Sea Best Seafood has a multitude of recipes for its fresh-frozen delicacies from the ocean.
There’s almond-crusted tilapia. A potato-crusted flounder. A sweet ‘n spicy catfish wrap. The list goes on. None have many ingredients or are particularly “busy.”
It’s a stark contrast to the man who has remarketed the brand and made it a household staple in recent years.
Understanding the different parts of Mark Frisch takes more time — and needs a bigger plate.
Sure, a major part is his role as executive vice president at Beaver Street Fisheries, the seven-decade institution co-founded by his grandfather, Harry.
In the past couple of years, Mark Frisch spearheaded the investment and drive to bring a professional soccer franchise to Jacksonville. There’s his ownership in a popular Riverside pizza joint. His wife and three young daughters play a large role.
And most recently, he’s been appointed to lead a JAX Chamber group for 2015.
Some might say his plate is overflowing. He’s not complaining. For each part he talks passionately about how he can impact the quality of life in Jacksonville, making it a better place to raise his family.
Each venture it is tied to how it can make Jacksonville better. His enthusiasm oozes. But he said he has no idea where it comes from. Part of it comes from family tradition, continuing the business the community has supported for so many decades. But, mostly, he doesn’t know — it’s just there.
“I just feel like it’s who I am,” he said. “Like it’s in my DNA.”
Whatever it is, people around him have taken notice. Words like passionate, enthusiastic and outstanding work ethic — even the “type of grandson one hopes for”— flow from the lips of those who know him.
He’ll need that type of support and a bigger calendar over the next several months.
The weekdays will be filled with fish. The weekends with soccer. During both, family time.
And through it all, his other endeavors — a challenge he’s readily accepted.
Growing up in the family business
Frisch has memories from an early age of working summers in the Beaver Street facility, some better than others.
When he started at 12 or 13, he wasn’t old enough to be in the warehouse with the equipment, so he was stuck filing papers. “Not the good memories,” he said.
When he turned 15, it was time to work the pick-up desk. A customer needed several pounds of rice? Hop in the golf cart and bring it back. Then came the 4 a.m. deliveries, going on routes, working with others in the factory.
All the while, Harry Frisch ran the business. Mark Frisch’s dad, Ben, would split his time between Jacksonville and the Bahamas for business.
Mark Frisch went to The Bolles School, then the University of Florida for a business degree before returning home to work his way up.
“I never wanted to be Harry’s grandson or Ben’s son,” he said. “I just wanted to be Mark. I just wanted everyone to see me as that.”
He admits carving out his own role was tough, but once others in the company saw he was a hard worker it made it easier.
“People respect you for who you are rather than your last name or a title,” he said.
His work was sales, operations, IT, human resources, finance — whatever he could learn, he did. Sales, though, was his passion.
“You know you don’t have this account today, but tomorrow you close it,” he said. “Five items not on the shelf one year … then on the shelf.”
And worst comes to worst, his grandfather told Frisch to hone that craft — the world always will need salesmen.
Harry Frisch, now a spry 91, still walks the office halls of the company as chairman of the board.
But, the lion’s share of the work now rests with Mark Frisch and his brothers, Adam and Steven, all who run the day-to-day operations. Adam handles procurement, Steven export sales.
All told, Harry Frisch said he “couldn’t have three finer grandsons” who are continuing the family business.
Rick Rawald, president of Sysco Foods Jacksonville, met Mark Frisch about five years ago when he was about 27 and still reporting to Harry.
Even then, Rawald said he saw progressive ideas in store to remarket the Sea Best brand and implement new technology — something Harry Frisch said he couldn’t do “in a thousand years.”
“Mark sees the future before a lot of people,” Rawald said.
Insightful business decisions seem to be a knack, Rawald said — like the impending soccer franchise.
Scoring a professional soccer franchise
While attending Bolles, Frisch said he never played soccer. Baseball and basketball, yes, but not soccer.
“I was never a good dribbler,” he said. “I wanted to use my hands too badly.”’
He didn’t really favor the sport until years later, after high school and the start of his career at Beaver Street.
It really happened when the U.S. Men’s National Team traveled to Jacksonville for a friendly against Scotland in 2012. It was two years after a somewhat successful run by the U.S. squad in the World Cup and there was still passion aplenty.
Standing on the sidelines, he knew “it was just a different environment.” It was something he wanted to bring to Jacksonville.
Enter the North American Soccer League. Bill Peterson, the league’s president and a Ponte Vedra Beach resident, got a call — someone was interested in bringing a team to Jacksonville.
“What impressed me most and still does today is Mark has the ability to ask all the right questions,” Peterson said. “He’s very measured.”
A lunch meeting with Frisch in early 2013 led to months of due diligence and ultimately an announcement in June 2013 that Jacksonville scored a franchise.
“He’s very meticulous and does all the hard work behind the scenes … he’s steady,” Peterson said.
The first match is a preseason tilt Feb. 7 against the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer. With just a couple months to go until the first match, Peterson said new franchise owners can wake up in the middle of the night with cold sweats. Time flies and there’s often much to be done.
But Frisch?
“I have a feeling he sleeps well at night,” Peterson said.
Frisch said there’s a little anxiety and anticipation, but having the right people in place helps it go smoothly.
The team has sold about 3,000 season tickets to date after having a goal of about 7,000. Still, Frisch isn’t worried — fans and the business community have stepped up so far, with the rest coming in time.
Family behind him
Not only was Frisch not initially a soccer fan, his wife, Meredith, wasn’t either.
While at Bolles, too, she said she played every sport — except soccer.
“I said, ‘Really? You couldn’t pick something I knew,’” she said with a laugh.
The two met at Bolles, but as he said, “it wasn’t a high-school sweetheart type deal.”
Instead, they started to get to know each other as seniors before graduation cut it short. They then went their separate ways, but ended up reconnecting during Jacksonville’s Super Bowl in 2005. She was living in New York at the time.
During the game she said he could see her from the suite level — but she couldn’t see him.
After bumping into each other in the club section, they exchanged information. Her father, Gary Chartrand, was in the midst of launching a public education reform fund in 2006, which led to her moving back and closer to Frisch.
A year-and-a-half later, they married and now have three young girls — Lyla, the oldest at almost 4, and twins Hannah and Abby, almost 2.
The timing, she said, actually is funny.
When she was pregnant with their first daughter, Frisch said he wanted to be a co-owner in Pele’s Wood Fire in Riverside. Fast forward to when she was pregnant with the twins — Frisch told her about his ideas for the soccer franchise.
For each pregnancy, a new venture.
“I told him ‘we’re not having any more kids,’” she jokingly said. “I’m kind of used to Mark being pretty adventurous with new ideas.”
Despite the timing, she said go for it. That she supports him in anything he wants to do.
The kids, the team, the business, the pizza joint, a role on the Jacksonville University board — it’s hectic, she said, but not unmanageable.
“It’s all good stuff,” she said. “There’s so much to be grateful for.”
There has been another high-profile role just added to his plate, though.
‘The kind of guy we want’
Around Thanksgiving, Frisch said he received a call from Daniel Davis, president and CEO of the chamber. He wanted to gauge his interest on something.
He wanted to know if Frisch was interested in being the 2015 chair of the JAXUSA Partnership, the economic development arm of the chamber.
“I was caught off guard by it,” Frisch said.
But, he didn’t disregard it. A few days later, Jerry Mallot, the partnership president, called him with the offer that Frisch said was a “no-brainer.”
Davis said Frisch is “the kind of guy we want” representing Jacksonville.
“There’s a generation of entrepreneurs starting to pop up … and Mark is one of them,” Davis said. “He’s invested so much time to improving the quality of life for Jacksonville, this is just the next natural step.”
Again, Frisch said it’s his passion for the city and helping it grow that made the decision for him. Even if that meant his “full plate” meant having more piled on.
It’s one that includes his young family, the fish business, the soccer franchise, the pizza joint and now the chamber.
But those who spend a few minutes with him can see why the burden isn’t really a burden at all.
@writerchapman
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