Ep. 45 Kevin Ertell (Las Vegas, Panorama City, Sherman Oaks, IT, Tysons Corner, SVP of Tower.com)
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The last time Kevin Ertell saw Russ Solomon, at the premiere of “All Things Must Pass”, Russ walked up to him and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Kevin! Can you believe what those fuckers have done to our website!?” During his time as SVP of Tower.com), Kevin spent many an afternoon in Russ Solomon’s office while Russ peppered him with questions about online retailing from a recent article he had read. It was time that Kevin cherished. 

Kevin had a wide and varied career at Tower Records. Starting out in the original Las Vegas store in the video store, then to "apprentice" as the Classical Buyer for that store and out to Panorama City California as a Video Assistant Manager and eventual Store Manager. He landed as Sherman Oaks Video Store Manager under Regional Manager Gayle Boswell. While Kevin was in California he auditioned as the bass player for the band of a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member, but didn’t get the gig.

Working in the stores wasn’t enough for Kevin. Having an interest in tech, he joined the Store Service team. With an all star roster of employees many will remember, he was a part of the nationwide and then world wide rollout of the Tower ISP program.

Wanting to put that ISP knowledge to practical use and get closer to his long distance relationship, Kevin took the position of General Manager of the Tyson’s Corner Virginia store. In a thriving, busy store he worked the Tower ISP program to its fullest, oversaw a one of a kind Cirque Du Soleil in-store and dealt with the wrath of a woman who worked for a US Senator who wanted Tower Records to remove their Playboy videos, lest they tempt her son.

It was back to Sacramento to work on the challenge of Tower.com. Kevin tells us about the time it took to make Tower.com the #2 store in the US back when buying music on the web was not normal, how a consortium of retailers including Virgin, Best Buy, Borders Books and Tower Records got rejected by the record labels to sell major label music files before Apple Music and how after 20 years, in 2005 it all ended as Kevin was recruited by Borders Books to rebuild their Borders.com and help start up their Borders Rewards program.

Kevin points out early in the episode that none of this would have happened had he not got a job at Tower Records in April of 1985 following an extremely dark chapter in his young life. Kevin said “I found my people. Tower saved me.”