Brad Dee

Background

About Brad Dee

I launched my career in the automotive aftermarket in 1978 as a parts driver and part time counter person for a UAP associate in Waterdown, Ontario. Over the next ten years I moved on to become a full time counter person, then store manager and then I became an outside sales representative for my last 4 years. In 1989 I started the next step in my automotive career as an Area Sales Rep for Gates Canada. Throughout the next 20 years at Gates, I covered various regions of Ontario assisting jobber stores, automotive and heavy truck facilities, in growing their market share and profits. I also helped manage Warehouse Distributors with their inventory and marketing of our product lines. During the first 20 years at Gates, they acquired different companies and I was asked to represent them in the field. This helped me expand my customer base and also my product knowledge. I marketed and sold Gates products, Trico, Stant, Edelmann, Plews, Lubrimatic, Tridon and Schrader T.P.M.S. I met these new markets and products not as challenges, but as opportunities to expand my aftermarket experience and expertise. I fully succeeded in every challenge and became a well-known and well respected manufacturer’s representative. In 2009, Gates created a sales manager position with our largest customer, NAPA. I became the Regional Sales Manager for the NAPA Heating and Cooling Group in Ontario. In this position I was responsible for the sales and marketing of all Gates products that NAPA sold, as well as products from Spectra Premium and Blue Streak/ Four Seasons. In 2013 I became the Field Sales Manager for Gates and am responsible for all NAPA sales for Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. In this role I help to educate, mentor and train 12 NAPA Sales Specialists in all of the products and services Gates provides to them. I view myself as a leader, not just a manager, and I enjoy mentoring and doing motivational speaking. You manage things. you lead people!