Ep. 570 2025 in Review with Rancho Mesa President Dave Garcia
Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with President Dave Garcia to analyze the state of the commercial insurance marketplace, reflect on Rancho Mesa’s accomplishments, and discuss what’s to come in 2026.
Show Notes: Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter
Host: Alyssa Burley
Guest: Dave Garcia
Editor: Jadyn Brandt
Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production
© Copyright 2025. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.
Transcript
Alyssa Burley: You're listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive. I'm your host, Alyssa Burley, and I'm joined by Dave Garcia, President of Rancho Mesa. Today we're going to reflect on 2025 and maybe talk a little bit about what's to come in 2026.
Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Garcia: Thanks, Alyssa. It's always a pleasure to be here in StudioOne.
AB: So, 2025 has been a fantastic year. So, let's talk about what Rancho Mesa has done over the last 12 months. And it's a lot.
So, let's start off with some leadership. Nearly 8% of our team held leadership positions in various industry organizations. So just a couple of them were Christina Haacke. She was our president for PWI San Diego. And, Olivia Velasco was the secretary for that same organization. We also had Jeremy Hoolihan - he was the secretary and treasurer for IIAB San Diego, and I was the parliamentarian for NAWIC San Diego. So we have a lot of people who are really taking leadership roles in our community.
DG: You know, what's awesome about that is, you know, it's growth for the individual, but it's also giving back to our communities and other organizations. And that's one of the things I'm really most proud of. And I know we've got a bunch of, you know, soccer coaches, little league coaches, all the other things that our parents get involved with outside of Rancho Mesa. And I think that's just kind of what makes our culture special.
AB: Absolutely.
DG: So, talking a little bit about staffing, you know, we're hiring people right and left. You know, we opened up the second half of our office here during the course of the year because we outgrew the space that we just moved to a year earlier. So, poor planning on my part, but exciting because it was facilitated because of our tremendous growth. So we're hiring not to replace people. We're really hiring because we're growing, and we're looking for that exceptional OneofOne™ talent. And they find us. And that's really, really exciting. So I know we grew, somewhere around 13% last year, which is a great growth rate.
And, while we are growing, we do have some people, because we're been here now 27 years, Retiring. I just want to shout out to Matt Gaynor, who was our director of surety for the last 15 years. And Matt just did a wonderful job, really establishing us in that community. And now we've got five people that run that surety the division for us. And it all starts back with Matt. So Matt, congratulations. I hope you're happy in retirement. We miss you. And, you know, we'll see who's next.
AB: Yeah. You know, when I tell people that Rancho Mesa is hiring, I always have to say, because we're growing. It's not that we're always hiring because we're having to replace. People know we are hiring because we're growing. So that's really exciting.
So, I just want to talk a little bit about some of the accomplishments that Rancho Mesa has done over the last year. So, I think this is amazing. So nearly 19% of our team members earned an industry designation, certification or license in 2025. That is huge, right?
DG: That's phenomenal. And you know, we challenge everybody that this is their careers. And they need to take them in earnest. And we support them in all of the endeavors they want to do to grow their knowledge of the industry, their professional acumen, all of those kinds of things. So when you think about almost 20% of our team members achieved a new designation or an additional designation. That's remarkable. Really proud of that.
AB: Yeah. So those are the individuals. Rancho Mesa, for 19 years in a row, has been named the IIAB Best Practices Agency Award. This is huge. This is something that we work towards all year long. And it looks at all aspects of our company. And it is really unique to see a company that has done this for 19 years in a row. So we're really proud of that. Another award that we did receive was the Bronze Award for Best Independent Insurance Agency to work for in the Insurance Journals, Western Region. And I just want to point out that this is an award that you earn, you don't buy. And we're really proud of it. I think that we do a lot to make sure that our employees have a great place to work, and I think that it shows in this award. It recognizes all the efforts that we've done to make Rancho Mesa such a great place to be.
DG: Yeah. You know, Alyssa, you kind of kiddingly kind of not said, you know, these are not purchased. And, you know, with our sports background, I've grown up in that environment and I'm an effort person. And I'm not a participation trophy person. So, I do like these awards. We get we get reached out to all the time for all different kinds of awards. But then there's always the price tag that comes with them, you know, and we just pass on those. But these two in particular are our two awards that we had to earn. We had to go out and perform. And 19 years in a row with best practices, you know, we're really really proud of that. And there's no break in the chain. So we expect to be 20 years next year. And the best agency to work, you know, that was really cool. And we've done a lot of employee engagement surveys and to make sure that we're addressing the needs of our employees. And again, this was something, you know, it's the bronze. We're proud of that. But we know there's a silver and a gold and so we're going to, you know, reach stretch the bar and try to achieve those things in the future. So, those are really great things for us. And I think it promotes individual people here, then taking ownership for their careers and trying to grow themselves in many different ways. So yeah, really excited about that.
You know, along with that, comes promotions, right? We all love promotions. You know, I loved it. You know, when I was on JV then got promoted to varsity, things like that. And so we really want to grow our people, you know, and we try to do that both, professionally but also personally. And that's really one of our, you'll see later on, one of our core values is trying to develop our people. And nearly 8% of our team received promotions during 2025. So, you know, again, we're trying to motivate them and encourage them to take those next steps. So when they see their peers, you know, achieving that, it probably motivates them to see what they can do. And we're really proud of that fact.
AB: Yeah. And not only do we like to grow our own people, but we are open to hiring experienced people as well. But I think it's unique that we do both. We do a good combination of internally growing our people and training them. But then, you know, we will, open our arms to a very experienced person that can bring a little bit different perspective.
DG: Yeah, let me just kind of build on that. A second to with you Alyssa. Because I think that's an important distinction. While we want to, you know, bring people in and develop them, you know, from the roots all the way up, part of our challenges is our success. And we grow faster than we can train sometimes. So we are actually looking constantly for those experience people to bring them in and become part of our team and then help them grow their careers further once they're here. That's a great point.
AB: Yeah. All right. So let's switch gears. So today we are on our podcast and let's talk a little bit about the podcast. So we published 103 episodes in 2025. And we're currently recording episode 570. That blows my mind. I can't believe that we have done that many episodes. And then we also have some things that we're proud of for this podcast. We've been rated in the top 10% of the global podcast by Listen Notes. That's huge. The top 10% podcast in the world. And a lot of that has to do with our consistency. We post on a regular basis, two episodes every single week. We don't vary from that. And so consistency is important. And then the volume of our episodes as well. And then we've also been ranked number seven in the Risk Management podcast by Feedspot. So we're excited about that. Maybe we can increase that spot in the coming years. And both Apple Podcast and Spotify has given us five stars. So we're really proud of those. And I'm sure as we continue, we're going to get to higher ratings and get more listeners. And we're excited about that. And, you know, I really do credit our success to our team's willingness to share their knowledge and their expertise on a regular basis, like I mentioned earlier. Because really, without them, we don't have a podcast. So we really do rely on everybody at Rancho Mesa to come in and be a guest and talk about the topics that they're having conversations with their clients about.
DG: Yeah, let me jump in there real quick. Because what I really have liked about the direction the podcasts have gone is we were requiring our producers to write a bulk of those articles. And they're all specialist in their industries, and we asked them to attack the issues within, specifically within the industries that they work with. And sometimes that's bringing in third party people to speak. We've had attorneys come in and speak to contractual language. It's a good mixture of training, learning, and it requires we're pushing our producers, to be honest with you. We're pushing our producers to become pro's pros. That's what we call it here. If you're going to be a Rancho Mesa you're going to be a producer, you really got to know your industry, not just the insurance issues. What are the other issues that are facing your industry, and talk about it. So by bringing in guests and there could be clients, it could be a retired client, it could be just an industry expert in a different field. It really adds a lot of blend to the different types of podcasts. They're not all just risk management topics. It's complete. And we bring in interesting people to talk to and learn from. So, I think those rankings that we've achieved are earned. You know, we work hard at bringing good content to that. So as you can tell, I'm super proud of all of that. And, we hope that it's, something that people look forward to and they're gaining from.
AB: Yeah. Well, that is a perfect segue into my next comment, about the podcast that we launched called Dave's Dugout. So we started publishing this in February of 2025. So will you explain to our listeners the concept behind Dave's Dugout?
DG: Sure. I'd be happy to. So if you guys have ever read the book Strength to Strength, if you haven't, do. It talks about as your life develops, I'm now, according to the book and my crystallize phase. Which kind of means I've lived a lot of life. I'm 67 years old. So Dave's Dugout came about because I had a really unique childhood where I spent most of the time with my mother. And then in the in the summer times, my dad was managing in the minor leagues, and I would go spend time with him simply to spend time with my father. And during the course of that, so from the time I was 9 to 16, I spent a lot of summers with my dad in the clubhouse, in the dugout. And what I recognized as my dad was not formally educated. He was just a natural born leader, and he had a way of connecting with everybody. And I'm just watching him, and I don't really know at the time that he sat me down and said, here, this is what I'm trying to teach you. But it was more that later on I realized the lessons that I learned. And so what Dave's Dugout is, is just these short little stories about life lessons that really have helped me. And I'm hoping it strikes a chord with somebody that's listening to it. And, you know, it's kind of taken on its own little path. Now we're had several people who have listened to The Dugout that have asked to come into The Dugout and share their stories, and I think that's awesome. So, I'm continuing to learn from people's stories and lessons as we go. So that's kind of the premise to Dave's Dugout. We're not publishing 570 of them, but we publish them, what is it, Alyssa every few weeks, once a month?
AB: Yeah, about once a month.
DG: And, if you're interested, you know, you want to laugh at me. The jacket cover for, when you look on Spotify or whatever, it's the only picture I have of me in my baseball uniform with my dad in a baseball uniform. I'm 16 years old. I don't look anything like that anymore. I wish I did, but it's a lot of fun, so I really enjoy doing it.
So, Alyssa, let's switch gears and let's talk specifically about the group that you run here, the Client Services Group. And I know you guys, you know, you get a little bored because you don't have much to do. But in the course of being bored, somehow you found a way to do 51 workshops and webinars. We've added a Risk Control Consultant, we've added a Client Data Analyst, we've expanded the SafetyOne™ platform and the RM365 HRAdvantage™ Portal. Holy cow. What's next?
AB: I don't know. Yeah so, 51 workshops and webinars. That comes out to a nearly one per week. That's a lot. But our team, they're great. They really know how to put things together and make sure that our clients are getting all the information that they need through, whether it's an in-person workshop or a, a virtual webinar.
Yeah, we've grown. We added a Risk Control Consultant. I think this is really going to step up our game. We're going to be able to offer a lot more services and a lot more workshops and webinars in-house. Whereas we may have had to bring in an outside party, now we have that person here in Rancho Mesa. Then our Client Data Analyst, we're really able to drill down and look at the data of claims and see where can we offer additional help to prevent claims from happening in the future. And we've done some of that before, but now we have a dedicated person to do that. And so, I think that that is going to be a game changer for us.
Now, if we take a look at SafetyOne, that's our risk management platform. It's a website and a mobile app. We had increase in users, of 47.2% from last year. That is huge. Now some of it is we've got new clients and, you know, they've added all their users and so that, you know, accounts for some of the growth. But then we do have some clients that we've had in the past that are just now seeing the benefits of using some sort of platform like this. And we're definitely seeing some, positive impacts from using a platform like this. So we're really excited about it. And we did see a 7% increase in value gained from using the HR portal. So we're really happy with that.
DG: Yeah. Let me jump in there real quick to Alyssa, because one of the things that I'm really excited about is with the client data analyst position, you know, is she was able to break down we've had the SafetyOne platform and mobile app for about four years now. And so she was able to go back and really look at our best users of the app and what impact it's had to their businesses. And I may have these numbers a little bit off, but I want to say that work comp claim frequency for active users has declined by 27% over those four years. Experience mods have decreased by 13%, and the loss severity of claims has gone down by 5 or 6 or 7%, something like that. And that's incredible to me, because what that translates to is more productivity for our clients. They're not having the injuries they were having previously. Their employees, their team members are going home at night. They're not going to a hospital. And then it's controlling their profitability, because when you have an injured worker, you're going to have to replace them. So that's going to impact productivity and cost, and it's going to impact your experience mod if it's worker's compensation. So, these are all direct relationships to utilizing the safety app. And we're super proud of that because I think I give your team credit. This isn't something you can buy off the shelf. This safety app and safety platform is something that we went out and designed and continue to enhance. So, I think those numbers will continue to get better, because I think the users are picking up because they're seeing those numbers. They're saying, yeah, give it to me. I want to see how it works. So, hats off to you and your team for all of that.
AB: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Now, we also finalized our core values this past year. It's integrity, accountability, collaboration, community and passion. So do you want to tell our listeners about how this came about and why we decided that now was a good time to create our core values?
DG: Yeah. You know, it's funny. I think from the get go, these were always a part of our fabric. We just never put a name to them. And we actually lived them out. You know, you could walk around and you could point it out, but we never actually specifically listed them. And I think we're now to that maturity of our company, and as we continue to grow and as we onboard new people, it's really important that we establish what those things are, not just words. But I think what we've done as a leadership team here is we've identified the word, but then also define what that word means specifically to Rancho Mesa. So, I'm really excited about it. I think those absolutely represent who we want to be, not just externally. And when I say externally, I mean to our clients, to our carrier partners, to our community, but also to one another here. So yeah, I really excited to actually, you know, kind of make it three dimensional.
AB: Yeah, I agree. And it was a fun process to work on that. Just having everybody give their input on what these words should be. And then, we have a nice graphic that was designed in-house that we can display on the website, and everybody can see exactly what we stand for.
So Rancho Mesa also believes in giving back to both our industry and community, we kind of touched on that earlier. But tell our listeners about the six carrier councils that we're on, and why do you think it's important to maintain these relationships.
DG: Yeah. You know, first, it's an it's an honor to be selected to be on those councils because, you know, most carriers deal with literally hundreds and hundreds of agencies and their councils probably range from 8 to 10 people to 15. They're not big groups. And, to be selected on those six is special to us because I think they value our opinions. And I when I participate in a lot of those and we have other people that go and what I would I tell the people that go, if it's not me, is you're now working for that carrier. It's your job to help that carrier become a better carrier, which in part helps them become a better resource to our clients. So I think we go with that attitude that we're going there as their employee for that council meeting. And I think we have the finger on the pulse. We know what's coming. So, I think some of our podcasts are direct that way. And one of the councils I'm on a year ago, we start talking about cumulative trauma claims. Now we're no more about it. Now we try to get out to be the tip of the spear in educating our clients about what that means. So there's that. You see what's coming from the carrier. You understand the industry issues, is the trending up or down? But it also gives us an opportunity, you know, to create relationships with the C-suite of those carriers. And those aren't relationships that we use regularly, like, oh, we're going to call in a favor, that sort of thing. But I think that that those people get a chance to evaluate us as people, and they recognize our core values. And then if we do need to talk to them about a situation, they already know who we are. So, it's a win win on all, all sides of it. And if we could be on more councils, not every carrier has a council, but the ones that do, we're lucky to be a part of. So yeah, really excited about being a part of those councils.
AB: Yeah. What I really like is that you ask everybody essentially in the company, hey, is there anything that you want me to talk to this carrier about? And so I think that just having that level of communication within the company is huge, because if you have our President going to these councils, but maybe you have a client manager who has an issue or has some something that they want to share. But if you don't open up those lines of communication, that's never going to get to the carrier. But I think that we do a really good job at letting people talk about any issues that they may be having so that we can communicate those accurately to the carrier.
DG: And that's a really good point. I think, you know, by and large, people would like to be seen and would like to be heard. And we strive really hard for that internally, right? We want to make sure our team members here, like we see you and we're listening to your suggestions, doesn't mean we can do everything you say, but we try. It's the same thing with the council. Like, bring me an idea that you think would improve the relationship. Might be transactional, like if we could just whatever email the submission in instead of doing it this way. That would improve it for us. And we can bring that to the council. A lot of times those are enacted. And then what happens is the person that suggested that sees the change and feels like, okay, they made a difference and an impact. And so yeah, that's a really good point. And I think we want to encourage that. You know, every business out there should encourage that. You want your people to be engaged and to feel like they're part of the decision making.
AB: Yeah.
DG: Okay. Let's talk a little bit about what we do in the community, Alyssa. So, we do as much as we can. I know we allocate a certain amount of dollars to that each year. And I'm proud to say we're not, you know, a massive company, but we've donated back more than millions of dollars to the community in various forms and some of the things that we've recently done. We're really trying to help the PWI here in San Diego be established, and we've hosted a couple of different events here for them to try to draw membership and bring out their importance and support Christina, who's the President. Family Health Centers of San Diego has been somebody we've partnered with for over 25 years. Just one of the largest community clinics in the world. We're part of their Spirit of the Barrio, so we love doing that. We sponsor various golf tournaments, the NAWIC golf tournament, which you're a part of. We also sponsor the UCP golf tournament annually. And then MAAC projects, another organization that does just so much back to the community. We’re always a part of their Big Wing Dig sponsor every October. So overall, I think there's never enough. And we're not going to list every little league team that we sponsor or banners that we put out there. But that's just as important to me. I love the fact that an employee came to me and said, their soccer team needed some money to go on a trip. And so, you know, whether it's me or the agency, we take care of that we don't want to draw attention to it just to do try to do what's right. Be a good community family member, I guess. That's a good way to put it.
AB: Yeah. And I think we do try to encourage people to participate in things like that. I know we've got some employees that they have specific causes that are important to them. And, you know, we'll send out a message saying hey who wants to participate in whatever the event is? So I do think that, you know, as a company and just as a group of people that we really do care about what's happening in the community and try to support them where we can.
DG: Yeah.
AB: So, let's switch gears and take a look at the insurance industry. And since you're the expert on this, I am not, will you tell us a little bit about what's happened in the industry in 2025?
DG: Sure. It's, as we talked about it last year, the property, auto, general liability and excess or umbrella marketplace has continued to be a really the pricing is going up. So we call that a hard market. And particularly on the auto, there's just doesn't seem to be a way to control the ultimate costs that happen with automobile. And I think it's going to require some tort reform to actually try to put some caps or limits and some of these judgments that seem a little bit excessive right now. So, that is continued. I think the property market, we've been lucky in California didn't have a big wildfire season. So that's kind of flattened out a little bit. Still with a heavy concern on wildfire. General liability and excess liability, General liability for the industries that we're in is probably a plus 1 to 3% kind of a thing. So not anything a business can't handle. The excess piece is expensive because of the automobile limits. So we've, you know, historically have had very few million dollar losses. And within the last five years, we've had many multiple million dollars. And predominantly they're all in the automobile. So that's an area where we're keeping a keeping an eye on the reinsurance marketplace, which is the layer of insurance above all the carriers. Because we haven't had a lot of catastrophes in the last 18 months or so.
AB: Knock on wood.
DG: Yeah, knock on wood, let's hope we don't. That pricing is kind of flattened out, so we expect it. We don't see any big jump right now. But you know, all good things come to an end. And worker's compensation, which has always been the one line of insurance where a business could, if they performed well, could look for decreases. That's not the case any longer. You alluded to it a little bit earlier. Cumulative trauma claims have become a big issue. There's many things that we can do. We're going to have a workshop in January, to talk all about it. There's just the fixes are there, they're just not easy to do. And so it's going to take some time. But Commissioner Lara, for the first time in over a decade, actually recommended an average of an 8.7% rate increase. So that doesn't mean everybody's premiums going to go up 8.7 means the rates on average are going to go up 8.7. So, your experience modification is still going to be a big part of that. Your existing current trends and your claims. Big part of that. The industries that you're in and their performance overall, big, big part of that. So I think you're going to see and worker's compensation, we're doing a lot of efforts right now in what we call law sensitive plans. And so as your business grows, you're going to want to look at alternatives to just guaranteed cost. Those could be deductible work, captive, self-insured groups, things like that. So worker's compensation is that area where I think everybody wants to keep an eye on it now and use the safety platforms that we're providing. Knock down frequency, the best honestly, the best claim is no claim, Right? So, all our efforts are focused on preventing claims from occurring. Adding our risk consultant in-house will be a big part of that as well.
We're starting to see a lot more equipment thefts. Which is the bad guys are seemingly always one step ahead. So, I had a lot of equipment stolen this year from our clients. Skid steer seemed to be the number one thing. And there actually, if you ever see a picture, one, they're not that small, but they're seemingly targeted by the bad guys. We've had clients put AirTags, multiple AirTags, and then the bad guys seem to find them with a wand or some way of doing it, take the battery out, they bring a battery. We're now working with the NER, the National Equipment Registry. That's an organization that what the individual company can do is actually register each of their items. And then the NER is affiliated with all the police and sheriffs across the country. So if they find the piece of equipment, it could be stolen in California, ends up in Texas. It can be recovered. It's not foolproof, but it's just one more layer. You can put stickers on your equipment to say that you're covered by the NER, and maybe that's just enough of a deterrent for them to go someplace else. So we're seeing the equipment thefts where we're trying to work hard with that, to figure out what else can we do to try to help prevent those.
And then we just like I mentioned earlier, we need tort reform. And, you know, in California, that's not going to be easy. But we need all organizations, associations, labor unions, people like that. We need to put some pressure on Sacramento to get some of these changes in place, or business costs are going to continue to rise. And that could ultimately impact, you know, employment and things like that in California. We don't want to see that.
So 2025 was, you know, it's a challenging year. We have had a lot of our clients, who have been able to maintain their costs, have not seen increases and some have seen decreases. And, you know, we work really hard at it at having our helping our clients understand their insurance costs are percent of their sales. And so we kind of monitor that. So if you're, you know, we know all of our industries. If you're an electrician, we know what that average cost should be. If you're an engineering contractor, we know what that should be. So those are the benchmarks that we're trying to work their total program so that it is an acceptable percentage of their revenue. So when they look at it that way, sometimes an increase in one line and a decrease in another doesn't have the same impact as it would if they say, oh, I just had a 15% increase in my auto. Yeah, but your overall increase was only 2%. So they figure out, okay, I can I can work with that.
AB: Yeah. And I think even though it looks like there's have been some challenges in 2025, oftentimes there are things that we can help with to help mitigate some of those impacts on our clients.
So what do you see for 2026 looking like for both the industry and Rancho Mesa?
DG: Yeah, I think as industry goes, it's kind of as we as it is right now. Until we get some reform, legislatively for worker’s compensation and some tort reform on the nuclear verdicts, it's going to be difficult. So, the focus has to be on preventative. How do we keep claims from recurring? And sometimes it's impossible to keep them from occurring. We have many clients that their employees in their company vehicle parked at red light and they get rear ended, the driver gets injured, now that becomes a work comp claim and away we go. So, some things aren't preventable, a lot of things are. So we're trying to focus on the preventable and educate our clients of what they can be doing. And I think that's the safety app, the safety platform, the workshops, the trainings, all of those things that the client then feels like, okay, I do have some control here. It's not just happening to me. And in many cases I think our clients can be put in a competitive advantage over their competitors who are not paying attention to the level that we're trying to get the clients to pay attention. So I think the industry is going to be a lot the same. I mentioned earlier. I think we want to look at some loss sensitive plans. So we're going to be showing that to many of our clients and give them choice. We work with businesses that are very smart people, and we just want to allow them to make business decisions, but it's our job to bring them different alternatives and then they can make the choice. So that's kind of where I see the insurance industry going.
Rancho Mesa. Wow. You know, I'm just sitting here kind of getting goosebumps. I feel like 2026 can be an amazing year. We've had one great year after another. I just have the sense that 2026 is going to be a year like none other. I think we're really poised to grow. You know, we need to find the people that we've talked about, both from the producer side to the support staff side, but we're geared up and ready. We've got the space, we've got the trainings in place. So I'm really excited about 2026 and what it what it can mean. I know we're going to be building out more of our OneofOne risk consulting platform. Super excited about that. I'm looking to add three additional producers. One, we have he'll be starting January the 5th. We're super excited about him. He'll be focused on the electrical contracting industry, which we're already very specialized in. So excited to get him on board. And then we're going to look for ten additional support people. And that's from brand new to the industry to experienced people. So if any of you are listening to this and you're thinking about, you know, a career change and just want to talk to us, just reach out and we'd be happy to sit down and talk to you more.
I want to be a leading voice in the insurance industry. You get to my age and you realize, you know, the years that I have to impact the industry are fewer than they were. And so now's my time. And, you know, I was asked by one of our clients to be on the phone this year with the district attorney of the state of California. We had several conversations about some of the issues facing California. I felt honored that both our client and the state of California's district attorney's office felt like I knew enough to impact some of the things. So I think we need to drive change in Sacramento. It can't be done singularly. So we're going to be pushing on our clients. Every single group that you're involved with needs to be putting pressure on Sacramento. We need to make some changes.
And probably, I don’t know the thing I'm most proud of, aside from just this cultural organization, that we have here, is we are 100% committed not to sell this agency to a third party. And over the last 10 to 15 years, that's all we've seen. Every day you pick up the paper and another agency is sold. And you know, and that's business, I get that, but it also changes people's lives. It's never quite the same. And we're committed here not to do that. Char and I started the company with this in mind. As we as the company's grown, we realize we need to develop the next core group of leaders. And we've got, besides, Char and I, we've got 11 other shareholders in this company now, and we're identifying who those the true leaders are to take us to the next level. And so, again, if you're out there and you're thinking about, you know, I've been with a company we sold and we got sold again, that's not going to happen here. We want to be that OneofOne. We want to be that one agency that stands out and says, no, it's not about this is not a money play. We're not in it just to see how much money we can make. We're going to be into this to challenge our competitors, to provide a level of service that's unmatched. And then we'll let the chips fall where they will. And that's probably why I'm so committed to that. I couldn't be more committed to that. And Alyssa I know you know, we're in multiple peer groups across the country and some of those require your commitment to independents to be in and, that's how serious we are about that. So, super excited about that. You know, we're going to probably fill up the office here in the next year and a half to two. We've already, you know, talked to the landlord about taking over another floor. So you know, we don't lack for planning. So, I think we're ready to go. And I think 26, I don't know. What do you think? How do you feel?
AB: I'm excited for 2026. I think it's exciting that we're growing, that we're, you know, literally counting the number of desks that we have left and realizing, okay, well, we can be here for x number of years or months before we need to have additional space. I think that's exciting, especially in a time where many companies are getting rid of their office space. They're going fully remote. They're not coming together, they're shrinking their footprint. And Rancho Mesa is doing the opposite. And we've had really great success bringing people into the office and growing as a company in not only the number of people that we have, but in the services that we offer. So this is just a really exciting time to be part of Rancho Mesa.
And like you mentioned earlier, we have no plans to sell. And I think that as an employee, that is comforting. Especially if you've gone through an acquisition or 2 or 3, you just don't know what to expect. And so, this is a perfect opportunity for, you know, people that are in the industry to move over to Rancho Mesa, check us out and see if you'd be a good fit.
DG: Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, as we continue to grow, it creates more internal, opportunities for growth, leadership roles and the potential for ownership is always out there as well.
AB: Absolutely.
DG: So, you know, we're really excited about that. We have our ownership group right now is, you know, many of them are producers, but many of them are not producers. So it's not just the producer that has a chance to really shape this company. And, you know, Alyssa, you're one of the owners here. So, you know what I'm speaking to. So we're excited. We're not perfect. We know that. And we're probably our own hardest critics, you know, because we're trying to be OneofOne. And OneofOne is undefined. There is no definition for OneofOne. Because as soon as you reach some plateau, there's another plateau. At least that's how we look at it. So we're hard on ourselves to achieve and to become better. But that's kind of the people that we have here, the people that want to you know, see how good we are.
So yeah, I'm, as you can tell, super excited. I probably had a little bit too much coffee this morning.
AB: And pastries?
DG: And pastries. One of our former employees, her name is Mary, wonderful baker. And she brought in, you know, her coffee cakes today. You know, I couldn't hurt her feelings, so I had to have a piece, and then maybe I might have had a second piece and a little on a sugar high, but, it was awesome. So it's just great to see when two employees that are retired come back today just to say Merry Christmas to us. That's really special.
AB: Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, Dave, thanks for joining me in StudioOne. This was great to go over everything from 2025 and a little bit of what we're looking forward to in 2026. So thanks for joining me.
DG: Thanks Alyssa. And to everybody listening, just have a wonderful 2026. And we look forward to talking with you again next year.
AB: All right. Well, thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at ranchomesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.