Outdoor Research this week hired longtime outdoor industry veteran Ken Meidell as its president and chief operating officer. Meidell comes to OR after 12 years at Cascade Designs where he held a variety of posts from VP of sales and marketing and VP of the Outdoor Group to chief information officer.
In his new role at Outdoor Research, Meidell will direct day-to-day operations, with the sales, product development, marketing, operations and finance departments reporting to him. That will allow owner and CEO Dan Nordstrom to focus on customer relationships, brand development and long-range strategy, says the company.
“I’ve not encountered anyone in our industry who has the depth of experience and demonstrated success in so many phases of the business as Ken,” Nordstrom said. “We weren’t actively searching, but the opportunity to add someone with Ken’s unique skill set and leadership abilities was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. The fact that he’s a local guy and we’ve known each other for a long time created a very organic process that developed gradually.”
Prior to Cascade, Meidell worked in IT for Blue Martini Software and in management consulting at Ernst & Young. While at Ernst & Young, he helped install a new manufacturing software system at Cascade.
