Bruce started his consulting practice for the world of independent distribution channels in January of 1980, after having spent 8 years working for a growth-by-acquisition chain of distribution companies with 300 employees. During his time with that company, he: rose through the ranks; quarterbacked turnarounds for 4 acquisitions; and was the chief operating officer for his last two years.

In 1983, Bruce bought Clark Security Products, a San Diego distributor which then had $7 million in sales. He turned around Clark, installed a high-performance culture. Clark grew organically to over $150MM in sales and about 350 employees and was sold to Anixter Corp. in December, 2010.

Over the years, Bruce has given countless speeches to well over 100 trade associations, as well as many of the world"s largest corporations with many repeat assignments along the way. He has written over 100 published articles and authored "Electronic Commerce for Distribution Channels" in 1999. A National Association of Wholesale-Distributors" book publication). Visit Bruce"s site and prodigious distribution work at Merrifield.com including indexes to his 450+ YouTube video clips.

Bruce has been and currently is a formal advisor or board member for many firms and provides specific, strategic advice to many more on a regular basis. He has done several, contract turnaround projects in which he has worked with existing management throughout. And, he is an equity partner in two separate, but related, firms that leverage software-as-a-service technology to create new business models for distributors.

Bruce co-founded the Advance Profit Innovation Conference (apicconference.com) in '08. Since then, he has become the pioneering authority on both "Cost-To-Serve Economics" and "Line-Item, Profit Analytics Management" for distributors. His 40+ "Strategic Insights for Distributors", essay series (also at his web site) reflect this work.

Other than that, Bruce has two wonderful kids, lives in Snowmass Village, CO and plays a good game of tennis. In a previous life, Bruce graduated from Princeton with a BA in Biochemistry and Harvard Business School with an MBA.