my life story

My Life Story (Healing Broken Hearts)

My father’s father was the first born of 13 children in a farming family in Iowa, America's heartland. His grandfather had come to the US because of a potato famine in Ireland. He ran behind a plow in ¼ mile corn rows and ran 6 miles behind a horse cart in the snow to get to school. He got a track scholarship to go to Drake University in Iowa and later moved to California.

I was born when my father was 18. He got up at 3 in the morning to deliver newspapers and dug ditches during the day. At night he went to vocational college (College of San Mateo). At age 27 he became the youngest licensed plumbing contractor in California. When he was 35, knee surgery forced him to change his work. With entrepreneurial vision he started a company that specialized in repairing and replacing water heaters which he now runs in 10 large metropolitan areas in the US.

My mother was an idealist who loved people. She worked in an accounting office. But in her free time she worked to bring racial understanding between the "Black" and "White" communities in our city, volunteered in a homeless shelter, raised money to get a computer for a quadriplegic man, ran in a marathon in Russia to raise money for world peace, and visited Sri Lanka to help end hunger there. I learned from her that people are always more important than things.

In high school, after turning from atheism to God, I decided to dedicate my life to helping people and not live for material gain. In university I studied to work in the medical field. I worked as an RN for 13 years, including with AIDS patients, in a jail and in the Highland Emergency Department in Oakland, California. I taught doctors and nurses how to restart hearts (ACLS/ALS). However, I was restless and wanted to do something with a greater impact for good.

When I was 9 years old one of my teachers in the public school I attended told us about a place where the people are amazingly warm and hospitable. She said, "You have to be careful when you are visiting in their homes because they are so generous that if you admire something they will want to give it to you as a gift." She told us stories of the wisdom and humor of Nasreddin Hoca. This is my first memory about the nation of Turkey (Türkiye).

During my time in university I fell in love with the people of Turkey because of some good friends who came from there. I knew that Turkey was one of the fastest growing economies in the world. I learned that it was the 17^th largest economy and the oldest democracy in the region (since 1923). At age 35 my entrepreneurial and idealist DNA merged and I decided to move to Turkey. Two years later, in 1997, using private capital and supported by previous investments, we moved to Istanbul representing a medical equipment supplier. I had hoped to introduce new life-saving products, but I could not find a way to do this business successfully without hurting my conscience. I tried some export businesses, also unsuccessfully.

In 2001 a friend of a friend in the US asked me if I would move to Izmir and help his company create long term relationships with Turkish food suppliers. We opened the Izmir office of Otis McAllister Inc., a 120 year old food trading company with $100 million turnover operating in some 80 nations. I consulted for Otis’ Hong Kong office who was the largest importer of Turkish hazelnuts into China, bringing in hundreds of containers of hazelnuts. In 2003 we had our best year in the olive oil business. We supplied over 20% of the Turkish bottled extra virgin olive oil to the US, sold in 30 states and 7,000 points of sale. In 2005 one of the top 7 energy companies in the world (a fortune 500 company with over $15 billion turnover) asked us to supply biomass to them for their renewable "green" electricity production in Europe and we negotiated a contact to do this. We have also worked on projects to supply healthy organic products (such as Pomegranate juice) representing Enray Inc. We are currently working with Fair Foods International to supply Turkish olive oil.

My wife, Alexanrdra (Polyzoides) McGee, is of Mediterranean origin. Her father's grandparents were from Istanbul, her mother from Barcelona, Spain. She moved to the US when her father (who later became an architecture professor at University of Southern California) won a scholarship to study at Princeton. Her mother taught Spanish & French in private schools. She has an English degree from UC Berkeley and a teaching certificate from Cambridge. Before moving to Turkey she taught English in Spain and Austria and has studied seven languages. She has taught English for business and in private schools and universities. In 2011 she completed her Master's degree in philosophy & humanities through Cal State University. Our 5 children have all gained part of their education in Turkish public schools. Our whole family has loved living in Turkey. Our oldest daughter once described the warmth of relationships in Turkey with these words, “A one year friendship in Turkey is like a 5 year friendship in America.” She has completed a degree in music composition in the US, and is married and writes music for films. Our second daughter is studying art. And our oldest son is studying pre-law and Arabic and our younger son is studying business and marketing. Our youngest daughter lives with us in Istanbul.

My olive oil business has been my way of continuing to save lives by fixing broken hearts. Our motivation has been to help prevent heart disease by providing 100% natural high quality olive oil. We also want to help provide a livelihood for some of the 1/2 million people in Turkey whose living depends on the fruit of the olive tree. Our goal has been to supply great olive oil products to the US and other nations. You can learn more about our single origin and organic extra virgin olive oil from Turkey at NoahsOliveOil.com or learn more about the production of our gourmet Mediterranean extra virgin olive oil from Turkey at TurkishOliveOil.org. Since 2006 we have gradually decreased our role in the business. We still do some consulting and encourage you to contact our partners at Fair Foods International if you would like to purchase our olive oil. Call +1(888)662-7980.

Kind Regards,

Dennis (Deniz) McGee (İstanbul, Türkiye - Istanbul, Turkey - January, 2012)

PS. Since 2006 I have been gradually reducing my time in the business and have been concentrating on learning about "real love". We have come to see more clearly that the world's biggest heart problem is not in the arteries or cardiac muscle, but in a part of our lives that has not been quantified by natural science. I am doing research for a book on this topic now.

To learn more:

See our thoughts on "real love" and find ideas for building close, intimate relationships.

See our blog on "Real Love For Real Life" Dennis (Deniz) McGee's "Real Love Rocks" blog

"Real Love Rocks" on facebook.

"Real Love Rocks" on twitter

Dr. Dean Ornish's book "Love and Survival" reviews significant scientific research that supports what we learned through the mentoring of others, personal experience and reading the "world's best selling book on love"