Christian | Imperfect | Life-long Learner | Professor | Lover of Sales and Marketing | Sales Researcher |Experienced industry (wholesale distribution | sales) professional with a strong focus on distribution, marketing and sales. Skilled in Market Research, Management, Marketing Strategy, Writing, Sales, Digital marketing. I'm in love with my life as a Marketing Professor in the Industrial Distribution Program at Texas A&M where I teach IDIS 340 Manufacturer Distributor Relations.My research focuses on sales, brand attachment, brand identity, communication, entrepreneurial orientation and personal branding. Empathize, Engage, Enrich! captures my teaching philosophy.Empathize I meet students where they are, and am extremely caring and inclusive. I really connect with each of my students. I care about them and value their unique perspectives, backgrounds and diversity.Engage I engage students in critical thinking by using a systems-thinking approach to help them connect the dots and understand how concepts, topics and disciplines fit into the bigger picture. Enrich I provide students opportunities to apply the concepts through experiential learning. They enjoy hands on learning in my classes as a primary benefit. This summarily provides them the secondary benefit of having the strong confidence that can only come from learning underlying concepts and then applying them in a real-world context. Of course, the result of all of this is that they truly enrich my life!I'm striving to do my part to elevate the sales profession, highlight the importance of relationships in industrial distribution, and prepare my students to be ready for anything that comes their way. My work has been published in Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal for Advancement for Marketing Education, Journal of Business Research, Business Education Forum, Sage and others.I’ve served as a reviewer for the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Journal for Advancement for Marketing Education, and Journal of Business Research, and I am a Direct Selling Education Foundation Fellow. Fun fact: I was an Oklahoma delegate to the Libertarian convention in 2016.