Family Style

Melissa Maggiore-Meyer honors her parents’ legacy with old-school Italian fare

By Kaylor Jones / Photo by Beverly Shumway

When Melissa Maggiore-Meyer opened The Italian Daughter in 2021, it was with one goal in mind – to provide the same classic Italian cuisine and warm hospitality valued by her father, famed restauranteur Tomaso Maggiore.

“My father had a gift for making everyone he served feel like part of the family,” Maggiore-Meyer says. “The process of opening this new concept taught me that while my father will be forever missed, he prepared me for this moment. While in the past I would always look for his opinion, I realized that I had the answers. I will be forever grateful for being raised to be a strong, capable businesswoman.”

Though she originally studied to become a journalist, Maggiore-Meyer couldn’t ignore her passions for food, wine and Italy. After growing up working at Tomaso’s, she opened her first three solo restaurant concepts in California before returning to Arizona to open The Italian Daughter, and more recently Patricia’s Pizza in honor of her mother.

In all her endeavors, the most important thing is staying true to who she is.

“I think many people in the business try too hard to keep up with the latest trends to the point of losing themselves and what they do best. It is easy to jump on the bandwagon, but at what price? I can only be the best version of who I am.”

That’s exactly the mindset she hopes to pass down to her kids and grandkids – the importance of humility, empathy, and never forgetting your roots. Maggiore-Meyer knows she wouldn’t be where she is today without the sacrifices of her parents, starting with her father’s journey as a young Italian immigrant with only $100 in his pocket and an unwavering belief in the American dream.

“Every day, I strive to honor the legacy they built. My father believed that character mattered more than recognition and that success was nothing if you lost sight of your values. Most importantly, he showed me that setbacks are never the end. If things don’t work out, you pick yourself up, learn from them and come back the next day willing to work harder than you did before.”

The Man in the Arena

Dr. John Shufeldt is a pioneer in the healthcare industry

By Kaylor Jones / Photo by Beverly Shumway

As a physician, lawyer and venture capitalist, Dr. John Shufeldt has a long and varied resume – but every venture he undertakes has one common thread.

“I’ve always been drawn to problems that are urgent, expensive, frequent and unfair,” Shufeldt says, “the problems that punch people in the face every day, whose solutions allow people to live with a little more dignity.”

Shufeldt founded NextCare Urgent Care in 1993 from the idea that not every patient needs an emergency department, but they all deserve timely care. His first-of-its-kind telehealth platform MeMD, later acquired by Walmart, began with the realization that healthcare doesn’t always have to be brick and mortar. And Tribal Health seeks to address what Shufeldt describes as unacceptable disparities on Indigenous lands.

His path was never a straight line – as a kid, his report cards inspired concern more often than admiration – but Shufeldt’s decades of experience in entrepreneurship have taught him that having ideas is easy. Success, however, comes down to a combination of timing, people, capital, and the ability to admit when you are wrong.

“Failure is rarely fatal, but ego can be,” says Shufeldt, who points out similarities between emergency medicine and his other passion, aviation, both of which reward preparation, discipline and humility. “I’ve sold companies, folded companies, been ousted, been wrong, been wronged, been lucky, been humbled, and somehow kept moving. If you spend time trying to protect a fragile ego, you will never take the risk.”

Currently, the healthcare industry is facing unprecedented changes, from advancements in AI to cybersecurity concerns and physician shortages – and by recently helping found the John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering at ASU, Shufeldt hopes to prepare the next generation to re-engineer the system.

At the end of the day, it’s the risk-taking entrepreneurs and leaders, the “men in the arena,” who motivate Shufeldt to continue serving others.

“I’m inspired by the people whose faces are, to borrow from Theodore Roosevelt, marred by dust and sweat and blood – people who try, fail, get up and try again. I think the world belongs to the people willing to be seen struggling toward something worthy.”