Rack Dawg University.

The program

Rack Dawg University was Yakima's national training program for retail accounts — teaching shop staff how to install and sell Yakima products. Done well, RDU events doubled as community-building moments for the brand. Done badly, they were just product training.

What I did

I planned and executed 10+ Rack Dawg University events across the United States — owning logistics, training content, and on-site execution — and served as creative director on a video series highlighting the events and what they delivered. I wrote the concept, set the direction, and partnered with a production team to bring it to life.

What it built

Over four years the program created a national network of trained Yakima retail partners and gave the brand a reusable content asset every season. Alongside RDU, I built field marketing partnerships with Traeger Grills, Dometic, Nokian Tyres, and Scott Bikes, and ran retail promotions like the Buy-a-Cargo-Box-Get-a-Lift-Ticket program with Cannon Mountain (later expanded to Peak Resorts) — all while being trained inside the auto partnership world through Yakima's relationships with Subaru and Toyota.

The takeaway

Retail education is one of those programs that's easy to underspend on and easy to overcomplicate. RDU worked because it stayed grounded — real training, real time with retailers, real content that captured why the program mattered.