Meet Doug Garn

OC Executive of the Month

The term rock star tends to get thrown around aimlessly, especially when it’s used outside of its normal context of wailing guitars, pounding drums, and vocals powerful enough to melt the marrow in your backbone. In order to properly achieve this lofty status in the business world, you need to exhibit a willingness to learn on the fly. You also have to attack each day with a palpable passion. And you better be able to possess an innate ability to lead fearlessly. Being an all-around good person doesn’t exactly hurt, either. These things are what make Doug Garn a rock star. Before he took the helm as Managing Partner of Newport Beach’s popular A Restaurant, Doug displayed his uncanny knack for exquisite leadership and a strong ardor for entrepreneurism as CEO/President of Quest Software in Aliso Viejo. And although the small-scale, hands-on requirements involved with overseeing a popular restaurant are miles apart from overseeing the massive moving parts of a billion dollar technology company, Doug has effortlessly made the transition by balancing the work with running a business with the joy of overseeing a passion project.

Recently, we caught up with Doug to talk about how the lessons he learned in his career shaped his leadership skills, how the support of family and friends helped to achieve his goals, and the ways his new gig reminds him of his old gig... read more

A Shore Thing

Bacara Resort & Spa Celebrates Santa Barbara Like Nobody Else

By Rich Manning

California is more than an enormous state. It is a mélange of styles and attitudes, all bound together through a motif of casual elegance that draws envious stares from the rest of the country. This is a principle that drives the Meritage Collection; a quartet of unique resort properties that thrive upon offering four distinctive takes on the California experience, from La Jolla to Napa with stops in Newport Beach and Santa Barbara in between.

In this, the second of a four-part series on the Meritage Collection’s group of hotels, OC Executive heads up the Pacific Coast a bit to Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara to discover the ways that a resort can turn an already breathtaking piece of California into something even more remarkable... Read More >> 

Frozen Luxury

A Look at the Beautiful, Fleeting World of Ice Sculptures

By Rich Manning

Take a minute to contemplate ice. From a physical standpoint, it is solid, clear, and cool to the touch. If there is a slightest uptick in temperature, it starts to liquefy and fade away. If you synthesize these physical attributes into an aesthetic realm, then ice becomes rather beautiful and mysterious, if not slightly ethereal. It appears lively and vibrant before your very eyes, even as it is slowly dying... Read More >> 

 Sailing the Seas Superbly

A Look at Why Superyachts are So Super

By Drew Donaldson

We all know the saying about yachts, about how the two best days of a yachtsman’s life is the day he buys the ship and the day he sells it.  While that’s all good for a laugh – and there are no doubt plenty of current and former boat owners who would nod their head in approval at such a sentiment – it does not address the act of actually cruising around in a yacht.  There’s a reason for that, of course:  Namely, clipping around a body of water in a yacht is cool.  Even if you are one of those types that has to gulp down Dramamines like Tic-Tacs, you don’t mind taking them because it allows you to take on the unrivaled majesty of being on the open water with the sea breeze dancing around in your hair and various sea critters popping up from below the surface (if you are lucky)... Read More >>

Radical Rides

Taking a Look at Some of the Hottest Wheels for 2014

By Rich Manning

There’s nothing quite as thrilling as that moment when a new car rolls off the assembly line. Each fresh design, whether it is a slight variation on a previous year’s model or a totally new vehicle, comes fully equipped with potential; the kind that is initially realized by closing your eyes and envisioning what it would feel like behind the wheel, winding down your favorite uncrowded highway with your driving song of choice blasting through its speakers. It’s this initial spark of imagination that leads to genuine enthusiasm and anticipation; two visceral responses that is wholly justified, considering the material.

Of course, some cars have the ability to coax this kind of feeling from people more readily than others. As 2014 approaches (quicker to some people’s liking than others), we have started to catch glimpses of a few rides that have caused their fair share of eyeball shuttering and fanciful mental images. And if you haven’t heard about some of the hottest cars that are coming, don’t worry. Keep calm and read on... Read More >>

 Bowled Over

Newport Beach Scores a Touchdown by Hosting the Bowl Championship Series

By Rich Manning

In the first week of January, the eyes of the nation will collectively be transfixed on the legendary Rose Bowl to witness the title game of the Bowl Championship Series. Yet in the days leading up to this epic clash of two college football teams vying for gridiron immortality, this nationwide gaze will be bend southward to Newport Beach, as the famed coastal city will welcome scores of fans, alumni, and boosters – not to mention the players and coaches of the actual participating teams – to their inimitable confines. This preamble to the contest is something not to be taken lightly, as all of the pageantry and intrigue that is part and parcel to a game of such magnitude is extended to the host city. If a city is underprepared for this kind of magical spotlight, the results could be rather devastating. And considering that this is the final year of the BCS – it is being replaced by a four-team playoff starting in 2015 – the stakes involved in getting everything exactly right seem to be ratcheted even higher... Read More >>

Keeping Good Stock

How to Go About Building a Wine Collection

By Rich Manning

In many ways, wine is like fine art. Its composition is complex to the point where it is utterly meaningful, yet what that meaning is exactly is wholly subjective. Much like a Van Gogh, Degas, or even a Rothko can evoke personal insight, a vintage Beaujolais Cru or a full-bodied Bordeaux Blend can reveal layers about our preferences, past experiences, and our very personalities... Read More >> 

 The Toys of Travel

Hi-End Travel Gadgets to Make Any Trip First Class
If you are successful in any way, shape, or form, chances are pretty great that you do a bit of travelling from time to time.  It’s just the way business gets done on a certain level.  While the rules of technology have made the world a smaller round ball on which to connect, there is still a lot to be said about the satisfaction that is attained from hopping on a plane, jetting off to some city, and doing business on a face-to-face level... Read More >>  

Hopping onto a Legend

Exploring the History and Mystery of Easter Island

The whole entire point of having a “bucket list” is to pack it with as many events and memories as you possibly can, preferably to the point where the contents threaten to spill and dribble down its sides.  Such figurative sloppiness is something that anyone who truly enjoys life tends to strive for, simply because it acts as the perfect representation that your life is being lived with a proper level of passionate ferocity... Read More >>