Mason stays close to his roots in graphics, typography

Greg Mason clicks the mouse on his computer to bring up a real-time video from the patio of his second home, a property near the coast near Los Barriles in Baja California.

He watches quietly as the afternoon breezes riffle through the trees.

"It's very peaceful there, very tranquil," he says. "There is nothing to do. The highlight of the week is karaoke night on Fridays."

And it's a treasured retreat from the hectic pace of the advertising world for Mason, the president of The GMAA Group LLC the company that grew from Greg Mason Advertising Arts, a player in the local advertising business for more than two decades.

The agency's clients range from gaming properties in Oregon and the Nevada Commission on Economic Development to Clearstar Financial in northern Nevada. A common element in the company's campaigns is the 59-year-old Mason's respect for the traditions of the graphics trade.

"We're still old school," he says. "My first love is typography and graphic design. People these days don't understand typography, and they don't care any more about the little details."

Mason has paid attention to the little details for more than 35 years.

As a business student at Vermont's Lyndon State College, a classroom exercise to create a poster for the campus bookstore lit a spark.

Listening to the advice of his wife, Marsha, a Utah native, he transferred to the University of Utah and earned a degree in fine arts with an emphasis on graphic design.

After nearly a decade in the graphics and advertising business in Salt Lake City including four years as the senior corporate artist for KSL-TV and its parent, Bonneville International Corp. Mason answered the call from a Reno ad agency that needed an art director. Although he'd never been in Reno, he took the job with one of the agencies that's an ancestor of The Glenn Group.

Four years after his arrival in northern Nevada in 1984, he launched Greg Mason Advertising Arts. In its two-decade history, GMAA LLC has ridden the region's economic waves once reaching a staff of 13 before settling back to its current six.

Working as part of a small team fits well with Mason.

"There is very, very little in this business that I don't like," he says.

Even as he's involved closely in the agency's work which increasingly includes development of special events he also wants to build a self-sufficient staff that doesn't need him close at hand while he enjoys the breezes of his home in Mexico. (He's spending enough time in Baja California that his business cards now list a Mexican phone number along with numbers in Reno.)

"I hire people who do things better than I can do them," Mason says.

Among his greatest professional joys is creation of advertising for the annual Reno Rodeo.

"I have the most fun creating their stuff," Mason says. "They let me do anything I want."

That creative freedom reflects the trust that the Reno Rodeo Association has developed in the professionalism of GMAA, says Bill Price, a longtime rodeo volunteer when he's not working as a salesman for Dynagraphic Printing.

"It's great to work with him," Price says of Mason. "His group is very creative."

And it's very focused on advertising that delivers results.

"Some ads aren't selling any more," Mason says in puzzlement. "That's very foreign to me."

The agency looks to deliver results, too, as it donates its service to the American Cancer Society for events such as its "Big Dig" fundraiser.

For all his creative success and the accomplishment he feels in keeping a business going through thick and thin, Mason finds the greatest satisfactions from his family life including a marriage of nearly 37 years.

"We've had a glorious life together," he says. "Marsha keeps me focused and grounded."

The couple's two grown children live and work in northern Nevada. A daughter-in-law, Ally Mason, works at the advertising agency.

The family, which now includes two granddaughters, remains close camping together, sitting down for family dinners nearly every weekend. And Mason proudly shows off photos of himself surfing along a boat's wake, a passion of family members.

All around, it's a good life.

"l'm very happy here," says Mason. "I love life. I love doing things."