Day in the Life with Michael Stelzer

It’s 5 a.m. and Michael Stelzer’s day starts with a handful of breakfast clients – Starbucks coffee and a tub of Chobani pineapple yogurt. The ad man tops that off with locally made Granolove granola and an energy bar from MaMa Jean’s Natural Foods Market. On 150 acres of hilly farmland east of Springfield, Stelzer has time for a little guitar picking before a trip down to the forge, his metalworking shop on a flat stretch near a snaky creek.

The metal hobby took root about six years ago with Stelzer, president of Springfield-based ad agency Marlin – a division of Marlin Network Inc., which he helped launch with Dennis Marlin in 1985 – and has led to a commercial job for ad client Hotel Vandivort. Stelzer’s also made a gate for Camp Barnabas and helped friend Tim Burrows with metal stylings for Big Cedar Lodge’s Top of the Rock.

A looming deadline for Hotel Vandivort recently prompted him to work mornings and nights in his dirt-floor shop.  Though Marlin is a food-focused ad agency with a national reach, the firm took on the downtown boutique hotel’s branding and presented Stelzer with an opportunity to apply his side-trade. He’s already completed two 11-foot tables for the Vandivort’s library with prominent V-shaped signatures built into steel-heavy legs.  

“I’m excited that I can extend the brand through artwork,” he says.  

The work is rewarding, he says, as he hammers down on a steel bar heated to 2,600 degrees. He’s giving texture to the metal in the 3-by-5 foot hanging piece.

“It’s about moving people, creating an emotion,” he says of the details.

Stelzer heads to the office around 9 a.m. in jeans, boots and a blue-and-white striped dress shirt. The 63 year old works downtown in Brick City, on the third-floor of an old icehouse, surrounded by art students from Missouri State University. Art born from ad work for clients such as Starbucks and Sweet Street Desserts hangs on remodeled walls. Unilever representatives visit a week earlier.

Stelzer’s new office – employees of the firm switch offices once a year for a change of pace – is up a narrow stairway with a door framed in log ends. Each corner of Marlin’s floor has its own personality, and the average age of the 40-employee firm is 26.5. Everything is designed to be a home to the creative types the agency hires.

“You walk through and you can feel it,” Stelzer says of the firm’s energy as he checks emails and puts together thoughts for a 10:30 a.m. meeting.

A group of Marlin executives and staff is heading to Chicago the next day for the annual National Restaurant Association show, but the subject of the late-morning meeting is Marlin’s traditional breakfast with clients, potential clients and food-focused media at the Art Institute of Chicago the coming Saturday.  

Stelzer says Marlin Network used to host the breakfast at the Shedd Aquarium on Lake Michigan, but jumped at a chance a few years’ back to move to the art museum.

“It totally connects to what we do,” he says. “I want potential clients to say, ‘I want an ad agency that thinks this way.’”

The Marlin Network growth curve has been significant in recent years, coinciding with the addition of the Unilever account. The company was recognized later that night as a Springfield Business Journal Dynamic Dozen honoree with 34 percent revenue growth between 2011 and 2014, and firm revenue topping $15 million.

Following the meeting, it’s back to his office for more meeting prep, a lunch with about 10 new hires.

“It’s important for me that they understand where we are going. We need to stay true to the equity we’ve worked so hard to build,” he says of the food focus. “We live and die by the creative.”

While new employees nosh on beef brisket, Stelzer opts to skip the bovine in favor of his office stash of tortilla chips. He talks about the firm’s history, a need for resiliency, and losing and gaining clients. He’s counted Con Agra as a client three separate times.

“I don’t care how good you are, you are going to lose,” he says.

Stelzer moves on to a brief meeting with building developer Matt E. Miller at 1 p.m. to talk about possibly adding more space. His team of managers largely runs operations these days and he’s focused on the big picture, with the occasional client issue.

As 3 p.m. rolls around, he brainstorms some ideas for an employee outing in June. Bubble balls at his farm, along with food and drinks, are tentatively on tap.

By 4:30 p.m., he’s lifting kettle bells and riding a stationary bike at Cox North with trainer Mark Millsap. Millsap brags on Stelzer’s fitness, pointing to his recent first-place finish in his age group at the 12-mile Springfield Urban Challenge.  

“You’ve been good, now you can have a beer,” Stelzer says he often tells himself after an evening workout.

Tonight, it’s a chocolate protein drink and a crockpot of venison stew for dinner. The deer is straight from Stelzer’s own land, harvested during the past bow-hunting season.

He squeezes in an evening guitar lesson before it’s back to the forge. A June 1 Vandivort deadline awaits.

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