We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Georgopoulos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

I think generally, people think it’s a bad idea to work with family because you may not get along or you never get away from each other, but at RMD we’ve been able to strike a good balance. It’s been a great experience and it’s allowed us to all spend time together. At one time my mom, sister, and stepdad all worked for the company. My wife was even our lawyer at one time. Right now, my two partners are my uncles. I think some of our success comes from our East Coast and Boston mentality. In my experience, East Coast relationships tend to last longer. For example, I still hang out with people I went to Elementary school with and some of them have even worked for the company. I’ve been lucky to have long-lasting relationships with family and friends and make it a point to put a lot of effort into them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My passion for the hospitality industry came at a very young age from a combination of my love of eating (not food at that time just the act of eating) and my desire to host people I cared about. As an elementary school boy, my mom worked multiple jobs. If I wanted to see her and eat more than what was in the refrigerator, I had to walk two miles to the restaurant she worked at. The pay-off was I got to see my mom and eat all the food I loved – pizza, pasta, and sandwiches. Eventually, the owner of the restaurant made me earn my keep by washing dishes and cleaning lettuce. I worked for food until I was in junior high school and landed my first paying job as a dishwasher at another local restaurant. I spent the next ten years working between the hospitality industry, landscaping, and various small business’ which is how I started to support myself. Eventually, I went to work for a large hotel company in San Diego that afforded me the opportunity to move and later start RMD Group and a hospitality management and consulting company. At RMD we help our clients bring their big ideas to life and we do it from the perspective of an owner/operator. Over the past 20 years in San Diego, we have developed, built, and operated over ten unique concepts and we bring all the lessons we’ve learned to each consulting project. We’ve built a dedicated team of industry leaders who love what they do and more importantly love sharing what they know.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

During my senior year of high school, I had to get my own apartment due to my family moving far from my hometown. In addition to working the overnight shift at Harvard University as an Event Manager and cutting deli meats at my favorite sub shop, I ran a keg party business. The parties would move around based on the availability of friend’s houses, cornfields, and train tracks. This business prepared me for RMD’s first nightclub, Side Bar.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

RMD is a family-owned business, my partners are my two uncles Dave and Dan Renzella. Growing up with a single mom I looked up to my uncles, Dan was a successful businessman who I wanted to one day be like and Dave was the cool uncle who I always wanted to hang out with and did.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rmdgroupsd.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeygsd/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RMDGroupSD
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-georgopoulos-bb59a615/

Image Credits
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