Kevin Kilpatrick, Atlanta

Kevin Kilpatrick is a senior level advertising and marketing executive with a background in brand management and corporate retailing coupled with an extensive advertising agency background. He founded The Cloud Peak Firm in November, 2004. The company specializes in providing marketing resources/consulting for manufactures and retailers in the home improvement industry.

In a very short time the company has worked with over 20 clients in the home improvement industry. The scope and intensity of the projects has ranged from quick high-level consulting engagements to year long intense deep dives into the client's business.

Before starting his own marketing firm, Kevin served as Director of Advertising and Director of Marketing for The Home Depot, that has $73 billion in sales and 1,900 stores in its international home improvement retail chain. He had the responsibility for all strategic development and implementation of marketing plans for the merchandising department, and the creation then management of an 11 person Marketing Manager team that oversaw all mass and direct advertising. He was a member of the Brand Leadership Team that
supervised a $1.2 billion annual advertising and marketing budget.

Among Kevin’s accomplishments at The Home Depot are the following:

Prior to The Home Depot, Kevin was employed by The Richards Group, as most recently Account Management Director. The Richards Group is the nation's largest independent full-service advertising and integrated marketing firm located in Dallas,Texas and
Atlanta, Georgia.

He was responsible for the Home Depot account that included the profit and loss statement, supervision of all broadcast and national print development and production and supervised the $14.5 million broadcast and $1.5 million print production budgets. Additionally, he consulted with media buying services on all planning and buying of broadcast media ($320 million budget) and national print media ($13.5 million budget).

He worked with ten different Home Depot field offices to address competitive situations with aggressive battle plans that primarily utilized spot radio; headed the agency team that was responsible for all aspects of the 1996, 1998, and 2000 Olympic sponsorships. Also he lead the 1999 advertising efforts in the initial year of Home Depot’s NASCAR sponsorship that lead to Home Depot winning the Marketer of Year award from NASCAR. Kevin developed and then managed the broadcast advertising program used to open over 700 stores. He was heavily involved with new growth avenues such as introducing new concepts including Crossroads, Villager’s, and The Home Depot Floor Store and marketing to non-traditional audiences. He supervised all broadcast and national print advertising and branding efforts in Canada and he worked with agencies in Puerto Rico, Chili, and Argentina to extend the brand into
those countries.

Kevin was involved with all of the Home Depot in-house proprietary brands, especially focusing on the introduction of the RIDGID brand of woodworking tools as well as the on-going development of the Husky brand of mechanics tools and Hampton Bay Fan and Lighting Company. He launched the RIDGID woodworking line in 1999 then launched RIDGID power tools in 2003.

Earlier in his career Kevin worked at two other advertising agencies Michael/Bolger/Reinschmiedt/King and STUARTBACON.

Kevin currently sits on the board of directors for PakIce, Inc. and is a member of Retail and Marketing Association (RAMA). In 2003 he had the honor of being chosen by his peers at retailers throughout the nation to serve as a judge for the Retail Advertising Conference awards presentation.