BOULDER, CO (BRAIN)—Leisure Trends Group has reorganized its management team, realigning responsibilities in response to the last two years of sales growth.
Jim Spring, the founder and president of LTG, said that Charlie Cooper is now vice president and general manager of LTG and will be taking over the day-to-day operations of the company. Julia Day is now vice president of sales and marketing and Bill Thomas is vice president of information technology.
Spring will keep the title of president and take on the additional title of chief creative officer. Joy Spring, vice president and COO, will continue to head up the CRM division in addition to her other duties.
Cooper joined LTG in February of 2009 to head up sales and service in the company's new Bicycle and Running divisions. Prior to joining LTG, Cooper's diverse background included a technology startup company in Denver, various sales, marketing and business development positions for interactive entertainment leader Electronic Arts in Redwood City, California, and he worked as director of promotions and special projects for The Collegiate Licensing Co., Atlanta.
Day has been director of sales and marketing for Leisure Trends Group for 11 years spearheading a quadrupling of retail tracking sales. In addition, Day has been responsible for designing critical new products in LTG's consumer research division.
Thomas joined LTG 10 years ago as head of IT and has been responsible for creating all of the database products in all three divisions of LTG. Before joining LTG, Thomas was vice president of design programming for Outdoor Nature's Design.
The management team is strengthened by Jason Gee, managing director of retail sales tracking, and Jim Kelley, managing director of analytical services. Gee, who recently celebrated his five year anniversary with LTG, had previously been a buyer and category manager in retail. Kelley, who joined LTG last summer, spent 11 years in leadership roles in research and marketing at Levi Strauss & Company before moving to Boulder to be in charge of marketing for Market Force Information, a research and intelligence company.
Spring said, "I have all the confidence in the world in the abilities and talent of the management team at LTG. It is a wonderful balance of sport industry experience, retail experience and marketing research expertise. The addition of Charlie and Jim Kelley represents just the right chemistry so that our clients can feel comfortable they are in good hands."
"As for me," Spring said. "I have a candy store of ideas, young people to mentor, brilliant people to associate with and plenty of new ideas for the future."
