By Tom O’Connor
Omaha has no bigger supporters than Jeff Beals and Trenton Magid. The dynamic duo has parlayed their talents to create Grow Omaha Media, an enterprise that has successfully navigated the changing media landscape to become one of our community’s leading information sources.
For all their efforts to boost pride in our great city, Beals and Magid will be honored by the Omaha Press Club on Thursday, May 22, when they will be enshrined as the 182nd Face on the Barroom Floor.
In 2004, Beals and Magid co-founded Grow Omaha Media and started co-hosting the “Grow Omaha” radio show. For the past 19 years, the show has aired from 9 to 10 a.m. on Saturdays on KFAB-AM (1110). In addition, each weekday at 7:54 a.m., KFAB airs a “Grow Omaha Minute” with the latest updates on the Omaha business scene.
Beals and Magid are executive vice presidents at NAI NP Dodge commercial real estate, the nation’s longest-running real estate company. Beals also serves as president of Jeff Beals & Associates, a sales training and consulting firm with clients in 14 countries and all 50 U.S. states. Licensed in both Nebraska and Iowa, Magid is consistently one of the top-producing commercial real estate brokers in the Omaha metro area.
The two have been friends since they attended Westside High School together. As Beals joked, “Trenton was senior class president in 1987. I was senior class nothing.”
They went different directions in college – Beals to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Magid to Tulane University in New Orleans. Beals earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism as well as a master’s degree, while Magid completed a bachelor’s degree in management from Tulane’s A.B. Freeman School of Business.
After graduation, Beals spent a year in Santa Fe, N.M., before coming back to Omaha in 1994, while Magid landed a position in Los Angeles before returning to Omaha in 1993.
Beals served as dean of student affairs at Clarkson College and taught real estate at the University of Nebraska Omaha. In 1997, Magid founded World Group Commercial Real Estate, a brokerage and property management firm. Four years later, Beals joined the firm, and their partnership swung into action.
Between 2004-2006, the “Grow Omaha” radio show aired on a 5,000-watt station. In 2006, the program moved to the 50,000-watt giant, KFAB. Gary Sadlemyer, longtime morning show host at KFAB, welcomed the program with open arms. “It was exactly what people are interested in – updates on what’s happening with Omaha businesses, construction, new restaurants, etc.,” he said.
“Our mission was to increase the confidence of people in Omaha,” Beals said. “Omaha is a great city, but we have to overcome our excessive Midwestern modesty.”
“We are all about paying it forward,” Magid said. “We want to make Omaha a better place.”
In 2021, Grow Omaha Media took another major growth step by starting an online newsletter called the Grow Omaha Weekly Market Report. The newsletter was an instant success covering a wide variety of topics including business news, construction updates, restaurant and retail updates, sports, restaurant reviews, an arts and culture section and an investment column. Ten contributing writers provide stories for the newsletter.
Today, the free newsletter has more than 23,000 subscribers with an incredible 63% of subscribers opening the email.
“Our goal is to become the No. 1 local source for news,” Beals said. Grow Omaha Media has more than 47,000 followers on Facebook. The Grow Omaha Media website has an estimated 900,000 unique visitors each year with an estimated 2.69 million hits.
“It’s fun for people to be in the know. Our news could be described as professionally gossipy,” Beals said. “We like to tell people that we are giving them the ammunition they need to go to their next cocktail party.”
In 2014, Magid was appointed by Mayor Jean Stothert to the Omaha Planning Board and served a five-year term.
Beals, with assistance from his wife, Stephanie, runs his side business Jeff Beals & Associates. He loves doing real estate training seminars as well as motivational speeches for corporate events. He is an award-winning author of two books and has published more than 1,000 articles. A frequent media guest, he has been featured in Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, Men’s Health, Chicago Tribune and The New York Times.
Roasters will include:
Emcee – Gary Sadlemyer, morning show host, KFAB-AM, and 115th Face on the Barroom Floor in 2008;
Scott Voorhees, program director and talk show host, KFAB-AM;
Brad Williams, owner, Brad Williams Photography, and associate, Grow Omaha Media;
Chris Corey, owner, Arbor Creative, and restaurant/film reviewer, Grow Omaha Media;
Stephanie Beals, partner in Jeff Beals & Associates and Jeff’s wife, and Ammy Polanco, Trenton’s first wife
Face on Barroom Floor – Jeff Beals and Trenton Magid
WHEN: Thursday, May 22; 5:30 p.m. – reception; 6:30 p.m. – dinner; 8 p.m. – roast
COST: $90 for OPC members; $100 for non-members
RSVP: The event is open to the public. Call the OPC at 402-345-8008 or go online or email opcchristine@gmail.com. Members can charge to their OPC account. Non-members need to provide their credit card information.
