Open to work · Bloomington, MN · Strategy to Shelf

Great partnerships are built like great routes — step by step.

I'm Thomas "Teej" Thaldorf, a product, program & category manager. I take owned brands from business case to shelf for Target, Home Depot, Best Buy & Amazon.

Pick your trail

Coach, storyteller, business-case builder & gear-head. Who I am depends on what your team needs, so pick a trail above, or walk the whole route below.

I build the business case, then the program: 500+ SKU portfolios, a $35M+ owned-brand P&L, endcaps, Target.com pages & Amazon 1P.

Tents, packs, sleeping bags & boots. I've sold it on the floor at REI & EMS, then specced, sourced & launched it for Target.

Every product has a crowd behind it. I find the story the shelf should tell, then tell it the same way online, in the aisle & everywhere between.

70+ lessons a month, five teams a year & hundreds of parents taught me to run programs people want to show up for. Progress, not perfection.

Latest dispatch
Teej Thaldorf smiling by a lake among fall birches
Hi, I'm Teej.
The Route

Two tracks, one skill:
strategy into execution.

Creative, product, people, tech & ops, all at once. One person's range instead of three hires.

01 · Owned brands 500+SKU portfolios Product, program & category management, concept to shelf.

I run owned-brand & private-label programs end-to-end: assortment plans, factory & vendor execution, digital go-to-market. Now targeting outdoor & active-lifestyle brands, growth-stage teams where I'd own those calls directly.

At Sansico & CyberPower: seasonal assortment plans, sell-in/sell-through analysis & digital execution across Target, Walmart, Best Buy & Home Depot, including a $35M+ retail/yr owned-brand P&L & 1K+ SKUs priced across store & online.

02 · Omnichannel programs $21M+brand built in 2 years Business cases into funded programs, physical + digital shelf.

I build the business case, then the program: endcaps, Target.com landing pages, a Home Depot exclusive, Amazon 1P, plus the support cases that keep programs on the shelf. Equally at home as Chief of Staff: same skill, different title.

Leading start-ups through joint-venture partnerships, driving enterprise creative toward audience passion, building the rhythms that let leadership move fast without losing alignment.

Waypoints

Four stops along the way

Selected programs, from joint-venture product launches to national retail rollouts.

Waypoint 01 · Sansico Group × Target

Every week, 1.4M+ units left 10+ factories for the shelf.

+21%YoY growth
Owned brands · Licensing · Target, Walmart, Hallmark & Mattel

Scaling Target Brand Commodities

500+ active SKUs across two divisions, 50+ POs in motion every week.

Read the story

Directed end-to-end sales, creative, QA, reporting systems, and product development for owned-brand and licensed programs spanning 500+ active SKUs across two divisions, managing seasonal account plans, milestone gates, and executive escalations across 10+ departments.

Oversaw raw material hedging and container optimization across 10+ Indonesian factories, building the program tools and dashboards used to standardize sell-in/sell-through reporting.

Waypoint 02 · JLB × Target × Yoobi

One classroom list families could trust, online & on every shelf.

$20MJV revenue
Joint venture · Back-to-school · Buy-One-Give-One

Usher: Back-to-School Design & Product Curation

Two seasons, full rollout, built to repeat.

Read the story

Led end-to-end development for a joint venture between Target and Yoobi, designing products, playbooks, and SOPs to ensure consistent in-store excitement and omnichannel execution across the back-to-school season.

Built the KPI dashboards, quality assurance and safety, and development criteria used to monitor launch readiness and reduce post-launch remediation, turning a single-season collaboration into a repeatable "Buy-One-Give-One" operating model.

Waypoint 03 · Cities Market Studio × Target

Tents, packs & sleeping bags. One launch, one readiness system.

40SKUs launched
Outdoor · Product launch · SwissGear

SwissGear Outdoor Product Launch

Two retail channels, one set of brand standards.

Read the story

Created the assortment, spec-packs, and launch playbooks for a 40-SKU outdoor product program, aligning creative, operations, merchants, and development teams around a single operational-readiness system.

Developed the packaging, brand, and channel-merchandising SOPs used to preserve brand standards across both core and specialty retail doors.

Waypoint 04 · CyberPower × Staples

Two brands, one shelf, one playbook from concept to launch.

Nationalrollout
Co-branded line · Sales ops · Launch readiness

NXT: Worklife Product Collaboration

A new co-branded line, with sales conversion on the rise.

Read the story

Managed outsourced sales operations and built execution modules to improve sales conversion, launch readiness, and brand-value consistency for a new co-branded product line.

Produced the operational roadmap, brief, and playbook that kept cross-functional teams aligned on launch cadence and quality from concept through shelf.

Field Notes

Data & dispatches from the trail

Retail, owned-brand & experiential breakdowns I publish regularly — swipe through here, or follow along on LinkedIn.

FIELD NOTES · EDU TEEJ THALDORF EVERY PARTNER COURSE IS A PROMISE. SPEC CONCEPT · NOT AFFILIATED LOAD A PLATE →
Education / Partner Programs

Every Partner Course Is a Promise

Participants see the brand, not the contract. A spec partner-programs concept for CrossFit Education — with a clickable lifecycle, a sample scorecard & a 90-day plan.

Retail / Outdoor Footwear

The Hiking Boom Vasque Didn’t Survive

A record 63.4M Americans hiked in 2024. Red Wing still sunset Vasque, a 60-year-old boot brand. Where the footwear dollars went, and what durability may still be worth.

Read the article
FIELD NOTES · LICENSING TEEJ THALDORF EVERY SCOUT NEEDS A CAMPSITE. SPEC CONCEPT · NOT AFFILIATED TAP THE GEAR →
Licensing / Spec Concept

Every Scout Needs a Campsite

A heritage name, two years before the first truck. A spec licensing concept for camp & trail gear — with three licensee tiers, a clickable campsite & a QBR scorecard.

Omnichannel / Spec Business Case

Green Vest Picks: One Expert Story, Every Shelf

Members do their homework online, then the aisle tells a different story. A spec business case for one curated list on the endcap, the site, the app & email — with a 90-day pilot, KPIs per inch & a support case.

Get the one-pager
Experiential / Race Weekend

The Crew Bib

Every runner brings a crew. A spec activation for the people standing at mile 20 in the rain — with a production tracker, rain plan & printable bib.

Get the brief
Retail / Owned Brands

The $30 Billion Business Hiding In Plain Sight

Target runs one of the largest owned-brand operations in U.S. retail — where it ranks, why private label is growing 3x faster than national brands, and how legacy brands are fighting back.

View on LinkedIn
Trailhead

Let's plan the next leg.

Product, program & omnichannel roles in outdoor, active & durable goods — remote, Minnesota-based, or relocation for the right fit. Also open to Chief of Staff or strategic-ops.

Teej peeking around a weathered wood plank, waving hello
Thomas "Teej" Thaldorf — Bloomington, MN
Certified Product Manager, Pragmatic Institute · Certified Digital Marketing Professional, University of St. Thomas