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http://www.tustincmtybank.comThe gig:John Gallegos, 52,
is founder and chief execu-
tive of United Collective, a
group of creative agencies
built to capture the eyeballs,
hearts and wallets of diverse
communities across Ameri-
ca. Born in East Los Angeles
to blue-collar Mexican
American parents, Gallegos
grew the small Latino-
focused agency he founded
nearly two decades ago into
a full-service creative net-
work. Today, Gallegos’
original five-person team
has grown into an award-
winning business 150 strong
with offices on both coasts.
The American dream:
Gallegos grew up watching
his parents work tirelessly
at odd jobs to support their
family, including as line
workers at manufacturing
plants, caterers and pro-
gram sellers at the Los
Angeles Memorial Colise-
um.
“My parents were the
epitome of the American
dream,” he said. “They
dreamt of being able to raise
their family in safer neigh-
borhoods than they grew up
in, to go to college and have
opportunities they never
had.... They did what was
necessary to give us a better
life.”
John Gallegos Sr. and
Maria Elena Gallegos
worked as a team to make
sure their many work com-
mitments never stopped the
younger Gallegos and his
sister from having a full
family life. “They’d always
somehow figure out how to
make it work,” he said.
Dreaming and doing:De-
spite the family’s busy work
schedule, Gallegos’ parents
always made sure their son
had time to have a child-
hood — especially when it
came to baseball.
“My dad was working so
many jobs, but he never
missed one of my games,”
Gallegos said.
Sports played a central
role in the CEO’s young life.
He started playing at age 8,
was on his high school’s
football and baseball teams
and went on to join USC’s
baseball team. Gallegos
says many of the skills that
helped make his business a
success were gleaned from
team sports.
“It teaches you on so
many levels, from teamwork
to the individual things you
need to be a successful
entrepreneur,” Gallegos
said. “You learn how to be
aware of the things you can’t
control and how to ap-
proach those you can. It also
teaches you to deal with
pressure because there can
be a lot of that.”
Gallegos said the single
most important thing he
learned from his adolescent
sports career was not a skill
but a mind-set.
“The bridge between
sports and entrepreneur-
ialism is the combination of
being a doer and a
dreamer,” Gallegos said.
“You need both to succeed
in sports, just like business.
You’ve got to have the
imagination to see where
you want to be and then do
the hard work to get there.”An unexpected turn:A
summer internship landed
the then-22-year-old USC
business student a job offer
at a Spanish-language
advertising firm.
“I had never thought of
going to work for an ad
agency,” Gallegos said. “I
had wanted to be a sports
manager.”
Gallegos had intended to
turn the offer down but was
forced to reconsider when
one of his professors learned
of it.
“She told me, ‘If you
don’t take that job, I’m just
going to fail you.’ ” Gallegos
recalled. “At the time, peo-
ple were getting jobs as
receptionists [at ad agen-cies] just to get their foot in
the door. So I took a second
look at the job — and I never
went back. I’ve been in
advertising ever since.”A bumpy takeoff:After
spending the 1990s working
for two Latino-focused
advertising agencies in Los
Angeles, Gallegos decided
in 2001 that it was time to
branch out on his own. “I
always felt like the work that
was being done for the mul-
ticultural or ethnic audienc-
es could be better,” he said.
He partnered with ad-
vertising mogul Stan Rich-
ards to found Grupo Galle-
gos in July 2001 — just in
time for the pandemonium
of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“Clients were reevaluating
what was going to happen to
the whole economy, and
here we are trying to start a
business.”
He drew on lessons he
had learned from his base-
ball years to push through
the rocky start. “I couldn’t
control what was going on,
but I had to learn how to
deal with it,” Gallegos said.
His persistence paid off
and soon Grupo Gallegos’
five-person team was win-
ning pitches against agen-
cies 10 times its size. Within
three years, Gallegos was
able to buy out Richards’
stake in the company. In
2005, the group received its
first Cannes Lions Interna-
tional Festival of Creativity
award and two years later
was named multicultural
agency of the year by
AdAge.
From 2007 to 2016, it more
than doubled yearly revenue
from less than $9 million toroughly $21 million, accord-
ing to data from AdAge.
Gallegos said finding
“courageous” clients was
key to the company’s suc-
cess.
“They’ve got to value
creativity and be willing to
invest in it,” he said. “They
need to be looking for inno-
vation and be willing to
challenge convention.”Thinking bigger:In 2017,
Gallegos decided it was time
to broaden the scope of his
agency’s work. Social sea
changes such as the push
for marriage equality, rise of
the millennial generationand evolving demographics
of the U.S. convinced him it
was time to expand and
target diverse audiences.
“We really leaned into the
diversity explosion we’d
seen going on in the coun-
try,” Gallegos said. “We were
looking at where the market
was going.”
Gallegos bought a New
York digital agency and a
boutique PR firm while
building a production house
and business consultancy.
Grupo Gallegos rebranded
to Gallegos United and the
five agencies came together
to form a single group called
United Collective.The new collective took
on projects beyond the
scope of Gallegos’ original
agency, including with the
Alzheimer’s Assn., Chick-
fil-A at the Little League
World Series and a chicken
makeover with Foster
Farms. After 12 years of
handling Latino audience
marketing for the California
Milk Processor Board, best
known for its iconic “Got
Milk?” branding, the com-
pany was awarded the full
account in 2017.Finding balance:Today,
Gallegos is following in his
father’s footsteps and mak-
ing sure his busy schedule
doesn’t leave his own three
children with an absentee
dad. Just as his parents did,
Gallegos and his wife of 22
years, Palma, work as a
team to keep the family
machine on track. He han-
dles the morning shift, and
she takes over after.
“I’m up by 5 to make
them breakfast and lunch
every morning, then drive
them to school,” he said.
“That’s my favorite part of
the day.”
The breakfast table is
reserved for updates on
Alexa’s, John Jr.’s and
Matthew’s school and per-
sonal lives. If things at the
company are particularly
busy, however, the family’s
car turns into a rolling office
and, Gallegos said, a win-
dow for his children into his
other life.
“There have been times
I’ve taken calls on the drive.
They love listening in,” he
said. “They’ll ask what
happened with a project
they heard me talking
about, or if I hired that last
person I spoke to.
“A friend of mine told me
a few years ago that I’m the
lead actor in my play. I’m
trying to be the best sup-
porting actor in theirs.”HOW I MADE IT: JOHN GALLEGOS
Dreams, hard work built creative empire
JOHN GALLEGOSis surrounded by awards at the headquarters of United Collective in Huntington Beach.James B. Cutchin Los Angeles TimesJohn Gallegos turned
his tiny Latino ad
agency into a broader,
bicoastal business.
By James B. Cutchin
Dear Liz:I am 64, and my
husband is 63. I retired five
years ago after a 30-year
professional career. My
husband is an executive and
plans to work until 70. We
own two homes and one is a
rental property. Both our
boys are successfully
launched. Currently, 67% of
our retirement money is in
stocks and stock index
funds. The rest is cash and
IRAs or 401(k)s. I am work-
ing on reallocating that 67%
to safer investments, but
our two investment advisors
don’t even agree on what
that would look like. And my
husband does not want to
leave potential stock market
gains. Help! I think it is time
to switch to more conserva-
tive investments. What do
you think?Answer:Many financial
planners would say you
should take only as much
risk as required to reach
your goals. It depends on
how much you’ve saved, how
much you spend and how
much guaranteed income
you expect to receive from
Social Security, pensions
and annuities, among other
factors.
Most people need a hefty
exposure to stocks in retire-
ment to get the returns
they’ll need to beat infla-
tion, but whether that pro-
portion is 30% or 60% de-
pends on their individual
circumstances. Your cur-
rent allocation could be fine
if your basic expenses are
entirely covered by guaran-
teed sources (Social Securi-
ty, pensions, annuities) and
you want to leave a substan-
tial legacy for your sons. Or
you could be way overex-
posed to stocks and vulner-
able to a downturn if you’ll
need that money for living
expenses soon.
Your IRAs and 401(k)s
are not investments, by the
way. They’re tax-deferred
buckets to hold invest-
ments. How that money is
allocated among stocks,
bonds and cash matters as
much as how your other
investments are allocated
and should be included
when calculating how much
should be in stocks.
If neither of your invest-
ment advisors is a certified
financial planner, consider
seeking one out to create acomprehensive financial
plan for you and your hus-
band. The plan should
consider all aspects of your
finances and give you a road
map for investing and tap-
ping your retirement sav-
ings. You can find fee-only
financial advisors through
the National Assn. of Per-
sonal Financial Advisors,
the XY Planning Network,
the Alliance of Comprehen-
sive Planners and the Gar-
rett Planning Network.Strategies to shave
mortgage interest
Dear Liz:I want to save
interest by making biweekly
mortgage payments. My
loan company said I
couldn’t do that, but I won-
dered if there was a way by
first paying the monthly
mortgage and then making
a half payment mid-month
toward the next month’s
due date, to get started.
Then I’d make another half
payment at the beginning of
the following month. Ideally,
this would all be arranged
with autopay. I’m retired
with a 4%, 30-year mortgage
that has a $1,900 monthly
payment and my retirement
accounts are currently
paying better returns.Answer:You actually won’t
save any interest until your
mortgage is paid off, which
could be 25 years from now if
your mortgage is relatively
recent. And getting a better
return from your invest-
ments is a good reason not
to accelerate your mortgage
payments. You also
shouldn’t prepay a mort-
gage if you have any other
debt, lack a substantial
emergency fund or are inad-
equately insured. (Thosewho are still working also
should be maxing out their
retirement contributions
before making extra mort-
gage payments.)
With a biweekly payment
plan, you’d pay half your
monthly mortgage payment
every two weeks. Instead of
making 12 payments a year,
you make the equivalent of
13 payments. Paying the
extra amount helps you pay
off the mortgage sooner. A
biweekly payment plan
would shave about four
years off a $400,000 mort-
gage at 4%. The interest
savings kick in once you’re
mortgage-free. Then you’d
save the $47,000 or so in
interest you’d otherwise pay
in the final years of the loan.
If you’re determined to
do this, you should talk to
your mortgage lender be-
cause the plan you’re de-
scribing sounds a lot like the
biweekly payments it won’t
accept. You could hire a
company that specializes in
these arrangements, but the
fees you pay for the service
detract from your savings
and aren’t really necessary.
Instead, consider simply
making an extra payment
against the principal each
month. Ask your lender how
to set this up with autopay
so that you’re actually pay-
ing principal. Otherwise,
the extra amount might just
be applied to the next
month’s payment, defeating
the purpose.Liz Weston, Certified
Financial Planner®, is a
personal finance columnist
for NerdWallet. Questions
may be sent to her at 3940
Laurel Canyon, No. 238,
Studio City, CA 91604, or by
using the “Contact” form at
asklizweston.com.MOST RETIREESneed a hefty exposure to stocks
to get the returns necessary to beat inflation.Jamie GrillGetty ImagesMONEY TALK
He wants stocks, she wants
less risk. They need a referee
By Liz Weston