Perpetual Optimism is a Force Multiplier | Garret Dillon

Anderson Williams: Welcome to Everyday Heroes, a podcast from Shore Capital Partners that highlights the people who are building our companies from the inside, every day, often out of the spotlight. With this series, we wanna pull those heroes out of the shadows. We want to hear their stories, we wanna share their stories. We wanna understand what drives them. Why they do what they do, how they might inspire and support others to become Everyday Heroes too. 

In this episode, I talk with Garret Dillon, the Director of Integrations at Agentis Longevity. Garret joined Agentis after an early career in the prestigious 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. 

He came to Shore Capital via a referral from a fellow soldier and join the military to operations program that Shore created to find and recruit military talent and experience wanting to transition to civilian work. As an Everyday Hero, Garret represents perfectly the aspiration of the military to operations program. Find great talent with strong operational skills, an exceptional work ethic, a team mentality and a can-do spirit.  

Garret talks about his transition from military life and what has come naturally and what has stretched him in his work with Agentis. He shares why veterans shouldn’t discount the relevance of their experience in the business context, and gives specific examples of how his leadership still applies. 

I started by asking Garret to describe what Agentis Longevity does, and to explain what it means to be Director of Integrations.  

Garret Dillon: So Agentis is a healthcare company that provides best in class scientifically validated treatments within the wellness and longevity space, with the ultimate goal of driving healthier outcomes for their patients across their entire lifespan. 

So enabling them to do the things they love to do for longer and be healthier for a greater portion of their life.  

Anderson Williams: When you say integrations for someone who’s not in a private equity ecosystem or familiar with that, what does that mean? What does integrations mean?  

Garret Dillon: Yeah, so integrations, it’s essentially the last step in the mergers and acquisitions process. 

So I take the baton from our M&A team, and then I’m sort of there to receive the company after the deal closes and then shepherd them, hold their hand, be the sole source of contact through the integrations process. And so I’m kind of doing two things. I am representing the acquired company’s interests at the corporate office at Agentis making sure that, you know, their voice is heard. 

But then also I am project managing a lot of the tasks that need to be accomplished in order to ensure that they mesh well with our business, the other businesses in the Agentis family, our other partners. So it’s, it’s kind of bi-directional that way.  

Anderson Williams: And you came to this, that’s not your background. Your background is in the military, and you came to this opportunity through Shore’s Military to Operations program. 

Will you just describe a little bit about how you found that and why it seemed like a good opportunity for you?  

Garret Dillon: So I found it through a referral. A good friend of mine was an intern here at Shore. Also a dear friend, we served together in the uh 101st Airborne Division. He referred me to this program. And that was kind of what got me the first interview.  

Then I, I was accepted into the program and after that there was a, a matching process. So once I was in, then I had the kind of task to then find a portfolio company that both kind of had the demand for my skillset. And then also, I mean, kind of was just even aware of the program. 

Anderson Williams: Yeah.  

Garret Dillon: It was in the right stage of, of growth at the time too.  

Anderson Williams: Will you talk about what the Military to Ops program equipped you with? How did it prepare you for this experience?  

Garret Dillon: Yeah, so it equipped me with two different things. One, a very deep understanding of Shore’s resources, their ways of working, FaceTime with key leaders across the deal team, the Portfolio Performance Group. The Shore Resource Team did a fantastic job of orienting me to all the ways that Shore can empower rapidly growing businesses. 

The second thing it did was it gave my cohort best in class integration, specific training. So that way I was able to be useful to my portfolio company from the very first day. 

And within the first two weeks of my time at Agentis, I was leading a town hall for our most recent acquisition. And I felt prepared for it because of the fantastic training that we got through the Military to Operations program, and especially kind of zeroing in on what value I can provide to the portfolio company I matched with. 

So I’m, I’m incredibly grateful for, you know, that experience to help polish off my, what I learned in business school and then prepare me to be a value add from day one.  

Anderson Williams: When you thought about that coming out of the military and into civilian work. What were you looking for?  

Garret Dillon: Yeah, so I really wanted to get my hands dirty in a fast growing business environment. 

So I left the military. I went to business school for two years, and I felt like I was sort of observing, studying businesses, reading cases of successful businesses, learning all the different functions of finance. In, you know, leadership and business and, but I, I wanted to actually do it.  

Anderson Williams: Yeah. 

Garret Dillon: I wanted to kind of immediately dive right in and this was like the perfect opportunity to get kind of boots on the ground operation experience at a portfolio company driving all these different things. 

I just spent two years learning about to grow a successful company.  

Anderson Williams: Yeah, and what have you found having gone through the Military to Ops program and then now having been at Agentis for a while, what did you learn in the military that’s been sort of key to your continued success, or what have you brought from the military into this experience? 

Garret Dillon: A great quote from someone I look up to is perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. It’s a famous Colin Powell quote. That was something that we carried in the military all the time. Whenever a task seemed like it was too hard, or you know, a bridge too far, it seemed like the road was too long. Just staying optimistic made things even possible to begin with. 

I think if your team is sort of stewing and negativity, then you can’t accomplish anything. And so sometimes I think we find ourselves in similar situations at Agentis where we, it seems like we have a huge task for a small team. We’re trying to run a lean corporate team and accomplish things that are kind of outsized at a faster rate. 

And, uh, so we, we have to punch above our weight. And the best weight, I think, to do that is to start with, you know, perpetual optimism. We start with the fact that we can accomplish this, we can break this into small chunks and you know, like just bite off one bite of the apple at a time.  

Anderson Williams: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

It’s funny ’cause that’s, that’s something that Rachel brought up as well and spoke to your optimism and quoted you quoting Colin Powell. 

Anderson Williams: With this in mind, I thought I’d share exactly what Agentis Chief of Staff, Rachel Scott Garrison, shared about Garret’s optimism its impact on the team and the culture and what it looks like in practice. 

Rachel Scott Garrison: So Garret has been an Everyday Hero, just for one, the positivity and optimism he has brought to any project and our integration process with partners. He brought the mantra of optimism as a force multiplier to our team, so have definitely seen that ring true with him in every kind of situation and project he’s owning. 

Recently, we’ve been in an ongoing migration of one of our payment processing systems and really just needed a dedicated project manager. So he’s taken that on the past few weeks and created his own war room from the two systems. So even through a very tactical, messy project, he can make light of it.  

Anderson Williams: And when you think about that and the stage of your company, the size of your team and so forth, and it can be both the willingness to step in and project manage something like that, or just the notion and spirit of optimism?  

Rachel Scott Garrison: Yes.  

Anderson Williams: What has that meant? How has that impacted you, your team, the business or otherwise? Just give us a sense about what that has meant for a team, your size, and a company at your stage. 

Rachel Scott Garrison: Absolutely, I think at this stage we’ve seen culture is so important and we as a team integrate that into everything we do on a daily and weekly basis with values shout outs. Just bringing Agentis values to life. And I think he has embodied those values with positivity and optimism and just created a culture and environment where we all feel like we’re a part of that hard work, even if we’re not seeing it directly in the day to day. 

So it’s just been a good connector across the team and provided hope that we’re all accomplishing the same mission.  

Anderson Williams: I, I’ve gotta believe that it’s not just about sort of having someone bring that optimism and that spirit to the room, but it’s also knowing he’s been in the military, he, he’s not just. 

Rachel Scott Garrison: Yeah. 

Anderson Williams: New and green and optimistic. He’s got this real experience and hard won experience,  

Rachel Scott Garrison: mm-hmm.  

Anderson Williams: That he’s bringing, even though he’s sort of new to this environment.  

Rachel Scott Garrison: Absolutely, and I think his experience in establishing those processes from the military has been crucial for us where we are as a company and aligning everyone into a project management system, walking people through how to do it, and just taking that extra effort with team members and also operators at our new acquisitions. 

I’ve seen him really go above and beyond to do.  

Anderson Williams: And what does that look like? Is there an example or a story or an interaction, some kind of anecdote that comes to your mind when you think about, for anybody listening, what that looks like in just real world practice for you?  

Rachel Scott Garrison: Yes, for sure. So one example that immediately came to mind was him helping out with our Agentis Health Score process. 

And few months ago we wanted to preview it for our board members up in Chicago, and one of the components of the test is an InBody machine, and to ensure that we could get it to Chicago and not have any troubles with the flight, he didn’t even wanna take that risk. And so he actually ended up driving up to Chicago with the InBody to make sure everything went smoothly and stayed the whole, you know, next day to help with the process.  

And I think that just really embodies and captures just one example of the links that Garret is willing to go to make a process go smoothly and something successful that he is contributing to so. 

Anderson Williams: It’s clear that in both big and small, both practical and tactical, as well as cultural ways that Garret’s experience in the military has already proved invaluable at Agentis. 

But I know that transition from military to civilian work, and particularly to an early stage company, has to have had its challenges. So I ask Garret about what hasn’t been easy in the transition.  

Garret Dillon: The biggest thing that stands out to me is in the military a lot of the time, there is a correct answer, like a defined way of how we do things. There’s either doctrine or a manual or some kind of policy that establishes this is the correct way to do whatever you’re trying to do. 

At Agentis, we need to figure that out for ourselves a lot of the time. So there is a lot more collaboration of Rachel and I sort of sitting in a room and drawing things out on a whiteboard, creating our own processes from scratch, learning from our own struggles and failures and kind of what not to do. Defining how we create the process of what to do.  

So this is the exact kind of experience I wanted to get. Building a company where. We can define what are our own procedures, our own doctrine, our own policies, and kind of figure it out on our own.  

Anderson Williams: Yeah.  

Garret Dillon: This is something that we’ve never had to really do that from scratch in the army. 

Anderson Williams: How has that been for you? I mean, it seems to me like that it’s the polar opposite. From there being a process and a definition and a doctrine and following orders and things like this to an environment where in a microcap company you’re making stuff up every day, taking your next best step, and collaborating in ways, like has that been a stretch for you? 

How has that experience been?  

Garret Dillon: I think I’ve found myself really sometimes craving that right answer, but then it is also liberating to define that for ourselves. So to me, the way that almost kind of manifests is I really want to codify what is our doctrine and our process going forward so that way we can make sure it’s repeatable every time we can take that process and we can distribute it. 

It’s like a big element of integration’s work. It’s every time we acquire another business, we form a new partnership. How can we make sure that we don’t make the same mistakes we made with the last integration and create this system that’s repeatable and it is easy to fix. It’s what we expect every time, and it’s something that can grow with the company as well. 

Anderson Williams: One of the things that came up a couple of times in your Everyday Hero nomination was your positive impact on the culture at Agentis, from as you’ve mentioned, the optimism, but words like, let me read from this, grit, passion, excellence, solutions minded.  

How do you think about culture? When you think about ais, when you think about your experience in the military, how do you think about culture and why does it matter so much? 

Garret Dillon: Yeah, so it matters a lot to me because that’s the one thing I miss the most about being in the army. There is such a clear culture that is really all consuming to everybody who’s in the military. You know, across all branches after you leave, it still is a big part of who you are, and so I frankly just that’s the one thing I miss the most.  

Anderson Williams: Mm-hmm.  

Garret Dillon: But I also, I think that you can build great culture, especially if you have people who also want to build great culture. And I think that we have such great teammates at Agen who all are interested in building like a fun place to work. And I think that that also kind of speaks to like collective optimism. Everybody sort of being comfortable enough to work together. 

Anderson Williams: Mm-hmm.  

Garret Dillon: Towards the same objective. And so I think that that’s something that the Army does very well.  

Anderson Williams: Yeah. I’m curious as based on your experience so far and recognizing that, you know, it’s not a small transition, but there are things that are bridging your experiences, what advice would you give somebody who’s considering or is actually actively looking to transition from military into an opportunity like this? 

And we’ll talk specifically like operations, early stage, fast growth. Any advice that you would share? Anybody listening to this who might be considering your same path?  

Garret Dillon: You would be surprised by how applicable your military experience and your leadership experience is in the business setting. The same strengths that served you or served whoever well, in the military, I think will also serve you in an operations role. It’s kind of some of those things that we spoke about earlier, like doing whatever it takes to get the job done, leading your team to success, sort of setting the tone for we can accomplish this, a can do attitude seems kind of cheesy, but. 

Yeah, so like those things are, they’re soft skills that you learn very well in the military, and I think a lot of times while transitioning veterans will discount their military experience and say, I certainly felt the way myself when I went to business school, I felt like my peers knew so much more than I did and I was trying to play catch up to their level of experience. 

But I keep being surprised by ways that my military experience actually is giving me some of the answers that I need at Agentis. And just, yeah, being a problem solver. Being a leader, embracing challenges, not being afraid to fail, were all things that kind of learned in the military and that are directly applicable. 

Anderson Williams: So one of the things that I enjoy most about getting to do Everyday Heroes interviews is that these aren’t just about the business, they’re about the person. And you and I were talking before and we had talked some months ago before you had a child, and now you have a three month old daughter. What advice would you give your daughter based on what you’ve learned today? 

Garret Dillon: Yeah, I would just tell her to trust the voice inside of her own head, that you shouldn’t be afraid to take risks, because her mom and I will be there to make sure that nothing truly bad will happen, and that her goal should just be to live the fullest happiest life that she possibly can. However, she kind of defines that for herself. 

I’m very afraid of looking back my life and feeling like I, I left a lot on the table. And having regrets. And so that, that was a big reason for, you know, like being in the military. I got a lot of life experience that way. And then I, I knew that there was a whole host of other great opportunities in the world of business outside of the military. 

And so I’ve been interested in just like charting my own path that way, like this big military family. And this is kind of like a step into uncharted territory. And so I would just want her to do the same. I, I would want her to kind of think about what is she passionate about. What does she enjoy doing? 

What she good at, and then just drown out the rest of the opinions and then just make sure she lives her life on her own terms.  

Anderson Williams: In all of this, it is important to recognize that while you are transitioning out of the military and into a startup. And you’re also transitioning into being a dad and being a spouse with a child and all the time, while also prioritizing all the stuff that we were talking about before. 

Garret Dillon: Yeah. Lot going on. I It’s a lot’s a lot going on.  

Anderson Williams: Yeah, it’s a lot going on for sure.  

All right, so just to wrap up, if you had to just capture and describe Garret, what motivates you, what motivates you?  

Garret Dillon: Well, I’ll start by saying kind of what motivates me professionally right now, specifically at Agentis. 

I’m very motivated by being at the frontier of healthcare. I think that the work we’re doing and what our ultimate goal is to kind of redefine healthcare in terms of being proactive, not reactive. When you spoke with Jimmy St. Louis, that was what resonated the most with me was Healthcare 3.0 and kind of making whatever progress we can to get there, and I think it’s very exciting to be at the forefront of scientific discovery and applying those in a healthcare setting. 

So outside of that, what motivates me is definitely providing as much opportunity as I can for my family, making sure that, you know, they have all the options at their fingertips for however they want to sort of pursue things they’re talented at things they’re interested in, things they’re passionate about. I want to provide those options for them.  

And then lastly, I think that I’m really motivated by. I want to live a full life and I want to look back and feel like I did it all and ironically, that’s kind of where Agentis comes into the picture a lot of the way too. Like I want to live a life where I’m able to keep climbing up mountains and skiing back down them and then, uh, running and exercising and, and just living like a full, happy, healthy life. 

And I feel very fortunate that I’m working in a space where that is also the goal.  

Anderson Williams: Garret Dillon is an Everyday Hero whose superpower is his perpetual optimism. It’s a concept he learned from veteran and American hero Colin Powell, and has applied in every aspect of his life, including most recently, becoming a dad. 

Garret’s optimism is transforming the integrations work at Agentis Longevity, and helping build a company culture that is and will be what makes it a special place to work and a special mission to be a part of. For Garret Dillon, perpetual optimism isn’t optional. It isn’t a nice to have it’s mission critical. 

If you enjoyed this episode, check out our other Everyday Heroes at www.shorecp.university/podcasts. There you’ll also find episodes from our Microcap Moments as well as Bigger. Stronger. Faster. series. Each highlighting the people and stories that make the lower middle market space unique. 

This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners and recorded in the Andrew Malone Podcast studio. With Story and narration by Anderson Williams. Recording and editing by Austin Johnson. Editing by Reel Audiobooks. Sound Design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks. 

Special thanks to Garret Dillon. 

This podcast is the Property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.