Rick Johnson has over 35 years of experience in wholesale distribution sales and operations. Rick’s career can be broken down by decades. The first ten years of his distribution career were spent with the largest steel-processing distributor in the world (Joseph T. Ryerson). Rick started in Inside Sales, grew into the Merchandise Manager’s position, spent five years as an Outside Salesman, two years as Sales Manager, and the final year at Ryerson, Rick was General Manager at their Dayton, Ohio facility.

The second ten years began with Rick starting his own processing distribution center from scratch. In the first year, sales reached $1 million dollars and had grown to $25 million in its tenth year when Rick sold the business to one of the major national chains.

The third ten years of Rick’s career began almost by accident after a year of retirement when a former customer asked Rick to close an acquisition that was losing money. Rick agreed to spend six months working in the business and evaluating the possibility of a Turn-A Round (TAR) or closure. After six months, the plant began operating at break even and actually ended that year with a small profit. In the third year after Rick’s TAR efforts, the plant was very profitable and the decision was made to sell the operation. This began Rick’s career in dealing with financially troubled Turn-A-Round companies. During this decade of Rick’s career, he completed four TAR’s. The smallest company had annual revenues totaling $50 million and the largest TAR Rick competed had a revenue stream of $400 million. Rick’s position as a change agent in these companies included Chief Executive Officer (CEO), President, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Vice President of Sales & Operations.

After completing ten years of TAR work, Rick decided a decade of acting like Darth Vader was enough. He had met Mike Marks, founder of Indian River Consulting Group (IRCG), after selling his own company. Rick joined Indian River in 2000. At IRCG, Rick specialized in Sales Management, Sales Effectiveness, Strategic Planning, Turn-A-Round restructuring and Organizational Design. Rick started CEO Strategist LLC in July of 2005 a company that focuses on providing value through Board of Directors representation, executive coaching, team coaching and education and training.

Rick received an MBA from Keller Graduate School in Chicago, Illinois and a Bachelor's degree in Operations Management from Capital University, Columbus Ohio. He also served in the United States Air Force. Rick recently completed his dissertation on Strategic Leadership and received his Ph.D. on April 15th, 2005. Rick is frequently published in NAW SmartBrief, Material Handling Wholesaler, Modern Distribution Management, and many other distribution industry publications, with over thirty different articles published to date. He’s also a published book author with seven titles to his credit: “The Toolkit for Improved Business Performance in Wholesale Distribution,” the NWFA & NAFCD “Roadmap”, "Lone Wolf-Lead Wolf—The Evolution of Sales”, "Leading the Pack - Model Driven Leadership for the 21st Century",  "Turning Lone Wolves into Lead Wolves  - 56 Ideas to Maximize Sales", "The Lead Wolf Leadership Guide" (A Quote Book), "Profit is NOT a Dirty Word - 56 Principles to Release the Power of Profitability in Your Employees", and a fiction novel about teenagers called “Shattered Innocence."