I've lived in Minneapolis practically my whole life.  The only exception is the time I spent in the military.  All that most people can think about when they think of Minnesota is SNOW.  It's actually a very attractive vibrant place to live that gets snowed on occasionally.  It has an excellent diverse business climate that is, most of the time, doing very well. 

I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1969 with a BA in Economics and Business minor.  I also went through the ROTC program which decided that my place for the next two years was going to be in the Army.  While attending college I married my sweetheart Judy who still manages to cope with me and my antics.  We don't have any children but when we were younger we were active in foster care for several years.

I've been in sales with the office furniture and products industry since 1972.  I started at The Miller Davis Co. where I began working on the retail sales floor and customer service before becoming and outside sales rep.  I started selling some furniture and enjoyed the additional challenge.  The very first piece of office furniture I ever sold was a single Rosemount Rotopanel.  This was a very basic panel used for dividing space and visual privacy.  It isn't even made anymore.  I then changed jobs and went to Business Furniture which was one of the local All Steel furniture dealers.  I was with each of these two dealerships about 4 years a piece. 

I then moved onto General Office Product.  They were a Steelcase dealer that also had an office products division.  This allowed me to continue servicing the furniture accounts, that I had developed, as well as using my office products background to provide another opportunity for sales.  General Office Products later split with the office products division ultimately becoming a part of US Office Products.  The furniture division was eventually sold back to the original owners. 

I joined Indoff in 1998 and enjoy my relationship with them.  It has allowed me to concentrate on selling to my customers without the distractions that sometime come from being over managed.  It's about as close to owning my own business as I could come without the headaches.  I contract for most of the services I need and the corporate office, in St. Louis, handles billing my customers and paying the vendors.  Having many partners, like myself, across the U.S. allows us to collectively develop better relationships with the vendors we buy from and also negotiate better pricing from them.  This makes it possible for us to pass on competitive pricing to our customers.  The internet allows the partners to broadcast messages to one another and serves very well as our support network. 

This will give you a brief snapshot of my background.  Give me a call I'd like to get to know you better and possibly become your sales rep. too.