Angling his way to CEO, By John Dugan
Marin Independent Journal

Article Launched: 09/11/2007 12:58:15 PM PDT

MICHAEL JORDAN couldn't cut it. Former Celtics legend Bill Russell flamed out quickly. NBA pro Isiah Thomas drove two teams
and an entire league into the ground in his attempts.

What's Keith Bryan doing right in the fishing rod industry that so many athlete-turned-executives get wrong?

Once a professional angler, Bryan moved out of the boat and into the boardroom five years ago and has seen almost nothing
but success since then. The owner and chief executive of Novato fishing equipment company Powell Products, Inc., Bryan is in
charge of one of the fastest-growing bass fishing rod manufacturers in the country.

"It's crazy," the Novato resident says. "We can't even keep up with the orders."

Bryan began at Powell, then strictly a fly fishing rod producer, in 1997 as a sales and marketing executive. In 2002 Bryan took
advantage of an opportunity to make the century-old company his own and bought Powell, which was based in Sacramento at
the time.

Bryan, 43, has turned what was one of the premier fly rod producers into a company offering top-notch fly and bass rods. His
time on the pro bass fishing circuit, on which he toured on and off for a decade, gave him an inside knowledge of the sport that
helped him launch the company's fledgling bass rod division in 2005.

"I feel like I'm in tune with the market," Bryan says. "I know how to make a product that bass fishermen will want to buy. I'm
making rods that I would use on the pro circuit."

For the time being, Bryan isn't on any circuit. He fished in the occasional pro tournament from 2002 to 2006, but put down the
rod completely last year to focus all his energy on the company. He stills gets out on the water four or five days a month - he
owns a 21-foot fishing boat that he uses at Clear Lake - but doesn't plan to rejoin the pro tour until 2009. That's when Bryan
and his wife, Karry, predict the company will have enough of a foothold in the market for Bryan to ease off the accelerator a bit.
(Plus, they hope to have hired some sort of operations manager or executive to oversee the production by then.)

When that happens, Bryan will get back to the sport he loves. The sport he fell for as a college student in Arkansas, where a
Piedmont native would have caught flak for not wanting to hunt and fish. As a football player at Henderson State University,
Bryan found himself most content not on the gridiron but on the water, with a reel in hand and a line trolling below.

Bryan began fishing in amateur tournaments in Arkansas in 1987, shortly after graduating from Henderson State. He tried his
hand at fishing while trying to catch on doing what he thought he was meant to do - placekicking in the National Football
League. Bryan kicked field goals well enough in college to earn himself a tryout in 1986 with the St. Louis Cardinals, the team
that later moved to Arizona.

"I got a very small paycheck," Bryan says. After a few days with the Cardinals, Bryan was cut.

He spent the next four years in Arkansas trying to find more tryouts with NFL teams, fishing at amateur tournaments and
working odd jobs. It was after a few years of amateur fishing that Bryan decided he was trying to be a pro in the wrong sport.
Football was out; fishing was in.

It's not like moving to Arkansas was Bryan's first introduction to fishing. He grew up with his twin brother, Kurt, and his mom,
Julie Caig, in Fremont and Piedmont and learned to fish as a youngster on Lake Elizabeth in Fremont's Central Park. Caig would
often take the boys to the lake and fish with them, but sometimes Kurt and Keith made the trip by themselves.

"I would take them down to the lake, and they'd be there for hours," Caig says. "It was clear that it was such a natural love and
passion for Keith. It didn't surprise me that he started to love it in Arkansas. I think his time there really solidified his passion to
fish."

In 1990, realizing he wouldn't become a professional field goal kicker in the NFL, Bryan moved back to the Bay Area to be closer
to his family. He took a job selling life insurance door-to-door, a job he credited as giving him the sales experience he'd later
use at Powell.

That's when Bryan started getting serious about a pro fishing career and entered tournaments throughout the area. Most of his
exploits came at Clear Lake, where Ross England owned the only bait shop in town.

"He came in one day asking about swim baits, the best ones to use and how to use them," says England, now a tour guide at
Clear Lake. "He went out and it was an absolutely miserable day on the lake, but he did really well. He came back in and was all
wound up about it, going on and on. He ended up buying 10 more baits.

"In my mind, that put him a notch above the recreational fishermen. What I knew at that point was that he had a lot of
experience fishing, but not a lot of experience in competition. But it was clear he wanted to learn."

Bryan was still learning when he got an opportunity at Powell in 1997. A friend's father was part of an investment group that
bought Powell, and the group was looking for experienced salespeople to come aboard. They tapped Bryan, who brought both
sales and fishing knowledge to the table.

It was at Powell where Bryan met Karry, whom the investors had put in charge of finances at the fly rod company. Karry Bryan
remembered what made Keith a natural with Powell.

"He always loved to fish," says Karry, chief accounting officer for Tamalpais Bank. "Now, he was in the industry he always
dreamt of being in."

Keith and Karry Bryan married in 2000 and had a daughter, Tristyn, in 2002. That was the same year Keith was offered a
chance to buy out the investors and own the company himself. The deal was completed in January 2003.

Since then, Bryan has been a man on the run. He moved Powell's manufacturing overseas, so the company now owns every part
of its products, from creation to sale. He won a pro-am fishing tournament in Clear Lake in 2005 and finished 40th at a pro
tournament the same year, and Powell launched its bass rods line in 2005. Since then, Powell has been earning a larger and
larger chunk of the $45 billion bass rod industry, and Bryan has lived with a cell phone attached to his ear for roughly 15 hours
a day.

"He had to get a new cell phone because the pro fishermen were calling him constantly," Karry Bryan says.

The appeal of Powell's bass rods is twofold. Bryan kept the high-quality craftsmanship that Powell's fly rods have been known for
since the early 20th century, but priced the bass rods reasonably. Now, Powell sells its bass rods for between $169 and $199,
well below the $240 price tag most rods of Powell's quality sell for. according to England. (Powell's fly rods are still top-of-theline:
they start at $199 and run up to $2,700 for a custom-made bamboo rod.)

Bryan's dedication to his company has had its drawbacks. He's rarely able to spend time with Tristyn and Karry without having
to answer a business call, his wife says, and he works long days at the office. If and when he rejoins the pro bass fishing circuit,
he'll be traveling frequently and will have even less time at home.

"That's a big dilemma with a lot of fishermen's wives," Karry Bryan says. "Most of the tournaments are a week long, and the
fishermen have to go and fish the spot for two weeks ahead of time to get a feel for it. You do that 12 times a year, and it's hard
to see your family much."

Keith Bryan doesn't plan on traveling quite that often when he returns to action, and in fact will only participate in a limited tour
schedule. He knows life on the boat can't beat what he has going right now.

"There're a lot of guys out there who will forego everything to fish," Bryan says. "Family, job, everything. I don't want to do
that. I've got a great family here and a great business. I don't have to be a fishing bum."

From the boat to the boardroom and back again? Not many have tried that transition. As Keith Bryan has shown, however, he's
up to the task.

John Dugan can be reached at jdugan@marinij.com.