How program specialists built an underserved niche into a $120 billion force

The final piece, in his telling, was not infrastructure but people. The group’s long‑time executive director, Ray Scotto, arrived from Clark’s local soccer team, not from a broker shortlist. “He said, ‘I’ve got three daughters going to college in the next five years. How can I pay for it?’ I said, ‘Come with me to Tempe. I’ve got this idea, maybe it’ll work,’” Clark said. “Ray was built to do this stuff,” he said, and Scotto handled the day‑to‑day while Clark guided from behind the scenes. Program business grew from about $20 billion when they started Target Markets to roughly $120 billion 25 years later. “Nothing gets started without a whole lot of help, and I had a whole lot of help and a very good executive director who grew it after we got it started,” he said.