On Friday April 29th, we’re returning with Gary Mueller, founder of SERVE, the nation’s only all-volunteer non-profit ad agency, and Executive Creative Director of ad agency BVK. Gary will be speaking on “RISK,” having built a career on taking risks despite being an incredibly risk-averse human being who, coincidentally, hates to fail. Below, we asked a few questions to get to know him better. 

What do you typically eat for breakfast? You might be surprised to know that I eat 2-3 small grilled chicken breasts smothered with sautéed green and red peppers every morning with a banana and a cup of coffee. 

I also eat a couple times a week for breakfast -just to mix it up a little- scrambled eggs with pepper jack cheese, peppers and guacamole. 

What do people know you for? Oh that’s a tough one. Because I’m know to so many people for so many different things. In the non-profit world around the county, people know me for the provocative and sometimes controversial public service campaigns we do at Serve, the country’s only not-for-profit ad agency. Ad people know me for being Creative Director of BVK and helping found the Milwaukee Adworkers Club here. Up north, in Crandon, where I have a cabin and spent much of my childhood summers, they know me for being that ad guy from Milwaukee who use to run the local water ski team and who, for the last 20 years has helped run Footstock, the National Endurance Barefoot Water Ski Championships up there. At my kid’s school, I’m known as a youth basketball or baseball coach. Or the funny emcee of the school’s annual auction. And recently, in the past 18 months, after being diagnosed with a rare, and painful auto-immune disease, called Transverse Myelitis, I’ve become known to everyone on social media, as a fighter and positive inspiration to people battling chronic and incurable disease. 

How is Milwaukee special to you? It’s my home. I think it’s one of the most amazing and beautiful cities in the country. I feel like a caretaker of the city. Even though I’m not a political figure or community leader, I feel a responsibility to this place and the people who live here to do what I can to make it better.

What may people not know about you? That even though I am known for doing ad campaigns perceived as being controversial or risky, I hate controversy or making people uncomfortable. And I consider myself a risk-averse as a person.

What drives your creativity? Two very different things. I think first, it’s the love of seeing people respond to a campaign that surprises them. That makes them laugh or cry. I love using creativity to move people emotionally. To have an impact on people. But the second thing is that I’m just extremely competitive and I hate to fail. So I’m very much driven by the possibility of failing. Of not figuring out the brilliant solution to someone’s problem that everyone expects I will. 

What are you going to talk to us about this month? I’m going to talk about the subject of “risk.” And I’m going to discuss some of the lessons I’ve learned about taking risks and not taking risks. How the amount of risk people are willing to take in their lives affects their success or failure. How to measure whether a risk is worth taking. How I’ve saved some high-risk campaigns from disaster. And how you deal with failure that comes with taking risks.

Ticket registration for “RISK” opens here on Monday, April 25th, at 11:00AM. See you at Ward 4 on April 29th!