He and his wife Wendy were raised in the Arcadia area.  They have four children and live in Sierra Madre .

In 1988 Dave and his brother started an advertising agency.  As expected it was not easy to find customers.  Dave’s brother was looking through advertising magazines for opportunities and saw and ad by L.A. Gear a fashion shoe brand at the time.  Though they were supposed to just send in their ideas in the mail, they thought they were supposed to create a full pitch with story boards for TV spots.  When they did the presentation to the Creative Director, their work was liked… which was a “game changer” according to Dave.

They got to do all the advertising for L.A. gear for what at the time was a hot, considered fashion brand.  Dave said L.A. Gear promoted using A-list celebrities like Michael  Jackson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar… all of whom Dave got to meet.

The advertising buyer heard that Kinko’s was looking for advertising help and Kinko’s signed on with Dave.  At that point there were 250 stores.  Dave did not know much about the company at the time.  Initially the did “store stuff” like signage but they came up with an “ad package”  as Kinko’s grew to 2000 stores .  On a diskette was all the designs needed in the stores to avoid them making their own signs, fliers, labels etc without the look that was authorized by corporate.

Dave’s Company reputation grew as did his client list that included Auto Club and U.S. West Cellular.

The leadership of L.A. Gear #3 fashion brand at the time thought they should go into more sportswear, a very competitive niche. Their shoes failed on the  basketball court,  their reputation soured and never recovered.  As a side note, the owner of L.A. Gear, Robert Goldberg, went on to start the very successful Skechers brand.

Dave got out of advertising and bought three Coldstone Creamery franchises.  He learned the hard way Corporate had weak marketing and the franchisee was at risk as a result.

Dave’s next adventure was when his wife, a buyer for Nordstrom and Macy’s was encouraged to develop her own line of handbags.  He said they had a container load delivered and marketed to boutiques, resort gift shops but its a very competitive field – he still has some left!

Dave’s latest and most current foray is into antiques deferring to Wendy who has “a knack for it” according to Dave.  They have booths at multi-day antique events and was recently asked to do a “succulent bar” showing succulents in antique containers.