Meet Our Director, Client Solutions: Interview with Harmony Healthcare’s Robert Agger
What do you do at Harmony? What does a typical day look like for you?
I am Harmony’s Director of Client Solutions, I run the sales team from the ground level. A typical day for me involves making sure the sales team is following their progressions, their accountabilities, their follow-ups—essentially their daily grind. At Harmony, we’ve built a model for account executives to follow and this model is predicated on past success where past success was due to following a very strict but unique program.
What did you want to be growing up?
Early on I wanted to be a veterinarian—I’m very passionate about animals. When I retire, I would love to live on about 30 acres and help any stray dog, cat, or any animal that needs help. I love animals. In fact, when I first moved down to Florida—I’m originally from the northeast where poisonous spiders and snakes don’t exist—my wife was out back on the porch and she saw a plant and she said, “Hey there’s this really big black spider with red spots on its belly, what is it?” And I replied with, “Hon, that’s a black widow, they’re very poisonous.” So of course, she’s freaking out and she tells me to get rid of it. So, me, instead of squashing it, I caught it and placed it in a piece of Tupperware and drove about half a mile where I released it into the woods. That is my love for animals.
What would you name your boat if you had one?
I would name my boat The Bubba Boy. The Bubba Boy is a nickname for my dog Calvin who passed away October 2017. When my daughter was born, she always heard us call him by his nickname which was Bubba. That was all she could say when she was growing up, she used to say, “Come here Bubba Boy.” We had a very special bond as far as dogs go, he had a sweet soul and a human element to him. You can feel him through his eyes.
Who is your favorite character of all time? Why?
I don’t really have a favorite character of all time, but I was infatuated with the Hulk when I was growing up. I absolutely loved the show as a kid. Although he was mean and aggressive, he always seemed to have compassion in the end. Obviously, I had a gravitation towards that, but I also had a little bit of a temper. When people picked on me, I turned into the Hulk. It was a nickname they gave me because I would start roaring like the Hulk.
Who is your inspiration?
My father for sure, we’re best friends to this day. I have never heard anyone in my life say a negative word about my father, everybody said that he was amazing. He was an inspiration; he was a police officer and detective for 30 years. In those 30 years he wrote only two tickets—you had to do something really wrong to get a ticket from him. If you did something wrong, he was the guy that would just say, “Don’t do it again.” He’s got that spirit. He also took the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program from California to the northeast. He went out to California for six weeks to get trained on it and brought it back to the northeast and was head of that program. He also started the Police Athletic League where we were, it was for less fortunate kids to have them play sports. Most of those kids never had a chance to do anything outside so every year he would rent a van and he would take those kids to Fenway Park so they could experience a live baseball game because they never had the means. He is a very selfless man.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t worry as much. Too many times now, we worry about the unknown and 99 percent of it never happens—we cause ourselves unnecessary stress and anxiety by worrying too much.
