Other than founder Tom Dyer, there is no other person more synonymous with the Watermark name than current owner/publisher/editor Rick Claggett.
Rick recently entered his 16th year with Watermark turning his love for Central Florida and Tampa Bay’s LGBTQ communities into his life’s passion of telling their stories, but that wasn’t the direction he originally saw his life moving.
“Honestly, I just needed a job,” Rick says. “I had moved down from New York City after 9/11 and didn’t work for a month or so. I was bored out of my mind and was lucky to see an ad for an administrative assistant at Watermark.”
Before Rick moved back to Orlando, the city he grew up in, he was living a typical gay dream of moving to New York City and making it big, and he certainly did that.
Rick can regale you with stories of how he wrapped presents as Joan Rivers’ personal assistant; or how he worked with Ricki Lake on her hit ‘90s talk show; or his days of being a production assistant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire with Regis Philbin. But none of those stories carry the same passion as when he talks about his time at Watermark and his time in the community.
“Without a doubt my favorite thing about working at Watermark is the community,” Rick says. “I feel a deep connection to this community. I came out at a pretty young age for the ‘90s and this community helped guide me through it. Working at Watermark and being able to pay that forward is a tremendous honor.”
One person Rick credits for helping to make him into the person and community leader he is today is his mentor, Tom Dyer.
“Tom is definitely my professional role model,” he says. “I am in awe of his ability to defuse a situation. He is a perfect mediator. No matter the situation, he can get the two parties to sit down and work it out and I have always admired that about him. Everything that I know about this job I have learned from him. He’s a pretty amazing guy.”
Along with his many duties as owner, publisher and editor of Watermark, Rick frequently contributes a Publisher’s Desk column to the magazine. In it he has been very open and candid about his struggles with alcohol.
“[The column] is kind of self-serving in a sense. If I write in my article, that people share and read, that I’m an alcoholic then I’m accountable to that. But that is a very minor part,” he says. “I feel like there are a lot of people in our community who share that struggle, so I wanted to put the story out there. I talk about it openly because one day somebody might read that and think that relates to them.”
Just as Tom did for him, Rick too is a mentor to many here at Watermark and in the community. When asked what advice mentor Rick would give to his younger self, he says: “Learn who you are and love who you are as soon as possible. The rest will just fall into place. Oh, and don’t drink. It doesn’t look good on you.”
Watermark is the collective product of a team of incredibly hardworking individuals. Over the next series of issues, we’re using this space to introduce each member of our staff and contributors to you. When you see us out and about in the community, stop and say, “Hello.” We’d love to meet you.
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