Comstock's magazine 0620 - June June 2020 | Página 15

IN APPRECIATION
Michael Ziegler
Fond memories of former Pride Industries CEO
BY Ed Goldman
W
.hether we knew him as Michael,
Mike or Ziggy, hundreds of us
had a tendency to preface a reference
to Michael Ziegler with two words:
“my friend.”
The business, social services, faith
and activist communities throughout
the Capital Region lost that friend when
Ziegler died of cancer May 12 at 75. A
former private-sector executive and
entrepreneur, in 1983 he became CEO of
Roseville-based Pride Industries, whose
mission is to provide jobs, training and
a very large serving of self-esteem to
people with developmental disabilities.
The nonprofit had 65 employees and a
$250,000 annual budget when Ziegler
took over. In 2019, according to its
annual report, it had more than 5,676
employees and more than $341 million
in annual revenue.
“Mike told me, ‘Pride needed me to
get it this far. But it needs you to make it
go on,’’’ says Jeff Dern, who was promoted
to president of Pride Industries two years
ago and now oversees the organization.
“I think he was referring to the fact that
even though it had been founded with
a humbler name (Placer Rehabilitation
Industries), he started calling it Pride Industries
right off the bat to make us sound
larger than we were. At heart, he was a
salesman. A great one.”
Stephen Fleming, president and CEO
of River City Bank (and a member of Comstock’s
Editorial Advisory Board), served
on the Sacramento Host Committee and
Greater Sacramento Economic Council
boards with Ziegler.
“His contribution to the growth of
Pride Industries and the many lives that
were improved as a consequence was
immeasurable,” Fleming says. “Perhaps
what we’ll miss most about Mike was his
unique ability to make everybody around
him feel better because of his wonderful
sense of self-deprecating humor.”
Attorney and former Folsom City
Manager Martha Lofgren (also a member
of Comstock’s Editorial Advisory
Board) says she got to know Ziegler
during her tenure as interim CEO of the
Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce
in 2011. “He had a unique ability
to make you feel like a longtime friend,
even if you had known him only a brief
period of time,” she says. “He always
thought big and succeeded in implementing
those visions. Generosity is his
brand, whether of time, resources or
spirit. Thankfully, we will hold onto his
spirit. I will remember Mike’s laughter.
The sincerity of his good humor brought
people of different factions together.”
To Winnie Comstock-Carlson,
founder, publisher and president of
Comstock’s magazine, “Mike Ziegler
was a very unique and special person
who cared deeply about his friends,
about his team, about his community,
about his family and about all those
who worked with him at Pride. He felt
blessed to do the work he did, never
taking it for granted, and always using it
to bring purpose and joy into someone
else’s life. He gave jobs to thousands
— jobs they might never have gotten
anywhere else.”
Ziegler also had, Comstock-Carlson
recalls, a streak of mischief coursing
through him. She asked him to speak
at one of the magazine’s events, “and
Michael Ziegler appeared on the cover of
Comstock’s in 2001, when it was known
as Comstock’s Business magazine.
in usual Mike fashion, he had to be a
bit different. He came on stage with a
theatrical-quality horse’s head over his
own, yelling out ‘Winnie! Winnie! Winnie!’
Everyone laughed, of course. Mike
couldn’t resist the urge to change my
name into the sound of a horse’s neigh.”
But, she says, Ziegler knew when to
be serious about his work. “He had an
incredible impact on the lives of many
people who would otherwise likely have
just faded into the woodwork because
of their disabilities,” Comstock-Carlson
says. “Instead, he turned them into a
productive workforce, giving them selfesteem,
giving them a livelihood. … How
cool is that?”
Comstock-Carlson also mentions an
experience many of us shared the first
time we toured Pride’s main facility. “Mike
knew his employees’ names by heart,” she
says. And why not? He wasn’t just their
boss. He was their friend.
Ed Goldman writes a thrice-weekly
online column, The Goldman State at
goldmanstate.com. He wrote the Working
Lunch column for Comstock’s for
nearly 15 years.
June 2020 | comstocksmag.com 15