Despite a downturn in a strategic market segment, as the Manager of Gates' Industrial OEM Sales and Marketing division, Dave and the team managed to identify market trends and position Gates' to take advantage of sales growth opportunities. Dave's sales organization was spread throughout the United States and consisted of one National Sales Manager, nine Account Executives, and three Business Development Engineers. By landing a large contract with the Melroe Division of Ingersoll-Rand as well as increased business with JLG, Deere, New Holland and others, the team managed to exceed sales expectations.
As the Manager of the Sales and Marketing team responsible for increasing sales to all Automotive transplants in the United States and Canada Dave led a strong group of sales individuals with a tremendous drive to meet and exceed customer expectations. This group consisted of two Account Managers, one Sales Engineer, and one Marketing Specialist. The team's level of commitment to the customer was spread to all customer touch points in the company, from manufacturing through to accounting. By working closely with target customers and their tier-one suppliers to understand all customer needs, the team managed to expand their reach into Mazda, Mitsubishi, and BMW. By Dave's departure for the International Division the team had managed to increase sales to $20 million and secure contracts that would take the teams annual sales to $21 million by the end of 1995.
As an Automotive OEM Account Manager from 1987 to 1992 Dave developed and executed a strategic plan for increasing sales to Japanese Automotive OEMs and their tier one suppliers manufacturing in the United States and Canada. Beginning with a base of $700,000 in annual sales, which were entirely with Nissan in Smyrna, Tennessee and NUMMI in Fremont, California, Dave's objective was to increase annual sales to Japanese transplants to $20.0 million within 5-years. Dave identified several opportunities for sales growth including Toyota's soon to be opened manufacturing operation in Georgetown, Kentucky as well as additional growth at Nissan and NUMMI. By 1992 Gates' sales to this target segment had reached $9.0 million and were becoming too large for Dave to manage alone. He was asked to develop, hire, and manage a team to take the business the rest of the way to $20.0 million.