THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606300232
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 268 lines
Meet Mark Garcea and Page Johnson, the toughest tag team in Hampton Roads.
They've invested and negotiated their way to a multimillion-dollar portfolio that includes hotels, warehouses, medical centers, office complexes - and sports teams.
Granted, most of the fortune belongs to Garcea, majority owner in their business endeavors. But Johnson more than pulls his weight as a shrewd deal-maker. His most recent challenge was purchasing the Hampton Roads Admirals hockey team last month, which gave Garcea and Johnson at least a piece of all three area pro sports franchises.
Garcea and Johnson own the Admirals and the Hampton Roads Mariners minor league soccer team. Garcea is the largest local stockholder in the Norfolk Tides baseball club with 10 percent; Johnson also is a minority Tides stockholder.
The Garcea-Johnson tandem is as ambitious as it is aggressive.
They might add two more franchises - possibly a winter indoor soccer team in Hampton Coliseum, and a summer roller hockey team in Scope.
And they aim to bring big-league sports - Major League Soccer - to Hampton Roads.
They have asked Virginia Beach to build a 15,000-seat stadium. City Council members say it's possible the first 7,500 of those seats could be up by next season, and if that happens, Garcea says he and Johnson will pony up the $5 million necessary to bid for a Major League Soccer franchise within three years.
The Admirals might be moving up as well. They are obligated to remain in the East Coast Hockey League for two years, but if the league does not live up to their expectations, Garcea and Johnson say they might move the team up to the American Hockey League or International Hockey League.
``Our goals are straightforward,'' Garcea said. ``We want to move the Mariners up and bring national recognition to Hampton Roads.
``We want to win a championship with the Admirals and make it the best franchise in minor league hockey.
``And when we set our minds to something, we usually get what we want.''
So who are these guys who can't seem to get enough?
On the surface, they appear to have little in common. Garcea, 39, is 5-foot-6 with jet-black hair; Johnson, 37, is 6-foot, mustachioed and balding. Garcea is fiery and intense, Johnson reserved and calculating.
``Mark brings the emotion and passion, where Page brings the steadiness and evenness,'' said Shawn McDonald, the Mariners' coach and general manager. ``One without the other wouldn't work as well.''
Both are locals. Garcea is a Norfolk native; Johnson is from the Deep Creek section of Chesapeake.
Garcea grew up in middle-class Roosevelt Gardens, but as his father's career as port manager for American Export Lines prospered, the family moved to the affluent Thoroughgood section of Virginia Beach.
He transferred from Norfolk Catholic to Cox High as a freshman in 1970 but admits he never quite fit in at the new school. His first year at Cox, he continued to wear the Norfolk Catholic uniform - a suit and tie - with short hair at a time when long hair and bell bottoms were the style.
``Mark always knew where he was going,'' said Lucy Cannon, one of Garcea's four sisters and accounting manager for M&G Electronics, Garcea's flagship company. ``He had two or three paper routes, mowed lawns and worked at a gas station.''
Though not an athlete at Cox - he was too busy working - Garcea was something of a backyard jock.
``We played a lot of football,'' said Rita Amorese, another sister who works in payroll at M&G. ``He always wanted to be quarterback. And if you dropped a pass, boy, he would give you hell.''
Garcea was frugal at an early age.
``He would fill up bags (of candy) at Halloween,'' Amorese said. ``And next Halloween, he'd still have a full bag of candy.''
He got into trouble only once at Cox - he skipped school and decided to go joy riding on the Little Creek Amphibious Base. He was pulled over and given a speeding ticket.
It didn't take long for his mother, Teresa, to discover her son had skipped school. She worked for base security at Little Creek.
After graduating from Cox, Garcea enrolled in Tidewater Community College but eventually dropped out because M&G Electronics, the firm he founded at age 19, was booming.
Said a business associate who asked not to be identified: ``Everything Mark has touched, from M&G to the hotels, has turned to gold. He has the Midas touch.''
Garcea's attire is impeccable. It is common to see him with a cellular phone up to his left ear - talking with clients, business partners and customers - while driving or sitting in a restaurant. The license plate on his two Mercedes say ``VP Tides'' and ``Admirals.'' The plates on his Jeep say ``Mariners,'' and the plates on his Chevy Suburban say ``Charisma.''
Friends refer to him as ``The Late Mark Garcea,'' because he regularly is late for meetings due to an onslaught of appointments.
He is driven, unrelenting and sometimes short-fused. At Mariners games, Garcea will blister referees if he thinks they made a bad call, and he doesn't hesitate to bark at McDonald if he doesn't agree with a coaching decision.
In his precious spare time, Garcea plays soccer. He travels extensively on business and can rattle off the names of the best beer halls in Munich, Frankfurt and Vienna.
Though wealthy - he has an Oceanfront home in exclusive Croatan and his own jet - Garcea doesn't belong to a country club or attend fashionable parties.
``You wouldn't know he's got money by the way he interacts with people. He's just a regular guy,'' McDonald said.
Johnson, like Garcea, is a workaholic - a trait he didn't acquire until college. He entered Old Dominion University with hair down to his shoulders and scraggly grades.
``I almost didn't get into ODU,'' he said.
Yet he made the dean's list eight semesters in a row. He graduated in 1981 and, with closely cropped hair, became an accountant, passing the CPA exam shortly after graduation.
Debbie Johnson said her husband is pure vanilla.
``He's a very simple man, laid-back and easy going,'' she said. ``He's very funny, with a sarcastic sense of humor.
``He may kill me for saying this, but his nickname was `Easy Page.' He's just an easy-going guy.''
Not so easy-going that he enjoyed the stereotypical CPA work. Tax returns and balance sheets bored him, but he discovered a passion for negotiating business deals.
He would identify businesses ripe for purchase, pore over their books, then bring a buyer and seller together.
``I love the thrill of putting a deal together and making it work,'' he said. ``They started calling me `the deal maker.' ''
Johnson was working at Frederick B. Hill, a prominent Hampton Roads accounting firm, when he met Garcea in 1983.
``He called me,'' Johnson said. ``He was running around at the last minute trying to get his audited statements out (to his bank). He had already missed Uncle Sam's (tax) deadline.
``I turned his statements around in a week. I guess that made a lasting impression.''
They continued to do business and began seeing each other socially. Gradually, Johnson began to negotiate business deals for Garcea.
In 1986 and again in '90, Garcea asked Johnson to work for him, but Johnson declined. ``I wanted to make partner with the accounting firm, so I passed on it,'' Johnson said.
Finally, in 1992, they cut a deal.
``I got tired of sitting on the sidelines watching Mark make all the money,'' Johnson said.
They formed Harmony Investments, agreeing that Johnson would find the investments and that he also would invest in most ventures.
Since then, they have purchased the Ramada Plaza Resort and the Econo Lodge in Virginia Beach, four office buildings and two medical centers - Diagnostic Center of Virginia Beach and Diagnostic Services of Tidewater. They own real estate in several states and are planning to build a luxury resort hotel in Minnesota.
As former Admirals owner Blake Cullen was to discover, they are tenacious negotiators. ``Painful'' was the word Cullen used to describe five weeks of intense negotiations, primarily with Johnson.
Johnson is quiet and shy in social settings but plays the role of a bad cop when negotiating.
``The roles flip when we get in the boardroom,'' Johnson said. ``I'm the aggressor, more of the bad guy. Mark is very calm when we're negotiating a deal.
``Even though Mark's a very likable guy, you don't want to sit across from him on a deal. He's very analytical, he analyzes the heck out of a deal. He's short of ruthless, but very driven to make it work.''
Garcea and Johnson at times nag each other like an old married couple. But they say they never seriously disagree, and that they generally come to the same decision on business deals.
Said Garcea: ``In all the years we've worked together, I can't remember either one of us walking away mad. We're not just friends and we're not just business partners. Page is the brother I never had.''
It was Johnson who persuaded Garcea to invest in the Tides. Garcea had amassed quite a fortune but was virtually unknown. Johnson said it was time for Garcea to shed his anonymity by investing in something high-profile.
``I had worked downtown,'' Johnson said. ``I felt like Harbor Park would be a big success.''
It was a smashing hit, but the relationship between Tides president Ken Young and Garcea, who was named the team's vice president, quickly soured. Garcea, at first highly visible in the Tides offices, is rarely seen at Harbor Park these days.
Young and Garcea won't say what went wrong. Said Johnson: ``I was dealing with Ken and with Mark and they would never talk. They both have their ways of running a business.
``It was very disappointing the way it turned out. They didn't get along.''
Though Garcea and Johnson seem to be living the American dream, they've suffered their share of heartache.
Garcea endured a traumatic breakup with a longtime fiancee, a relationship he won't discuss, shortly before his father died in 1992. He says marrying and having children are his top priorities in life.
Johnson suffered through a divorce eight years ago and for two years was a single parent raising two sons. He married Debbie, a former schoolteacher, and they've added two children to the clan.
``They're absolutely the most devoted couple I've ever known,'' Garcea said.
Devoted especially to son Jonathan Evan, whom they call Evan. He was three months premature when born six months ago. For weeks, Evan was in intensive care at Children's Hospital of The Kings Daughters.
Evan appeared to be doing fine three months ago when the Johnsons went to the hospital to take him home, only to learn he had cerebral palsy.
``He has a brain disorder,'' Johnson said. ``The brain can't communicate with the body. His muscles tighten up. He's going through physical therapy now. Mentally, they say he will be fine. But physically, he will have some problems.''
The Johnsons named their son Jonathan Evan for a reason. They discovered in a book of English names that Jonathan meant ``gift from God'' and Evan meant ``well-born little warrior.''
``He is a little warrior,'' Page Johnson said.
For the last 20 years, Garcea hasn't made time to start his own family. Too busy working and acquiring wealth.
``I missed out on a lot when I was in my 20s because of what I was building,'' he said. ``You pay a price for everything you get, and I lost a lot of years.
``When you have a family, especially when you have kids, you have to give a lot of love and a lot of time. You have to be there for them, and I wasn't ready to make that commitment.
``I am now. My biggest priority in life now is to get married and have a family. Whoever I end up with will be the happiest person in the world.''
Garcea's family for much of the last 20 years has been M&G Electronics, a firm located in a 70,000-square-foot building near Lynnhaven Mall. Garcea won't say how many he employs, but a recent published estimate put the figure at more than 350.
The building, which is undergoing an expansion that will double its size, is jammed with wires, sockets, high-tech machinery and busy workers. The wiring for everything from Bayliner boats to every Sears riding lawn tractor in America is assembled there.
As Garcea meanders across the floor, pointing out different products and quality-control devices, employees call him by his first name.
``Hello Mark, saw you on the TV,'' said a smiling woman. ``You looked great.''
The facility is air conditioned, and employees have a workout room filled with Nautilus equipment. Madonna croons on the stereo system as workers file out of a cafeteria that smells appealingly of Filipino cuisine - a vast majority of the workers are Filipino-Americans.
It takes Garcea nearly an hour to conduct a tour of his pride and joy. He takes one last look before heading back to his office.
``It's hard to believe how all this began,'' he said.
It all began with Garcea assembling electronic components in his garage for the father of his high school sweetheart.
``He was always working in the garage,'' said Anne Marie Yeattes, Garcea's youngest sister, who lives in Emporia, Va. ``I used to go in there and bug him all the time. He was always so serious. When I was a student at Thoroughgood Elementary and was asked to write a theme about someone I looked up to, I wrote about Mark.''
Garcea learned about electronics so quickly that he formed M&G and moved into a small building on Cleveland Street in Virginia Beach at age 19. His first customer was Volvo, for whom he assembled wiring for boats.
When he was 21, BMW flew him to Germany to help design wiring for their new boat division, and M&G began to boom.
M&G quickly outgrew the Cleveland Street building, so he bought a building in the London Bridge section of Virginia Beach. That soon was too small, and 10 years ago, Garcea purchased the building in Lynnhaven.
``People look at me and say I have it made, and I recognize that I do,'' Garcea said. ``But I worked so many years to get here. It's a tribute to my parents, and to God. I believe in my (Catholic) religion. It's made me what I am.''
What he is now is a successful businessman out to have a little fun. Johnson said it best at their first press conference as the Admirals new owners.
``Mark and I have done a lot of business deals over the years,'' he says. ``Most of them, we've done to make money. But you reach a point in your life where you want to buy things because you enjoy them. This one, we're doing for fun. We're going to win hockey games, sell a lot of tickets and have a blast.''
Remember, they usually get what they want. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
FILE
Graphic
WHO ARE THESE GUYS?
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Photo
CHARLIE MEADS/The Virginian-Pilot
Mark Garcea founded M&G Electronics at age 19. ``Everything Mark has
touched . . . has turned to gold, '' a business associate says.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY PROFESSIONAL
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