Drew Gerber and the Art of Being Somewhere Else

Drew Gerber was sitting in the second row of a theater in a Serbian farming village, watching a Russian play performed in Hungarian. He could not understand the dialogue. Two girls nearby were finding it very funny. For a public relations executive, whose profession depends on getting a message across, this was an unusual evening at the office of life.

He enjoyed it anyway. In his account of that night, the pleasure came partly from abandoning the requirement to understand everything before participating. He and his husband, Will, had become the Americans in the village. The situation would have been difficult to predict from an engineering classroom in Utah.

“I had no idea what they were saying, but I was happy,” he wrote. It is a compact introduction to a career that has made room for unfamiliar places. Gerber’s business involves helping people explain themselves. His life abroad has also given him occasions to stop explaining and pay attention.

The square in the engineering classroom

At the University of Utah, Gerber studied chemical engineering. His recollection of the student he was includes spiky hair, an earring, and ripped jeans. He felt out of place. In telling the story, he reached for the children’s exercise in spotting the shape that does not belong with the others.

The engineering education stayed useful. It taught him to think about a result as the product of a process: particular resources, combined in particular proportions, at a particular time. Once he moved into business, he found that way of thinking surprisingly portable. A company had ingredients, too.

There is something pleasingly practical about his treatment of an apparent wrong turn. He could find a use for what he had learned without pretending the original destination had suited him. Publicity became the career. The habit of examining how things work came along, with fewer requirements for laboratory equipment.

First, decide what the company should produce

Gerber and his business partner, Michelle Tennant Nicholson, founded Wasabi Publicity in the early 2000s. He describes meeting her as the moment he understood how public relations could influence what people discuss. Their company would help businesses, entrepreneurs, and organizations get their messages into that conversation.

He later explained their approach by working backward from the desired result. The aim was a media placement that mattered to the client. That required a suitable pitch, an appropriate outlet, and a reason for the story to appear at that moment. A clever idea on its own could still be badly addressed or badly timed.

This led to ordinary, repeatable work: creative meetings, research into publications and audiences, relationships with journalists. The engineering connection becomes clear here. Gerber wanted to understand which parts of a campaign could be designed deliberately. Inspiration could have a seat at the table; it still needed somebody to organize the meeting.

A company with permission to leave town

There was another desired result: the founders wanted to be able to live anywhere. They made Wasabi virtual from the beginning. For Gerber, the freedom eventually meant Budapest and a home in Stara Moravica, Serbia. Geography became a choice the business could accommodate.

By 2013, the practical machinery of that arrangement was already part of his working day. Video calls connected him with colleagues and opened access to people beyond the radius of a single office. Running a small company from different countries required communication that could survive the journey.

In an interview about his use of Skype, the details were mostly workaday: conversations with staff, international contact, keeping the business connected. Those details matter because the attractive description of a life abroad can leave out the calendar. A client still needs an answer, regardless of the view from the window.

Then the television caught up

Before moving abroad, Gerber and Will watched HGTV’s House Hunters International together. Eventually they appeared on the program. His personal site recounts two appearances, connected with their homes in Budapest and Serbia. A viewing habit had acquired an unusually literal sequel.

In October 2013, he wrote about seeing their Budapest episode air while they were wrapping up another shoot in Serbia. That project involved renovating an old farmhouse and opening an IT school. The former owners’ description of the property as a country villa supplied its own small flourish.

The two locations offered different versions of life away from the United States. Budapest was the city they had chosen to call home. The village brought a renovation and an educational project. A house purchase could occupy an episode; learning how to live there would take a less convenient amount of time.

The school, the student, and dinner

The village also supplied a less polished story. While staying in a youth hostel, Gerber and Will lost the use of their hot plate. Dinner options were limited. Gerber missed the conveniences he had taken for granted in Budapest, including easy access to a coffee shop.

Then a student complained about the free training he was providing. Gerber’s initial reaction was irritation. He had organized students into mock companies, balancing their skill levels and appointing CEOs. More experienced students could help teach the others. One of those appointed leaders did not want that teaching role.

Gerber’s account turns back toward his own expectations. He had been dwelling on what the village lacked while asking the student to appreciate an opportunity. He decided to pay more attention to the school he wanted to build. The humor works because he lets himself be the person who needed the lesson.

Tools for the other side of the deadline

Alongside the agency, Gerber developed tools for the mechanics of publicity. Online PressKit 24/7 put media materials together online so journalists could access them when needed. PitchRate connected people with media opportunities. Both addressed the work that happens between having expertise and making it available to someone preparing a story.

The distinction is useful in a profile of a publicist. Gerber has spent time on the supporting apparatus as well as the pitch. An idea can be promising and still arrive without the materials a journalist needs. Making those materials accessible is a modest task with a clear purpose.

His 2013 book, Destination Aha! Becoming Unstuck in Life and Business, took the question of progress into a longer form. The title suits a writer who uses changes of place and small frustrations to examine how people make decisions. The business advice keeps encountering the life being lived around it.

“The way we do business is as important as the business itself.”

Drew Gerber

Publicity for a smaller room

His more recent writing brings that attention to purpose back to media selection. In August 2025, Gerber argued that niche podcasts can be useful for selling books because their listeners already care about a specific subject. Audience fit deserves consideration alongside audience size.

He presents a smaller, focused show as an opportunity for a more relevant exchange. Listeners have chosen the subject. An author whose book addresses it has less explaining to do about why the conversation belongs there. The argument depends on the relationship between message and audience.

For a profession associated with recognizable media names, this makes for an interesting emphasis. Gerber still runs a publicity company. He is asking clients to consider what they want attention to accomplish. A large audience can be valuable; the useful choice requires thinking about the people inside the number.

The day after the coverage

In May 2026, he addressed another familiar milestone: the moment a founder gets a desired media placement. His concern was what happens afterward. Coverage needs to reach the people for whom it might matter, and that often requires further effort by the person or company featured.

His recommendations include sharing the piece with an existing audience and using it in business conversations and presentations. These are practical tasks, without the drama of securing the interview. They also ask whether the original goal was simply publication or something the publication might help achieve.

An April 2026 essay pursued a related concern about marketing volume. Gerber advocated quality, honest communication, and time spent building community. It fits the recurring question in his work: how to direct effort toward an outcome worth having. More activity can keep a team occupied without settling that question.

Somewhere worth being

On Destination Aha!, Gerber introduces life in Budapest with Will and their rescue dog, Koki. The site speaks to people curious about moving abroad and credits community with helping make his own journey possible. After years of conversations about publicity, he found people also wanted to ask about Hungary.

That interest makes sense. A working life is easier to picture when it has a place in it: a flat, a street, a village classroom. Gerber’s story has those particulars. It also has the unglamorous requirements of keeping a company connected and finding something to cook dinner on.

The evening at the theater remains a useful place to leave him. He had built a profession around communication, then found himself content in a room whose words he could not follow. The people around him were laughing. He had chosen to be there. For once, the message could wait.