LOVE WILL FIND A WAY

Dr. Haag could be immersed in a pivotal meeting months in the making, but if his bride calls, he’ll step out.

He acknowledges people like his father-in-law and countless non-profit leaders have helped him acquire the business acumen he has today, but he says hands down the biggest impact on who he is as a leader and on the growth of One More Child is the woman he fell in love with as a student at Baylor decades ago.

He nods his head at the notion that it’s not always “good to go into business with family” but he and Christi are an example of the sweet fruit of shared labor when at its best.

The couple travels everywhere from Texas to Southeast Asia and many places in between to serve children and families. They also speak at large conferences, including one workshop called “LIPSTICK on the Mirror” that is about keeping the spark alive while serving God and others. Christi is a dynamic speaker, and locally she has been a beloved leader at Moms of Lakeland for many years.

Dr. Haag says their marriage and shared work is effective in part because they agree on what their purpose is and the sacrifices they have to make to fulfill that.

“She is one of the wisest and most compassionate people I know,” he said. “It can be all consuming because it’s what we pour our hearts and minds and our ideas and passion into every day…but the beauty is you get to walk through it together.

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Marcos Fernandez was intimately familiar with the rollercoaster of being an acclaimed chef, and had just been let go from his role as the executive chef of the then Lakeland Yacht Club.

He had just enough money to buy used equipment from a local diner that had closed.

Soon after, his bookkeeper told him he was “outta money.”

And yet, the spirited second-generation Cuban American looked at perceived failures head on and used goodwill and a bevy of character-building experiences to put everything he had into building his dream.

That dream lives on Main Street in downtown Lakeland, a Golden Spoon winning high-end dining establishment that offers Latin food with a flair as bold and unique as Fernandez himself.

Most people know Fernandez as the lively, charitable lead chef and owner of Nineteen61, but the reality is he’s had more real-life roles and plot twists than most hired actors en route to finding stability as a food artist and direction as a businessman.

He first took an interest in food when

WRITTEN BY RJ WALTERS

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JORDAN RANDALL DESIGNED BY JON SIERRA

as a young man he was an apprentice for a Dutch woodworker who talked non-stop about his former career as a chef.

A few years later when he was in culinary school, he was eying a sales job at a TV station, but execs saw him fit for on-air and he became an anchor for Telemundo, and later was the host of an award-winning public broadcast show in Denver.

He has been a butcher, gone all-out in honing his Italian accent at pasta-centric establishments small and large, built entire menus and staffs at country clubs, and even worked for free at a restaurant in Peru to hone his Latin cooking acumen.

“One of my teachers (in culinary school) said, ‘Marcos, you know, you’re going to be great, you’re going to make it.’ And I was like, ‘Why do you say that?’” Fernandez recalled. “(He said), ‘Because you fall on your face and you get back up and do it again. You’re not afraid to fall on your face.’”

When it comes to food, Fernandez is all about creating unforgettable experiences.

As Marcos sat in his Banquet61 cater space with The Lakelander late one evening, executive chef Cory Beckwith popped in with a sizzling plate of conchas a la parmesana—parmesan encrusted scallops— to get the lead chef’s take on an item they had been considering adding to the menu.