Luke Edgar

Brand Builder · Paleblue

Park City, UT

In My Own Words

One thing is for sure, I have passion and fire, and it’s contagious. I want to succeed, develop teams, build meaningful segmentation, and create, market, and sell badass product. I like to build something from nothing, so I’ve been the underdog multiple times. And when that nothing is something, I’ve been able to make that transition to being on top with humility. I have over 30+ years of experience in action sports, culture, technology, and innovation, mastering seasonal and more sensitive weather-dependent categories. I’ve worked in and loved snow, outdoor, college, mall, specialty, sporting goods, farm and ranch, as well as hardware, furniture & appliance, and buying groups. I’ve also worked with National Chains, but my love is the best of the best specialty doors. My beliefs include:

Relationships First: I’m not a fan of hidden agendas, double talk, or people w/o integrity, which is why I’ve always been upfront and honest with my team, coworkers, and retail partners. My relationships run deep. Be Disruptive: ‘Me-too’ predictive brands with commoditized products don’t need to be disruptive. Lifestyle brands and products do. That requires pushing the limits and putting one foot over the line. You're not being disruptive if you don’t get any praise or complaints. Channel Mastery: I believe in the power of AND in how you approach your omni-channel go-to-market strategy; meaning you can sell direct AND still be meaningful to the best specialty doors, you can sell national chains AND still be meaningful to other channels. Ability to Put Myself into My Customers’ Shoes: I treat every ring between the in-house team and consumers as customers our brand must serve and support. I focus on the experience of every ring between the brand and the end consumer to minimize breakdowns so every ring can evangelize, defend, and enlist others into the brand. Be Meaningful to your Retail Partners: What do retailers care about? 1) That our focus is on sell-through, not just sell-in 2) That we are profitable to their business 3) That we are easy (and fun) to do business with. With these 3 boxes checked, we will get better assortments, location, and push from our retailers. I climb mtns, snowboard, mtn bike, hike, camp, float rivers, guide and fly fish. I have been buried in an avalanche - https://www.mountainzone.com/2002/story/html/9lives.html stuck in a rock crack unroped for hours, pioneered heli-skiing in AK, snowboarded the major volcanoes in the US, and pioneered first descents in NA and the Alps. I don’t give up. Hire me and I’ll prove it.

Work Experience

Brand Advisor

Paleblue

2024 – Present

I have taken a role as Advisor to help long time former colleagues and their amazing goal of disrupting the use of single use batteries, with over 17M tons a year ending up in landfills or incinerators.

VP Specialty Sales

Traeger Pellet Grills, LLC

2015 – 2023

As a nimble, entrepreneurial-minded Sales Generator within an industry-disrupting brand, I was tasked with building, leading, and managing a sales team to accomplish remarkably aggressive large revenue goals with very specific margin targets, inherited a flawed go-to-market strategy and company culture. Thoughtfully went direct with 7 domestic distributors while protecting the revenue, focusing on strategic distribution expansion, building never-before-seen win-win promotional events, and training events. Turned a broken distribution model in 2014 doing $100M+ to the brand’s high point in 2021 at over $840M; strategically grew tiered doors from 1K to 8K as well as oversaw the grocery expansion to over 6K store points.

Expertise Reflects: Sales Organization Ramp: Built the sales team to over 60+ key account and channel sales managers, internal sales, coop, and training support, as well as a large, direct field sales team of retail account, territory, and regional managers guiding the company’s path to becoming the #2 grill brand in the world. Strategic Sales: Exceeded revenue targets, even within unstable market conditions and supply chain fluctuations. Keen awareness of market and consumer behavior is reflected by being in the market and using trend analysis and market research to drive product, demand creation, and go-to-market direction. Brand Building: Orchestrated a brand-building strategy that made Traeger evangelists out of the front-line retail army. Disruptive, we refused to target the 50+-year-old bbqer like all the competition while embracing 30-year heritage. Oversaw go-to-market strategy until we went public in 2021, winning dozens of Vendor awards. Relationship Cultivation: Found win-win solutions to meet the company and retail partner goals and a transparent up-front style, creating trust and long-term partnerships. We hired highly capable sales teams who built relationships, which helped us weather many storms, none more than in 2020.

Director of Specialty Sales

Traeger, Inc.

2014 – 2015

Analyzed the independent rep model profitability (1099 Commissioned Sales Rep) vs employee direct sales reps; conceived and executed a shift to an internal sales team, developing an organizational structure that supported regional, categorical, and distribution channel needs and opportunities leading to a sizable ROI. Rolled out a phased approach to territory management hiring Territory Managers for Western and Southern Territories first while eliminating the least impactful domestic distributors, next building out the Midwest Territories and keeping only 2 of the best distributors. The final stage was building out the east coast and eventually buying out our final two largest domestic distributors (2020), ensuring a smooth transition.

VP Sales

Barebones Living

2013 – 2014

Barebones Living is a for profit brand with a humanitarian heart. Based around food and shelter, with garden and outdoor products that are vintage inspired, but made with the latest technology and materialization. Our founder Robert also founded Goal Zero.

During my 10 months we were able to establish solid distribution and direction for the garden category. The outdoor products were more limited but a renewed focus from Robert, now that he has sold Goal Zero, will add more products to this category so the brand can be more meaningful to outdoor retailers. In the end, I realized as much as I believe in the brand, the team and products, it was still a year or two away from needing someone with my experience.

I will enjoy watching this brand continue to grow.

Brand Director-Skullcandy Canada

Skullcandy

2011 – 2013

Selected for the challenge of taking the company’s biggest international market from a distributor model to a subsidiary model while hiring a new GM and sales team. Joining the International team focused on Canada, I upheld a mission to streamline operations, identify leverage opportunities, and integrate into Skullcandy US while increasing the Canadian region’s profitability and market share.

Reducing company expenditures, I negotiated the final year contract and buy-out details. Working closely with Key Accounts during the transition, I redirected sales teams to specialty doors to ensure strong brand representation and foundation while cleaning up large volume big box issues with national chain Shoppers Drug Mart. We also managed Best Buy through the transition and onboarded Walmart Canada as a test before entering Walmart USA. Leased and designed the build-out for Vancouver office space, negotiated lowest cost per square foot in company while keeping with our brand's hip, youthful image. Forecasted sales target surpassed, I led Canada into having the highest growth percentage for next 3 years.

VP of Specialty Sales

Skullcandy Inc.

2008 – 2011

Hired as employee #23 to drive domestic Specialty Sales, diving into the Consumer Electronics business, I was quickly promoted to VP from Director of Specialty Sales after building out our beach head distribution in the best action sports (surf, skate, snow) stores, sneaker freaker stores (Kith, Supreme, Dave’s Meat Locker etc), college & bookstore market, airport distribution (Hudson, InMotion and other airport chains), mall stores (Zumiez, Journey’s, Foot Locker and Regional Chains like Pacsun), Outdoor channel (Dicks, The Sports Authority, Scheels, etc).

I restructured the external sales force (mostly 1099 with a few in-house sales directors) into world class team creating 17 territories with 45 bodies. Our 1099 reps had many lines, so I was able to make SKDY meaningful to their business by being easy to do business with and treating this team well with great sales mtgs, sales contests and other benefits that had a huge ROI back to SDKY. I exceeded sales goals, built a world-class team to maximize growth and brought into refocus the importance of brand building and highly profitable sub-channels while maturing the CE revenue. I built and hired our merchandise team, negotiating hundreds of custom build-out fixtures in high traffic, influential ‘beachhead’ image doors. By the end of 201I, I managed over 5000 doors, quarterly excess sales to TJX/Ross, and over $49M in sales with the highest margin retail channels in the company with 50+ person team, many of who supported other channels as well.

We went from private to public with our message based on the meaningful distribution I built from the ground up and managed.

VP of Sales and Marketing

Quik/Rossi Snowboard Group

2006 – 2008

Recruited by Bob McKnight, Chairman of the Board and Bernard Mariette, CEO, I facilitated the integration of Rossignol and support all the snowboard efforts/products within the group. Driving US sales growth for Rossignol and Roxy Snowboards, I hired new creative director to drive Rossignol’s snowboard graphics from Park City resulting in increased brand expansion, supported the launch of DC brand into snowboards, facilitating factory options, and played a key role in re-branding Rossignol.

Director of Pack, Action Sports & Duffle Division

OGIO

2004 – 2006

I helped to realign the brand to be a true player within a highly competitive marketplace, leveraging relationships and expanding into new lifestyle and mall distribution, exploding sales by 33%, while reorganizing and elevating sales team make up.

Global GM \ Director of US Sales

Atomic

2001 – 2005

While in this joint role, I ran the worldwide division for snowboard center based within US headquarters, working closely with Austrian team (global headquarters), guiding the branding, marketing, product line development, positioning, and graphics. Achieved top 10 brand recognition and retained as an advisor for one year after I departed.

Brand Manager

K2 Snowboarding

1991 – 2001

Started at the ground floor as an intern but quickly earned a spot within a small team for snowboards (as the brand was a ski brand). My passion for snowboarding was infectious, and soon we attracted higher-quality staff and team riders. Combined with a strong focus on retailers, influence on the product, graphics, brand extensions and sales direction, we quietly moved from outside the top 10 SB brands (in the 90’s there were dozens if not hundreds) into the #2 position, which we maintained my final 5 years with the brand.

I guided 4 product category managers, developing and launching helmet and backcountry snowboarding collections, oversaw and directed all marketing functions, selected, and placed A level well respected snowboard reps, many who worked with me after K2. I helped to secure a presence in 95% of targeted specialty, regional, and national accounts, and oversaw industry reaction to factory move from US to China messaging and strategy reducing sales impact even with competition marketing against us resulting in continued growth and massive margin improvement.

Education

US Army

1981 – 1985

Picked as Drill Corporal, promoted to SR Drill Corporal, achieving youngest Sergeant at Ft Lewis after finishing 2nd in Non-Commissioned Officer School. Picked as Military Liaison for all branches while stationed in Hawaii working at the Honolulu International Airport; Army provided an education in what it means to be a leader, to lead by example, to work as a team, to respect the chain of command, and to have a winning attitude.