Sales Manager

Tim’s first job in coffee was at Café Imports.  He went to See Andrew’s former business partner Vido, whom he had bussed tables with in college.  Vido had become a coffee roaster and Andrew was running Café Imports as a very small operation.  Tim was a “consultant” at the time, attempting to use his Japanese fluency to do “business “ in Japan. Since Vido did not have a job for Tim he sent him over to the first little warehouse on Hennepin Avenue.

Café Imports had a lot of coffee stacked in a little warehouse and was based on delivering coffee by truck, and on our backs, to clients. The business was based on service that no one else would provide.  

Tim  tried to sell some coffee to a big Japanese company. He could talk to them, but the lack of coffee knowledge and distance from the source of the coffee in the supply chain made it unlikely that the big Japanese trading companies were going to buy anything.

The Japanese were not biting so Andrew gave Tim a chance to sell coffee and help out around the warehouse.  He started out doing everything including unloading trucks and making deliveries and selling and eventually setting up a QC program.  Over the next 5 years he was part of a chapter at Café Imports that saw us grow ten fold and enjoyed working as VP of Sales and Operations.  
He left to work for a large green coffee company in 2002 and was successful both in trading and also in his leadership of the SCAA via the Roasters Guild. If you are at a SCAA show and see a compact, short Napoleonic looking  guy moving purposefully between conference rooms or events, it might be Tim.

The work on behalf of and for the greater good of coffee is one of the things that fuels him in addition to copious amounts of caffeine and a genuine liking of people.

He ended up returning to his roots and a place where coffee is a bit of a religion. Farmers who are willing to invest the time and energy,  exporters who will take the time to pay attention to all batches of coffee,  our commitment to the care of these coffees on the way to the roaster, and ultimately the roasters and baristas who deliver the coffee to the consumers is what energizes him.

He is married with 3 kids, a dog and a cat.  

His interests include:  Family, language, cooking, triathlons, gardening, camping, literature, yoga and martial arts and an irreverent sense of humor.