James Garcia’s (13) professional life has been driven by values rooted in community, family, and personal integrity rather than monetary gain.
Growing up, his father would often say, “We’re rich in the things that matter.” These strong priorities have shaped Garcia’s career, where his leadership and vision have been instrumental in the growth and success of the Moniker Group. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s identity and culture.
Since starting in 2010, Moniker Group has flourished into a network of thirteen brands, with Moniker General, Moniker Coffee Co., and The Craft Creamery emerging as popular destinations for Point Loma Nazarene University students. Each brand is led by its own managing partner.
Garcia serves as the director of operations for both Moniker Building Co., the company’s general construction and fabrication team, and Moniker Design Studio, its interior design firm, as well as the managing partner at Moniker Building Co. He noted that their mission centers on the creation of physical spaces for each Moniker Group brand.
“It’s fun; you get to make your mark on a lot of the other brands,” Garcia said. “We also like to have a big hand in the development of what people now know Moniker as from an experience standpoint.”
That experience involves cultivating a sense of togetherness and comfortability, a shared objective for the two brands when at the chalkboard for each project.
“From there, that branches out into the aesthetics; for us, people are an element of our design, a part of our material palette, and a texture of the space itself,” Garcia said. “We saw that during COVID. When people weren’t in the space, it just didn’t look the same. Putting them back in the space, you see they’re a part of the actual design that is core of what it was to begin with.”
Among these ventures stands the storied Lafayette Hotel in North Park, San Diego, which, after a meticulous $31-million renovation with CH Projects and CLTVT, welcomed guests once more in July 2023. Inaugurated in 1946 as the Imig Manor with Bob Hope gracing its opening, the hotel, beloved by Hollywood’s elite and known for the spirited revelry in its Mississippi Room, now dazzles with a riot of florals, animal prints, and marble.
Other Moniker undertakings include the design of Full Circle Tattoo, an industrial yet inviting parlor nestled in the University Heights neighborhood of San Diego; the furnishings of Waverly, a chic coastal restaurant and lounge in Cardiff-by-the-Sea; and a portfolio of high-end residential apartments and homes throughout the San Diego area.
“We have a lot of people that come to us from other firms [where] this difference is noticeable…People genuinely care about each other.”
The design and build industries, Garcia said, typically don’t have a great reputation for being healthy work environments — the former has dubious, product-like personalities and the latter has toxic behaviors among employees. Yet he experienced otherwise while at Moniker, where he was motivated by the opportunity to “create an environment where people can take their talents and skill sets to apply them in a meaningful way, and to build them as well.”
“We have a lot of people that come to us from other firms [where] this difference is noticeable,” Garcia said.
Collaborative and supportive are how he describes the company’s culture.
“People genuinely care about each other,” Garcia said.
Garcia, who grew up in Santa Cruz — a small, eclectic coastal town nestled on California’s Central Coast — said the type of work he’s doing with the visionary design and construction company is far beyond anything he had experienced growing up.
“Growing up in a working-class family, you have to learn how to do things — if you want to get them done, no one’s going to do it for you,” Garcia said. “It’s more of learning how to figure things out.”
The second nature of Garcia’s craftsmanship and creativity is honed from an upbringing steeped in the trades of his grandfather, a carpenter, and his father, who worked in landscape construction. Reflecting on his childhood, Garcia recalled treating scaffolding as a playground, clambering up and down the structure at his home after school.
When Garcia was five, his father began including him in various landscaping projects. By twelve, he became a proficient hand in the renovation of their family home, aiding with demo, framing, and trim.
“I grew up around him, thinking through how things were going to turn out from a functional and aesthetic standpoint,” Garcia said. “Even things as simple as how you’re going to do maintenance, and how people are going to interact with it five years down the road, when you’re designing something in the beginning, you have to think not just in the year now, but also in the future.”
In high school, Garcia started a retail company called Third World.
“I don’t think that’s [calling it a company] even an accurate way of describing it,” he said. “I came up with a name and a logo and did a photo shoot with some friends.”
“I realized that entrepreneurship was [where] you can create and build things that don’t have to be just art.”
He also made album covers for a band he played for.
“I really enjoyed it,” Garcia said, “I was like, ‘I like business, I like the creative side of it.’ As I got into school and started getting exposure to more things, I realized that entrepreneurship was [where] you can create and build things that don’t have to be just art.”
When the time came to consider college, Garcia’s grandfather recommended that he get a business degree “because you can do anything with it.”
This is when Garcia fell in love with organizations and businesses that found ways to have people behind them subconsciously — social good companies, like TOMS® and Invisible Children Inc., were gaining traction, and inspired Garcia to start something similar.
Garcia found out about PLNU after one of his two older sisters toured it when she was looking for colleges. After he got a letter in the mail from the school, his dad visited campus.
“My dad called me after and [said], ‘You have to go to this place,’” Garcia said. “It was actually the only school I applied to. It was Point Loma or junior college back home because I didn’t really have a backup.”
After swinging for the fences, Garcia was accepted in 2009. He chose to major in business administration and minor in accounting, holding onto his original entrepreneurial ambitions. However, as his studies progressed, he found himself drawn to marketing for its creative components.
“I think it’s pretty rare that the friends you make in college are still the friends you have 14 years, 50 years later.”
When he was a student, Garcia worked as a student employee at the Fermanian School of Business Economic Development Center (now the Fermanian Business & Economic Institute (FBEI)), which provides expert consulting services and innovative solutions in business, economics, and policy, where he helped FBEI Chief Economist Lynn Reaser with her studies and put publications and reports together.
As he built skills that would set him up for a promising career, Garcia said the most significant aspect of attending PLNU was the people he encountered.
“I think it’s pretty rare that the friends you make in college are still the friends you have 14 years, 50 years later,” Garcia said. “I’m still very close friends with my roommates and friends from college. I can’t really think of anyone else around me that didn’t go to Point Loma that has a similar experience with friends from college.”
“No matter what you learn in the classroom, no matter how good the education is, nothing is a substitute for real life.”
During his senior year, Garcia encountered Ryan Sisson, the founder and current CEO of Moniker Group, who had come to the university to participate in a panel discussion on nonprofit business. Following the panel, Garcia engaged Sisson in conversation, which led to an invitation to tour Moniker Group’s warehouse in downtown San Diego. Impressed by what he saw, Garcia was soon offered a position with the company.
“No matter what you learn in the classroom, no matter how good the education is, nothing is a substitute for real life,” Garcia said. “The chance to work at Moniker gave me a lot more exposure than what I would have gotten in another workplace because they gave me the freedom to learn, do, and take responsibility for things at a much earlier phase in my career.”
The freedom Moniker granted Garcia was unusual for someone his age. Reflecting on this, Garcia noted that youth often comes with a significant ego, untempered by the humbling experiences that come with time.
In his early days with the team, Garcia’s eagerness for more work and projects — which was “probably a little obnoxious,” as he admitted — led to a moment of candid feedback from his boss that stayed with him.
“‘I feel like you’re never satisfied,’” his boss had said.
This remark served as a reality check for Garcia, making him realize the importance of appreciating the opportunities he had and not taking them for granted. He effectively gained experience in running a business without the associated risks and liabilities, all within a company where a positive culture was carefully cultivated.
“I think early on in my career, I just wanted more and more without the patience to learn the lessons first, for the door to open,” Garcia said. “I’m a pretty ambitious person and I’m not necessarily risk-averse either, so there are a lot of things that I wanted to do. But the longer I’ve done this in adult life, the more I realize that sometimes you have to learn the lessons first and take the time to observe and listen before you act. That lesson has served me well since I’ve learned it.”
In September 2023, Garcia left San Diego and rerooted in Bend, Oregon. Two years after, Moniker Building Co. expanded its general construction office to the Pacific Northwest.
“It forces you to go out and talk to people, to get out of your house.”
Garcia is now focused on integrating himself into the Bend community and raising awareness of the brand’s presence. Though leaving his San Diego roots behind has been challenging, it has also presented opportunities for both personal and professional growth.
“It forces you to go out and talk to people, to get out of your house,” Garcia said. “It also forces you to refine your messaging a little but because if [they] have no idea who you are, you have zero brand equity here. In San Diego, I can say ‘Moniker’ and that opens doors pretty easily. But here [Bend], I’m just some guy with an email address or phone number. It’s been a good challenge of having to meet people here with no starting point.”
Outside of work, Garcia finds solace in the great outdoors, spending his time backpacking, camping, and fly fishing.
“Anything that kind of gets me away from the noise, both literal noise and figurative noise, is where I recharge best,” he said.
He has also taken up gardening, a passion passed down from his father, and enjoys diving into random pop culture trivia.
“I think movies have a really cool way of transporting you out of your life, like escapism, it’s a nice mental break from your reality”
As Garcia carves out a new chapter in Bend, he carries with him the values and friendships forged at Point Loma, ready to make his mark in a fresh landscape.
