With time and help, McGohan, 61, found his way. Now, he wants to help others do the same.
In the spring of 2024, McGohan retired as CEO and chairman of the workplace benefits brokerage his father Pat McGohan started in the early 1970s. Beth Ferrin became the company’s president, and Erick Schmidt the CEO, in 2022.
Their promotions were the results of a multi-year succession plan, McGohan said.
“When you find the right people, you’ve got to let them lead,” he said. “You either let them lead or you let them leave.”
Sitting on a beach wasn’t his speed, so he started a new company, One Morning, having seen the need for a broker focused on harnessing mental health benefits in and for the workplace.
Some 76% of American workers have reported a mental health condition, according to 2021 data McGohan shares with customers.
The Dayton Daily News reported in October that a locally produced study found that mental illness had a $12.65 billion negative impact on gross domestic product, cost $3.25 billion in spending on care, had a negative $13.92 billion quality-of-life impact due to premature deaths.
Among a plurality of workers who reported that their workplace had a negative impact on their mental health, 57% were unable to confirm the existence of easily accessible mental health support services in their workplace, the polling company Gallup found in 2022.
In the Dayton area, McGohan says there are some 370 support groups — like the one to which he turned at SouthBrook 18 years ago — meeting every week.
The need is evident.
“We don’t suffer as much from a lack of resources, as we do from a lack of acceptance,” McGohan said.
One Morning aims to be a resource that eases acceptance, connects workers to support and provides a web and mobile app presence that employees need to get started.
Employers such as Premier Health, Wright State University, the cities of Kettering and Vandalia and others are among One Morning’s customers. More are waiting in the wings, McGohan said.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of meaning behind One Morning, and the fact that Scott is so authentic about what he has gone through adds so much credibility to why One Morning is doing what One Morning is doing,” said Andy Lehman, a friend of McGohan’s for some 25 years. “In a lot of ways, it’s a labor of love for him.”
“I think mental health in general has just entered the public consciousness in a way it never has before, and I think efforts like One Morning not only shine a light on it, they attempt to bring solutions to bear on it,” he added.
Some workers can be reticent, to say the least, about taking advantage of Employee Assistance Program benefits, fearing confidentiality breaches or the career implications of turning to an EAP.
Some simply forget the EAP is there. It’s one more paper they sign on orientation day.
McGohan wants to break through that.
“I want (people) to know if they’re not OK, it’s OK not to be OK,” he said.
McGohan Brabender, like many other companies, had its own EAP. “But like every company, nobody was using them,” he recounted.
Before he left, McGohan invited colleagues to talk about their own challenges — but only after he shared his story.
“I thought, I’m going to bring a sense of vulnerability to this platform,” he said. “I shared the story about one morning, 18 years ago, I woke up and I didn’t want to live. I asked God that day, ‘Take away this pain — or today was the day.’"
He was plowing through each day believing that “self-worth equaled performance.”
“I drove the right car,” he said. “I lived in the right neighborhood. I belonged to the right country club. I wore the right clothes. I had all the right stuff. I was working on the opinions of other people.”
Once he shared his story, more of his employees were willing to share theirs. Utilization of his company’s EAP rose from 4% to 38% in 16 weeks.
For more information, visit www.onemorning.com.
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