Frank Hurtte – Founding Partner<\/h2>\n

Frank Hurtte, Founding Partner of River Heights Consulting brings 28 years of distribution industry experience and a lifetime of sales background.\u00a0 Frank grew up in a family owned business where he was selling car and truck tires wholesale before he turned 14.\u00a0 During his career, Hurtte has gone through nearly every aspect of the wholes business.\u00a0 He served as manager of a rapidly growing start-up location ran a cluster of branches where he worked to develop future leaders and was called on to build a winning team after the merger of two companies with dissimilar cultures.\u00a0 Frank successfully established sale strategies in emerging markets and coordinated the efforts of a diverse group of distributor specialists to establish a corporate-wide blueprint for success.\u00a0 In his role as VP Technical Sales, Frank developed and implemented a model for tracking and measuring the \u201cvalue-adds\u201d provided to customers and pivoting the company to a fee-based services model.<\/p>\n

After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in Computer Engineering, Frank decided to pursue a career in the business side of Automation.\u00a0 After joining the Allen-Bradley (now Rockwell Automation) Engineering Training Program, he served in Sales Management roles supporting distributor\u2019s efforts.\u00a0 In 1991 Fran joined Van Meter Industrial as Vice-President and Branch Manager and then as the full time Vice President of Technology.<\/p>\n

Hurtte understands the importance of Distributor Associations.\u00a0 He served on the Board of Directors of the Association for High Technology Distribution and later as the President of that Organization.\u00a0 Over the years Frank has served on numerous Manufacturer\/Distributor Advisory Committees and de facto problem solving task forces.<\/p>\n

Hurtte is an accomplished author with five books to his credit.\u00a0 Building off of what he calls the 5 North Stars of Knowledge-based distribution, each of his books push similar themes.<\/p>\n

The North Stars of Knowledge-based Distribution<\/strong><\/p>\n

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• What we know about products and customer applications should be a competitive advantage.<\/li>\n
• We should be paid a premium for our knowledge.<\/li>\n
• Not all customers are created equally \u2013 Let\u2019s not waste time on customers who don\u2019t appreciate our knowledge. Targeting is critical to our business.<\/li>\n
• Technology is our friend and will make our business more efficient.<\/li>\n
• A team with a playbook and processes trumps a bunch of \u201csuperstars\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  Frank also writes for a number of Distributor Trade Publications.\u00a0 With over 500 articles to his name, his work has appeared in leading publications tied to the wholesale trade in the following\u201d<\/p>\n

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  • Automation Solution Providers<\/li>\n
  • Industrial Distribution<\/li>\n
  • Electrical Wholesaling<\/li>\n
  • Safety Product Distribution<\/li>\n
  • Fluid Power and Pneumatics<\/li>\n
  • HVAC and Building Automation<\/li>\n
  • Power Transmission<\/li>\n
  • Irrigation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Hurtte speaks to groups throughout the world and serves on the Board of Distribution Companies.<\/p>\n

    email Frank:\u00a0 frank@riverheightsconsulting.com<\/h5>\n

    Call Frank: 563-514-1104<\/h5>\n

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