Bruce: Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon, and today we're going to head out to south of Cleveland, Ohio and visit with Doug Dehartpart and he's the Co-host and Marketing Director for Bloodline, plus he does a heck of a lot of other things, folks, and we're just lucky to have him take about 20-30 minutes out of his active day, month, year to share with us. So Doug, welcome to the show.

Doug: Hey, I appreciate it Bruce. I appreciate you having me and the opportunity to talk to your viewers and share our passion for Bloodline and our passion for whitetail hunting.

Bruce: Well, let's start right off. During the warm-up, you were sharing with me about what it takes to get into the outdoor industry and it's a huge industry, but it's a very small family. It's a very small community when you really look at it. So why we don't we just start there and share some tips and techniques and vision that you have for the industry, not only for yourself, but for somebody that's looking to break into the industry.

Doug: Well, I say a cool thing is volunteer time. Time is one of the greatest things that you can give to a non-profit organization such Ducks Unlimited, Whitetails Unlimited, QDMA, those organizations do a great deal of good deeds for the outdoorsman, such as getting kids into the outdoors, for teaching you how to better your deer herd. There's a bunch of different things like that. I've been a Chapter President for Whitetails Unlimited going on 13 years, and that's kind of how I got my start in the outdoor industry, because I was at a fair one day and saw a booth and it said, "Whitetails Unlimited," and I went up and shook the guy's hand and just kind of started talking to him and a year later, we started a chapter, and it was one of the fastest growing chapters in state of Ohio and it did real well. I was privileged enough so that the field director kind of took me under his wing and really liked me and what I was doing, and introduced me to some people in the industry and God just really blessed me with a great opportunity to come up in Bloodline and do some cool stuff. So that's kind of how I got my start.

Bruce: So if I'm a young guy, young gal out there that really likes the outdoors and has a passion for it and wants to see if they can make it a vocation, not an avocation, what are three or five things that you would recommend they do?

Doug: Like I said, one's volunteer time with a great organization, two is take your passion and pass it on to someone who's less fortunate than you. If you've got an inner city kid or somebody that shows interest in getting outdoors, start mentoring that kid or that person, and those are both very valuable things. You know, getting hooked up with the right crowd of people to come up in the industry.

Bruce: Now what about going to like, you mentioned Whitetails Unlimited out of Sturgeon Bay, I believe QDMA out of Georgia, and then probably the best show that I know of is the ATA Show, and I think that's held right in your neighborhood, isn't it?

Doug: Well, my first year that I ever went to an ATA Show it was held in Columbus, Ohio, but it's pretty Nashville area, Louisville, Kentucky, Indianapolis, kind of in that area so I don't . . . they need to have it like in Florida or California, where it's warm, because it's always freezing cold and your walking around outside, so that my personal request there.

Bruce: Well, I have no influence, so it's gonna go on deaf ears here, but we have the podcast so there you go. So because I found, through my corporate career, that you show up at the various professional organizations that support your industry, and then like you said, volunteer, get to be known, if something needs to be done raise your hand and go and do it, with an eye of serving rather than an eye of getting. I think that's one thing that I would shout-out to that question.