Growing Lean
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Growing Lean
From High-Earning CEO to Philanthropy: The Journey of David Marlon, CEO of Vegas Stronger
What does it take to shift from a high-earning CEO to a philanthropist dedicated to helping the less fortunate? Our guest, David Marlon, CEO of Vegas Stronger, walks us through his incredible journey. He was once at the helm of a successful insurance company, earning over a million dollars a year, but his life transformed when he traded his executive role for spearheading a non-profit organization. Today, his vision and commitment have grown a small rehab facility into a thriving 400-bed treatment center. His dedication has seen an impressive 87% of his clients maintaining their sobriety at the six-month mark.
Many wonder how Vegas Stronger is helping to change lives in Las Vegas. Guided by its five core components: immediate access to care, longer treatment durations, integrated care, evidence-based treatments, David Marlon, has seen his organization flourish. But it's not all smooth sailing. Listen to David discuss the challenges he faces, including the struggle to secure funding. Yet, despite these hurdles, the satisfaction derived from seeing their clients' remarkable recovery makes it all worthwhile.
No one walks this journey alone. David emphasizes the power of partnerships in the recovery community. From Metropolitan Police Department to shelters, key stakeholders have played significant roles in supporting the organization's mission. He also offers some insights on how to support those seeking recovery. Looking to make a difference in someone's life? Tune in as David shares how you can help, the resources offered by Vegas Stronger, and the importance of taking the first step. This episode is a testament to the transformative power of recovery—it's a story of compassion, commitment, and the will to serve those most in need. Don’t miss out!
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Welcome back to the growing lean podcast. This is your host, ethan half-eyed, sponsored by lean discovery group, an award-winning app development firm. I am here with David Marlin, ceo of Vegas stronger, soon to be Dr David Marlin and recovering drug addict, right, tell us more about your story.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks so much, ethan. I'm happy to be here and spend half an hour with you. I'm a person in long term recovery. It's been 18 years since I've had a drug or a drink of alcohol and I've really had two lives. I had this one life where I was striving to be a successful I was CEO of a large insurance company and then I've had this second life, which is where I become a clean and sober person, more focused on what service and what help I could be to others in the world and less focused on getting more drugs, alcohol, money, sex for me, which was kind of the prior chapter. I am serving as the CEO of Vegas stronger, which is a nonprofit delivering substance use disorder and serious mental illness treatment to people who are unhoused in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1:Nice. Wow, I do want to ask how did you first get started in your industry? And it sounds like it was a bit of a roller coaster ride, right? So feel free to let loose there. Tell us a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Well, I grew up in the 70s and 80s and in the 70s and 80s we were supposed to try to get rich. Everybody knew that was the American dream, so I got an economics degree and then I got an MBA. I had applied to some brokerage firms in Wall Street in downtown Manhattan, and then I got offered a job to come work for a health maintenance organization in Nevada and, although it took a little pay cut to go there, I began a journey working for a publicly traded insurance company. I worked there for 20 years and about every two or three years I was very focused on getting to the next rung of the ladder and I became a supervisor, then a manager, then a director, then a vice president, then the chief operating officer. And then I remember when the chairman of the board sat me down and said, dave, we let the CEO go. Today you are the CEO. And I was like. I was surprised. That always seemed like an impossible goal to me and although I was the chief operating officer at the time and absolutely equipped to do it, it's a position I've been in now for over 20 years. I've been the CEO of multiple publicly traded companies.
Speaker 2:The defining moment really became on May 15th of 2005 where I made the decision to take my last drink and it had a major ripple effect on my life very quickly. Although I was making my W-2s at over a million a year for the prior three years, while I was drinking I felt empty and I ended up resigning from that job and opening up a little 10 bed drug and alcohol rehab. And one of my favorite stories is that for the next five years I lost money every year and, as you remember 2007, the bottom fell out of the market. Things were really hard, but those five years it was the richest I'd ever been in my life. Every time I went to supermarket shopping or to church or any place people running up to me and saying thank you for saving my son or my daughter or my husband or my wife or my loved one and I had a higher order purpose. So I love the recovery industry.
Speaker 2:Now I started with a 10 bed rehab and, just like my job when I worked for Sierra Health I, every year I would buy a new house and I converted to a 10 bed detox or residential treatment center and every year I grew 10 beds until I started buying hotels and skilled nursing centers and it became a 400 bed treatment center and I was able to help thousands of people get clean and sober. I sold the company in 2016 for 20 million a little over 20 million and I thought I'd grab the brass ring and that I would joke. I'd say I won America. I went and I bought a house in Del Mar on the beach overlooking the ocean and I was like alright, I guess I'm retired, you know, that's it. But just like happened when I first got sober, where I actually engaged in prayer and decided to leave the job and then take this losing money opportunity and rehab in the in the late 2017, 2018, I prayed in my Del Mar house and it came very clear to me I need to sell my beach house and I need to go help the underserved. So I sold it and I took the money and I opened up a clinic in what they call the Corridor of Hope in Las Vegas. I hired some people and we began doing drug and alcohol treatment like we used to do to people in the wealthier suburbs. But now we use that same model for the unhoused and similar feelings would happen. I love coming to work every day.
Speaker 2:The team here has grown to 75 team members.
Speaker 2:We have a good crew of people who are trying to help professionals and we offer a wide array of services, most significantly psychiatric care, with multiple psychiatric providers, primary care, substance use disorder counseling, case management and peer support.
Speaker 2:So it's all under one roof where we provide counseling services for the people in our community who need it the most. You had mentioned before we came on that we just released our latest outcomes reports and our numbers are astounding. Who would guess that the people who've been chronically housed, when they had somebody they could talk to for an extended period of time, that their recovery rates are amazing, with 87% of our clients staying clean and sober at the six month mark. At the six month mark, more than 70% of our clients are housed and employed. So we're really bringing clients back to self-sufficiency and helping them get off the streets, which is helping not only the clients but it's helping our community, because our parks have become unsafe, our streets unsafe and really our city in total, because the brand of Las Vegas has begun to get tarnished, because we're looked at as a dirty city with panhandling and homelessness and drug use which has become rampant. So Vegas Stronger is a social change project trying to help the people in our community that need it the most.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. I mean, throughout that explanation I heard that you accomplished multiple versions of the American dream because you take the hierarchy of needs right, maslow's hierarchy of needs. Getting a good job in the American economy is considered an American dream for some a good, stable job. Then it's like okay, let me work my way up through the ladder and many people don't get to that C-suite level. And you got to that C-suite level and you got to see yo multiple times.
Speaker 1:It sounds like became a multi-millionaire. It sounds like as well, that's one version of the American dream. And you said, okay, I got there and you achieved a certain level of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is important even for recovery and behavior change with what you do with your patients. So you lived it on multiple angles. And then, when you felt empty, it sounds like you said okay, now I need to go to that self-actualization above ego and the achievement of self-worth. Now it's self-actualization, a sense of purpose and a sense of selflessness for others. So congratulations on doing that. It sounds like you know you're doing things well.
Speaker 2:A lot of people say that, but when it's time to sell the beach house and give it a homeless, you know, that was something that certainly tested me.
Speaker 2:But I have no regrets and I'm sure that we are going to make our city a better place, and my dream is I'm hoping, with the data that we're showing, that our model ends up getting duplicated, because I hope that every city in America ends up having, you know, whether it's Charlotte stronger or it's Los Angeles stronger.
Speaker 2:Every city should have immediate access to evidence-based treatment with longer durations of care in integrated models with and I'm going to get to this a transformational leader, because very frequently people want to run particularly nonprofits in a transactional fashion. You see this amount of patients, you do this amount of bills, you answer this amount of calls and no one blossoms or flourishes or delivers excellent care in the transactional model. Being a transformational leader is I get buy-in to the mission, I empower people to do the best to help accomplish our mission and really I end up being a personal supporter of each person. As my staff go through divorces or other problems in life, my job is more to kind of be supportive and help them through that while they're doing their job and I'm just removing roadblocks for them, I'm not keeping my thumb on making sure that they're doing X amount of units a day, because that doesn't help organizations operate in excellence.
Speaker 1:So I'd say, all right. So you just kind of mentioned a little bit of your business strategy. But what is Vegas Stronger's strategy? I know you say transformational leader, but talk to us more of that overall approach. If someone were to, I don't know if you could franchise a nonprofit, but if you could start another chapter of a nonprofit, say in Richmond, virginia, for example, what would be that business strategy, that replicable strategy?
Speaker 2:It really has five components. You need to have immediate access because people who are unhoused while Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act ended up getting people insured, that was a great step and it was fanta. It was transformational for the uninsured. Now they have insurance, but if you call your insurance company in most markets and say, hey, I'd like to use less fentanyl, they'll they're going to give you the number of three places that you could call and when you call those places they might give you an appointment in four weeks or six weeks or 12 weeks out in a different part of town. If you're unhoused, there needs to be immediate walk-in availability to be able to help. So we that's number one immediate access.
Speaker 2:A second longer treatment durations. Most of the managed care organizations, like your Blue Crosses, they try to shorten the duration to help manage costs and to me, the number one determinant of successful outcomes in substance use disorder treatment is the duration of your treatment episode. So we treat. Our average length of stay is 133 days, but we have many clients who stay for a year and if you've been homeless, panhandling, using fentanyl for 10 years, I don't expect three weeks of counseling to have a meaningful change or impact on your life. You need to be engaged in a process and through a treatment plan over a significant period of time. So the second point is longer duration to care. The third, and embedded in that, is all humans. We accept all humans. So if you're undocumented or you have a signal or you don't have it, we accept all humans.
Speaker 2:The third item is integrated care. We have psychiatry and primary care embedded with our counseling model. Because if you come in and you're trying your best but you have an explosive bipolar disorder or you're hearing loud voices, we need to be able to use non-narcotic pharmacological interventions to be able to help address them. And I can't give you a name of a provider and say go see Dr Half-Hide across town. We need to be able to treat clients on site.
Speaker 2:So Morph item is evidence-based and while I was doing my doctorate I studied all the peer review journal articles on addiction treatment. But the entire body of evidence available now and over 90% of nonprofits deliver non-evidence-based treatment. They use church models, they use Narcanon, the Scientology model. There's all different models out there but only a very few of them are really using evidence-based medicine. As a longtime insurance nerd, I insist that everything we do is documented and we're delivering evidence-based medicine. So that's the fourth element, and then the fifth is back to that transformational leader. You can't have a transactional type manager come in to try to organize this, because each client is so different, brings their unique challenges the system, especially as we've grown to 75 employees, but we're still very much a family and in nowadays, in the post-COVID era of employment, having an employer with a soul who cares personally about each team member and is looking out for them, to me it's now a requirement to do business, to do business successfully and to operate at a high level.
Speaker 1:So all right, you know, I see that you have a proven system. I see that you have something that seems like a very clear vision. You are that transformational leader of Vega stronger Today. What were you saying?
Speaker 2:Today.
Speaker 1:I like how humble you are, man. It's so, it's so like wholesome. But I want to know, like you don't get there with any business, any nonprofit, any vision for impact, without any challenges and obstacles, what were your challenges and obstacles when establishing that system? You're probably like so many. There's so many.
Speaker 2:There's so many. You know my favorite one is that you know every armchair quarterback comes in and says, oh, don't worry, there's tons of grants available. You know you'll all be funded. And you know, while there are lots of grants out there, you know the grant process is arduous, it's long and it's detailed and often they're not focused on helping us effectuate social change. You know they're reading their rubric. So the funding stream, I'm going to say, is the number one challenge.
Speaker 2:Most people say that new businesses struggle with working capital is one of the number one issues and I fortunately have, you know, I just sold a beach house, so I'm 100% committed and but I've still burned more than I expected to multiple times. You know I had to sit down with my banker again and said, I know I said only one million, but now we're doing this again and so I've been committed to that. So the funding, I'd say, is number one, you know. The number two is the team, and I've had team members leave me because you know a military spouse. They were transferred different offers. When you have a transformational team that's working really well, it really hurts the whole team when somebody leaves.
Speaker 2:And dealing with staff transition, you know, especially with looming funding challenges is certainly, you know, something challenging to navigate. When I'd founded Solutions Recovery in 2005, there were 12 employees and when I sold it, 12 years later, 11 of those employees were still on. So I really I value the human component. That is what the organization is. But if I had to say you know what are the two challenges, it's funding streams and then managing the human dynamic. In third, and honorable mention which I hinted on, it's really interface with the government. There's so many government entities and agencies which you would think would be here to help, but they often approach it, as you know, from their own unique perspective. And I'm going to say those are the three biggest challenges Access to working capital, the staff, and then government entities.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, with that being said, have you formed any partnerships or collaborations that have helped you grow that business and weather that storm and get through those dark times?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We're very close and I'm very close. I'm an active member of the recovery community and you know the emotional support from my peers and recovery as I'm spending my life savings on a social justice project has been immeasurably helpful. That you know. Just because you know, some people say I'm crazy, other people say I'm brave, but the recovery community support and maintaining sobriety. I've gone through some hard times in this 18 year journey and in it, you know, what I could tell any newcomer is that even when I got really hard, I don't drink and I don't use drugs, even though sometimes it gets hard.
Speaker 2:The second partnership that I would mention is the Metropolitan Police Department. They now are our number two referral source, where 10 humans get dropped off by squad cars each week to come here and we love working with the police. I love keeping our building friendly for the police because in recovery, instead of like uh oh, cops are here. We totally changed that narrative to. You know we, you know we're all good people trying to help. They're trying to keep it safe, we're trying to keep it clean and sober and we work together. So I'm so thrilled for Kevin McMahill and Las Vegas Metropolitan he's the sheriff and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department because they've been a huge supporter and we're so grateful for them.
Speaker 2:I also have to mention the shelters because we're an outpatient clinic, which is a real. It's a game changer for most people because they're like wait a minute, homelessness. You need to have beds to solve homelessness. And I'm trying to change that whole narrative because no, that's not true. If you take a person who's using fentanyl or is is severely schizophrenic or bipolar or depressed or traumatized, and you get them a bed and three squares, that is not solving their problem. So I'm trained as a licensed drug and alcohol counselor supervisor that it's a primary condition that we need to help address this primary condition first. So our next order of important stakeholders are all the shelters. So we built our clinic within walking distance of 2000 shelter beds. We could spend the night there and get food, but then come here during the day. We also feed them to their their lunch meal, but we just provide the social services they need during the day and then hopefully move them to a sober living or a transitional care and then to independent living in their journey with us.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, okay, and then you know we're coming up on time here, but I want to give you the time. If you're looking to form more partnerships or collaborations or you're looking to raise awareness for Vegas stronger, you know how can, well, before that, before that, before people get in touch with you and learn how to, you know, get in touch with the great soon to be, dr David Marlin. What advice would you give these people that are looking to get started or looking to learn more about, like their impact, their purpose, or maybe even people that are looking to get started, a positive change in their life, whether it's drug rehab, whether it's, you know, just healthy mindset when it comes to work, whether it's maybe even losing weight, because it's all behavior change, right, going through that trans theoretical model of change, right? What's your number one piece of advice?
Speaker 2:I'm going to be a bit bifurcated. You know one if if you have a drug or alcohol problem, you know the first thing you have to do is you got to stop drinking and using drugs. And fortunately there's lots of help available. In Nevada we got the 211 number or now we have nationally over the 988 number. You could call and get referred to a place to get help. So we got to stop, you know, drinking and using.
Speaker 2:The second thing is something a priest told me once when I was I was trying to start a nonprofit, back in my early solutions days in 2005. And I said you know I want to. I want to help educate kids about the dangers of drugs. How do I make a foundation to help do this? And the priest looked at me, real simply, and he said if you want to go help educate kids, go talk to kids. And it really, you know, comes back to the Nike just do it. If you want to help somebody get clean, find somebody and help them get clean. So it just. You know so many brilliant ideas get killed by the committee, whether it's external or the committee in our head. You know, to me life is precious, the gift I got today as I woke up and I get another day, and to me, that's the case for you as well. So if you're thinking of starting a podcast business, or you're thinking of starting a treatment center, you know, go start with helping people Well it's a.
Speaker 1:I genuinely want to pick your brain on this. To like say, I'm everyday person and you know, I know someone who has a drug problem or, it you know, an alcohol problem. Maybe it's closeted, they don't want to talk about they don't. They're still showing up to work, they want to hide it. How can I, as someone who is not an expert, help them?
Speaker 2:Addiction is a very tricky disease and, unfortunately, the best thing to do is is Google and find out where a professional is so in your community, wears a licensed drug and alcohol counselor, then what you could do is make an appointment and then go to your friend and saying hey friend, I Really care about you. As an act of love, an act of concern, would you do me a favor and go do an hour session with this person to get assessed? I don't have a problem, I don't know if you do or not, but I'm worried about you. What would you be willing to? Go get an assessment? This way, a licensed professional who knows how to help these folks Can meet with them and do that assessment.
Speaker 2:The only thing that we could do whether it's a loved one, an acquaintance or a person on the street the only thing we could do is is help get them to treatment. Once they come in and meet with a counselor, that's their job then to to help break down the lack of motivation and then to engage them in treatment. So the answer for addiction is treatment. Treatment is effective, treatment works.
Speaker 1:Love it. Wow, I feel like you should run for president after that. That's Good, but yeah, you know, for the audience that's looking to get in touch with David Marlin and Vegas Stronger, how can they do so?
Speaker 2:I'm on all socials as David Marlin, whether it's my tiktok, my Instagram, my snapchat, linkedin, david Marlin, but Vegas Strongerorg Org On that there's a way to contact me or the company. Please check out Vegas Strongerorg. Everything I talked about today is documented on this website, and Thank you so much for this opportunity to talk to you for 30 minutes. I hope we get to talk again. I.
Speaker 1:Think we will. David, thank you for being a great guest. This is awesome.
Speaker 2:All right.