All about me, by me.
For nearly thirty years I've built brands in the enthusiast automotive space, a world where the audience can spot a rep from down the block, rewarding authenticity over imitation.
I got my start in 1998 inside the company founded by Robert E. Petersen, the man who invented enthusiast automotive media. I was one of the proud recipients of a handshake and a pencil from the man himself at my first company holiday party, held at the Petersen Museum. This was before the red steel ribbon facade, when it still looked like the converted department store it came from.
From there I led a 100-person editorial group and grew Super Street into the largest tuner magazine on the planet, setting all-time circulation and revenue records. Then I helped drag the category into the digital era, building the first blog and the first YouTube channel in enthusiast automotive before either was an obvious thing to do.
Since then I've written and hosted television shows (MotorTrend's “Super Street Garage”), authored “Scion X”, Toyota's official anniversary book for the brand, and built award-winning digital work for Toyota at Saatchi & Saatchi. I introduced Gymkhana and Japanese time attack to U.S. audiences and produced a live motorsport event for ESPN's X Games. At HOONIGAN, I helped scale a cult brand into a global content engine with billions of minutes of watch time, without sanding off the raw edges. And at Apex Wheels, I proved the other half of the equation: content and brand as a revenue driver, netting a +30% YoY growth of BFCM DTC ecommerce revenue while scaling organic revenue +34% YoY by utilizing new content., with a deliberate shift from rented reach to owned audience.
What I do now is simple to say and hard to do. Set the brand vision. Grow the audience. Build partnerships that actually matter. Lead teams worth working for. Connect all of it to the numbers that keep the lights on.
I've been lucky to do it alongside a lot of the people who define this culture, across OEMs, the aftermarket, builds, collections, content, and experiences.
If you're building something in this world that deserves to be bigger, I'd love to hear about it.