Rick Dean has been actively engaged in Sales, Sales Management and Marketing his entire working life, spanning over 30 years.

He started his career in the late seventies as a sales representative with Burroughs Corporation (now, UNISYS). During the next ten years, he held positions of increasing responsibility, including Account Executive, Zone Manager, Branch Manager and National Sales Manager for two different divisions.

In the early eighties, Rick became interested in the rapidly growing personal computer industry. He was recruited and hired by Apple Computer in 1983 and opened their first district sales office in upstate New York. He later joined Epson America as New England Regional Manager, and was later promoted to Eastern Area Manager, responsible for all Epson's printer and computer sales east of the Mississippi.

In 1989, Rick moved from Boston to Buffalo to become one of the officer/shareholders of International Imaging Materials Incorporated, better known as IIMAK. During his eight year tenure as V.P. of Sales, he and his colleagues built IIMAK from a privately held company with under $1million in sales and 30 employees, to a publicly held firm with $125 million in sales and over 800 employees. Rick left IIMAK in 1997, the year the company was sold. Between 1997 and 2003, he held executive level sales management positions with two Buffalo based manufacturing companies, Atto Technology and Manzella Productions.

Over the course of his career, Rick has built effective sales and marketing teams in a variety of different industries. He has experience in virtually all distribution channels including business to business, two-step distribution, OEM, and retail, both in the U.S. and overseas.

In July of 2003, Rick formed his own management consulting firm based in Amherst, New York. R.W. Dean and Associates' stated mission is to partner with small to mid-sized companies and help them to achieve:

1- Optimal performance from their Sales and Marketing organizations, and

2- Long term revenue growth.

Rick earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Psychology from Miami University (Ohio), and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He resides in Williamsville, New York with his wife, Ann. His two adult sons live in New York and Chicago.