Brad “Doc” Baker

Brad Baker, who picked up Doc as a nickname working as an Army medic, co-founded Open Heart Media with Zach Sweat.

Baker was the first guest on the SALTYmf GOAT Podcast, and his own company produces the show. He and Brad Banyas have known each other since their kids played ball together, and Baker watched the brand start from the outside. He first heard about it from his son Griffin, who brought home a sticker and could not explain what it stood for. Then a woman ran up to him on the beach at Fernandina to tell him she loved his shirt, and her boyfriend got out and wanted one too. Baker came on partly to get the origin story straight from the source.

Open Heart Media is full service and about 80 percent of the work is video. They fly drones, shoot photography, run social accounts, and build promo for clients putting on fundraising events. Baker is blunt about the division of labour. Sweat is the one who makes the work look clean, and Baker is the behind the scenes guy. Even the name came from Sweat, who had the idea on a plane to Hawaii, and Baker points out it had nothing to do with his nickname. What they sell is narrower than a service list: elevating what a client is already there for. A coffee shop that runs Christmas drives for its community. A rescue farm up near Athens with pigs, llamas, goats, chickens and cows that needed money to keep running. Somebody asked if they could help and Baker's answer was, why wouldn't we.

What Baker keeps circling back to is the photographs. He likes going through SALTYmf's accounts and finding people skiing, fishing, mountain biking and playing pickleball in the gear, and he tells people to keep sending them in. He has his own version of the Costco story Brad tells. Baker was at a mailbox place dropping off company mail, wearing the shirt, and the woman behind the counter asked if he knew Brad. She buys all her kids' stuff from him. She asked Baker what his name was. It is Brad.