Better Know a Member – Daniel (“Danny”) O’Malia
I first met Danny during our New Member Orientation sessions at Rotary last year. He hit the ground running with the club when he teamed up with Debbie Hyde to co-chair our new member meeting—if you recall it was a lively panel presentation on immigration that was moderated by Abdul-Hakim Shabazz of the “Abdul in the Morning” radio show.
It was my pleasure to sit down with him recently for this Member Profile. I first wanted to know about Danny’s career as a customer service trainer and professional keynote speaker. When Danny’s in the customer service training role, he works with all types of companies to train their staff. In his keynote speaking role, he brings entertainment, motivation and great storytelling to large company meetings, professional associations and many other types of organizations.
Danny’s role in customer service began when he was about eight years old working for his dad, Joe O’Malia, in the mid-1950s. Joe bought Roth’s store in Broad Ripple. It was a very small store with one cash register and five employees—and one was an eight-year old kid. Danny’s job at the store included breaking down 100 pound bags of potatoes into 5 and 10 pound bags and carrying out groceries all over Broad Ripple. The part of the job that made the biggest impression on Danny was the couple of times per day his dad would see a particular customer come in the store and knew they would want something special that he didn’t have room to stock, so he’d send Danny to run down the street to the Kroger, buy that item and get back before the customer was ready to check out.
Joe’s stores and partnerships changed over time, and as Danny became a teenager, he started watching his father in business closer and was learning more. He found that his dad had a great penchant for getting his employees on the team and the whole team dedicated to taking care of the customers.
The first O’Malia’s was opened when Danny was a freshman at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Danny received a lot of mail that year from his dad telling him all about how he was going to open that store—how he found the ground at 106th and College and who he wanted to hire from all his previous stores. He said he only wanted those that gave the best service to work for him.
Upon graduating from Xavier, Danny taught high school English for six years here in Indianapolis—at St. Andrews at 38th & Sherman and then freshman through seniors at Cathedral High School (when it was boys only). During this time, Danny worked nights and weekends at O’Malia’s and also received a master’s degree at Butler University.
Danny is married with three daughters and now five grandchildren. While his girls were still very young, he decided to talk to his dad about working in the family business full time. When he did, he found that his dad already had a list of stuff for him to do. At that time there were three stores that turned into nine by 1986.
Danny is the oldest of his siblings—two brothers and one sister. One brother became a lawyer, and practiced corporate law for quite a few years before he came into the business. His sister became a housewife, and her husband worked for the business as the deli manager. The other brother inherited their dad’s merchandising and operational flair. Danny inherited his dad’s “people thing.” After assembling the family team, the key to success they were taught was the importance of teamwork.
One example Danny told me about was “Management by Wandering Around”—make the rounds through the store and office and find somebody doing something right and give them praise for it. You’ll find plenty of mistakes being made too while you’re doing this, but if you’ve given your people praise along the way, they will be more open to fixing those mistakes and doing better next time.
Danny eventually was managing customer service, employee relationships, marketing and public relations at O’Malia’s. He was named President in 1986 and became CEO in 1991. After selling to Marsh in 2001, Danny served as President of the O’Malia division of Marsh and in 2006 was named chief customer service officer for the entire Marsh chain.
All this experience led Danny to his current career as customer service trainer/keynote speaker with the goal of spreading the concept of “doing the right thing.” His dedication to the Indianapolis community and philosophy of taking care of people makes him such a great addition to the Rotary Club of Indianapolis.
