February 2026 Newsletter
Laura Gallagher
President and Founder of The Creative Company
Dear Friend,
As we move confidently into the new year, there’s a lot happening. Although AI has been part of our lives for some time, its proliferation and the changes it creates for marketers is ever-present.
AI bots are being used to persuade and capture our attention. Hundreds of bots are crawling your website every day to find nuggets of intel. This is where spam emails come from, where they mention one or two words or phrases from your website, as if that will move them to the top of the list. For many of you reading this newsletter, how many people do you really need to connect with to be successful?
I want to encourage you to be human and tell great stories.
Use AI and other tools to move faster, but don’t use them to replace what makes you unique. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like you must produce more content. If the content isn’t truly yours—rooted in your perspective and voice—it will fall flat. It feels different. Just don’t do it.
Take the time to write something real.
AI-generated content is already so prolific that when something is human, it stands apart. The difference builds trust and confidence.
In that same spirit, we’re bringing stories to life here at The Creative Company, most notably through a book written by yours truly and designed by our own Hallie Heuser for Gary Gorman, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Gorman & Company, an affordable housing and real estate development firm with $3.75 billion in completed projects.
I spent the last two years interviewing employees, friends, and family members, and working through multiple drafts. The book includes practical leadership lessons throughout, along with plain-language definitions for readers less familiar with the real estate world—where acronyms abound. A Legacy Built: The Story Behind Gorman & Company will be released in late February.
We’re also looking forward to The Business Forum’s 2026 ATHENA Awards on March 11 at Nakoma Country Club in Madison. We hope you’ll join us as we celebrate women in leadership in our community. We’re long-time sponsors, and several of us have been recognized! We’re excited to honor 9 incredible women at this year’s event. All are welcome.
I also want to share a milestone for The Creative Company: our certification as a WBENC (Women-Owned Business Enterprise). This had been on my list for several years, and we made it happen in the fourth quarter of 2025. After extensive documentation and due diligence, we were officially awarded the certification in early January 2026. We’re now certified at the city, county, state, and federal levels. This provides clients with added assurance when they retain us. We have been fully vetted!
Additionally, February is Black History Month—a reminder to keep learning and listening. Whether through local programs like those offered by the Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development or community initiatives such as the recent Channel 3000 feature on a Black Men Coalition Foundation program supported by our client, Ascendium Education Group, this month invites all of us to lean in and grow.
There’s more to come: we’re launching a new, much-needed offering for the PR/AI/always-on world, which we’ll launch soon. Stay tuned for a webinar and more details!
Let’s make 2026 a banner year, friends. We only get one life. Let’s make it count!
Laura Gallagher
2021 Governor’s Business Plan Winner, 2019 SBA Women in Business Champion of the Year, Wisconsin Trailblazer, Author, Speaker
The Creative Company Earns WBENC Certification
Why This Matters for Our Clients
WBENC certification provides clients and partners with meaningful assurance. WBENC certification is intentionally rigorous. The process requires extensive documentation and a thorough review of ownership, financials, governance, and day-to-day operations to confirm that a business is truly owned, controlled, and led by women.
For our team, this certification has been a long-standing goal.
“You may have seen the WOMEN logo in a store window or on a product,” said Laura Gallagher, President and Founder of The Creative Company. “What it represents is real verification. This process required us to open the books, document how decisions are made, and clearly demonstrate that this company is woman-owned and woman-led. I’m not feeling flashy about it. I’m simply glad we did the work and have continued to show through transparency and trust, why our client companies choose us.”
We focus on mission-driven organizations and long-term partnerships, prioritizing depth, collaboration, and measurable impact over growth for its own sake.
WBENC certification also connects The Creative Company to a national network of women-owned businesses, corporate leaders, and procurement professionals. Those connections create opportunities for collaboration and learning, which ultimately benefit our clients and community.
To learn more about WBENC, click here: www.wbenc.org
Coming Soon
A Legacy Built: The Story Behind Gorman & Company
Releasing later this month by Mathetria Press*, A Legacy Built tells the story of Gary Gorman, founder of Gorman & Company, through Laura Gallagher’s perspective as an author, interviewer, and observer. From humble beginnings in Oregon, Wisconsin, to a national force for housing justice, this is the inspiring story of what happens when leaders choose courage over comfort.
The book follows Gary Gorman from the beginning, where he put a 10-speed bike on his financial statement and hired a small team of bright, ambitious people to achieve exponential nationwide growth.
Over 40 years, Gorman & Company has completed 183 projects representing nearly $3.75 billion in development, helped create housing nationwide, and completed multiple historic rehabilitations in Wisconsin and around the country.
The book chronicles both successes and setbacks, including early financial losses and economic downturns. Throughout the book, Gorman reflects on moments when the pressure was enormous, there was instability, and how he paced with a world that was constantly changing. The book emphasizes the importance of humility, trust, teamwork, and perseverance.
“This is an unvarnished look at what it’s like to be in business, any business,” explained Gallagher. “Gary didn’t hold back, and neither did I. The goal of this book isn’t to create some sort of vanity piece that sits on a bookshelf. It’s Gary’s way of helping people by showing them not only how he did it but how you can do it too.”
The book arrives at a time when people are looking for authentic stories. Gary Gorman hopes the book inspires others to not only stay curious as they pursue their goals but to stick with it when times get hard, and they will get hard. Building something meaningful that strengthens communities is essential to our well-being as individuals and as a nation.
Affordable housing remains a critical national issue. Through A Legacy Built, Gorman hopes to inspire others to pursue work that balances financial discipline with social responsibility grounded in common sense and a commitment to doing the best possible work for the communities they serve.
A Legacy Built: The Story Behind Gorman & Company will soon be available at www.gormanlegacy.com and on Amazon.
*Mathetria Press, LLC is a publishing company owned by Creative Company President Laura Gallagher
