Rick Johnsen

SENIOR ASSOCIATE

Rick began his career in Southern California in personal lines insurance sales before being promoted to agency marketing director. He then joined a start-up sports management company in Newport Beach where he procured athletes and promoted events before being invited to turn around a struggling business forms manufacturer in San Diego. His team set profitability standards with KPI’s including time, quality and materials and was promoted to corporate headquarters in Southern Oregon where he grew two regional facilities as a division general manager with multiple product lines, $11M budget and 95 employees.
 
Rick was asked to jumpstart enrollment and re-establish intercollegiate athletics as the director of admissions and assistant director of athletics for a private, Portland-based, liberal arts college. When provided an opportunity to jump on the tech bubble for a product launch, he returned to Orange County as a marketing consultant. He was then requested to fill an opening as an NCAA D-1 assistant basketball coach which took him to the Bay Area.
 
Returning to the Pacific Northwest, Rick created the department of marketing and communications as an executive director for a private, liberal arts university. His institutional rebranding efforts bolstered admissions and development results while his MarCom team garnered unprecedented regional and national recognition from CASE, et al. As an adjunct faculty member for the school of business, Rick taught undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing, strategy, leadership and managerial communications. He then commuted back to Newport Coast as the director of enrollment and marketing for a NAIS high school before starting his Oregon-based consultancy.
 
For over a decade, Rick has applied his success in both corporate and nonprofit arenas providing fractional and interim executive leadership services, transforming organizations and advising boards. Featured clients include the University of Oregon (twice), the City of Hillsboro, the Atlantic Street Center in Seattle, and the End Brain Cancer Initiative in Redmond. Additionally, he was retained as the managing principal of OneAccord Nonprofit in Kirkland where he grew revenue, expanded services and diversified segments.
 
With over 20 clients served, Rick has successfully merged a K-8 and high school to form a stronger, singular K-12 enterprise in Tacoma. While there, he renovated, rebranded and restored a failing 60-year-old K-12 school, providing operational leadership and board guidance to remain open through the pandemic. In Rose City, he has provided organizational assessment and comprehensive strategic plans for higher education institutions, along with establishing the Portland Referral Partner Network, a group of community-minded business leaders and cause-related nonprofit executives.
 
A former collegiate basketball scholar-athlete, Rick went on to play competitive beach volleyball and USTA tennis. He has bicycled across the country from Los Angeles to New York, and from Canada to Mexico down the Pacific Coast Highway. Participating in two Hood-to-Coast relays, he also completed the Los Angeles and Portland marathons in under four hours each. As a former athlete, Rick brings a strategic mindset to every engagement and values teamwork in accomplishing individual and collective goals.
 
Rick earned degrees in behavioral (B.A.) and social (M.A.) sciences. He resides in Vancouver, WA, with his wife, a career high school English teacher, their daughter, and Duck Tolling Retriever. They enjoy boating on the Columbia River, the performing arts, and having long conversations with friends and family over good food and wine.  

RICK'S BIO >