gage's style

Edwin C. (Skip) Gage, as a varsity tennis player at Northwestern University, was selected as the best athlete of his class as a junior and senior.

Yet you won't hear him bragging about his Big Ten accolades of four-plus decades ago while he's chatting with city kids about tennis, school and life in an inner-city tennis program he has chaired and underwritten for years. He's too busy coaching, complimenting and slapping backs when he hears about a kid who's upped his grades or improved his backhand.

Gage also rarely speaks about his role as the analytical marketer who moved his late father-in-law's business -- Carlson Companies Inc. -- from Gold Bond stamps and a few Radisson hotels in the late 1960s to a global franchisor of hotels, marketing services and a retail travel business that rivaled American Express. Chairman Curtis Carlson, the founder and principal owner of what had become Carlson Companies, rewarded Gage by naming him CEO of the Carlson empire by 1989.

But Curt Carlson, the self-described "ultra entrepreneur," couldn't play second fiddle to anybody. When Carlson returned from open-heart surgery in the early 1990s with a newfound energy and desire to run the business, Gage decided to leave the company in 1992.

"We had always gotten along well until then," said Gage, who met Carlson's younger daughter, Barbara, at Northwestern and entered the family business in 1968 after graduate school in marketing and a few years in the Chicago ad industry. "We were different-style managers. And he always acted as the 'owner,' not the manager.

"I was proud of what we had done in building a marketing and travel company. But we were falling all over each other. He wanted to run Carlson. I wanted to run something."

Gage, then 49, quietly submitted his resignation, negotiated the purchase of several coupon-fulfillment businesses and a marketing shop, shook hands with Curt and set up his own shop a few miles away. (Gage agreed to remain on the Carlson corporate and family boards.)

Curt Carlson died in 1999 and eventually was succeeded as CEO by his daughter Marilyn Carlson Nelson.

Gage meanwhile built the coupon-fulfillment firm, a low-margin, transaction-oriented operation, into a $150 million business, which he sold in 1998 at the top of the market to a larger concern for $80 million.

That gave Gage the capital to remake Gage Marketing Group into his first love: a research-based, integrated marketing firm that, although purposely lacking the visibility of the hotshot advertising shops, is one of the nation's 40 largest marketing firms, boasting revenues of around $100 million, including ad agency billings, according to Advertising Age.

"I really respect Skip," said Jim Campbell, the retired chairman of Wells Fargo Minnesota. "He's sound. His marketing and leadership skills are outstanding. And he's a very decent guy."

Jeff Noddle, CEO of Supervalu, where Gage has been a board member for more than 20 years, credits Gage's vision and deep familiarity with the grocery industry for helping with Supervalu's big acquisition of Albertson's last year.

This month Gage Marketing acquired the remaining stock of fast-growing Industrio Marketing, which focuses on midsized industrial businesses. That complements Gage's primary business, which partners with the likes of Microsoft, Thomson West, Best Buy, Wells Fargo, Unilever, Sony and other Fortune 500 firms on interactive marketing, branding, loyalty, customer relations and development programs.

The Industrio deal was closed after more than a year of minority ownership and time for both companies to test integration and decide if a marriage would work.

"I ran Carlson Companies, but I never looked at it like it was my company," Gage said. "Here, we sink or swim of our own merit, and that's a lot of fun. In this business, it's about ideas, strategy, partnerships and execution. It's not just about me or us."

Gage has shared a minority ownership stake with a group of younger employees. This year, the 66-year-old executive is stepping away from day-to-day operations to focus increasingly on board work and philanthropy; he and Barbara have a particular interest in low-income kids and families through several inner-city and school partnerships they support.

Gage finishes his business career not running a huge enterprise, but a successful one.

"Skip is in a very comfortable stage of his life," said Tom Belle, the president of Gage Marketing whom Gage hired at Carlson Companies in 1984. "He's very successful and wealthy, and he's generous and he's as comfortable as a pair of your favorite shoes.

"Most of us [100-plus employees] are here because of Skip Gage."

Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144 • nstanthony@startribune.com