Yakima Racks & Watermark Hire Steve Rodden As VP Product Development

WaterMark, parent company of Yakima Racks, recently announced it has hired Steve Rodden to be the company's vice president of product development. He will be based at the company's headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, located just outside of Portland and home to other outdoor gear manufacturers including Nike, Adidas, Salomon Sports and Columbia Clothing & Apparel. Mr. Rodden co-founded Fiori Research & Design in Portland, Oregon in 1998 with Steve Brown.

With about 800 employees nationwide, the company is currently migrating 65 employees in its sales and marketing, product development and management and other services from Arcata, California to Beaverton Oregon. Besides Yakima car racks, Mr. Rodden will oversee product development for Dagger Kayaks, Perception Kayaks and other outdoor recreational equipment. The move is scheduled to be complete by September 2005.

Mr. Rodden has been consulting with WaterMark since November 2004, assisting and leading the product development department through the transition. He is already involved with the company's 2005 product launches. With Fiori, Mr. Rodden has overseen the launch of over 50 consumer products for companies including Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Vulcan and Intel.