Stories

Visitor Profile: Rob Dickerson

Published: February 07, 2023

Name: Rob Dickerson
Age: 49
Occupation: Vice President of Sales, DeFeet International
Resides in: Hickory
Favorite Catawba County Park: Mountain Creek Park

Let's start with a little bit of background. Have you lived in Catawba County your whole life?
No, my father was brought here by the FAA; he was an air traffic controller. I was born in Florida at Eglin Air Force Base. We have lived all over the country and we ended up here when I was eight. I have been in Catawba County for 41 years, which is most of my life. 

Tell me about what you do for work.
I am the Vice President of Sales at DeFeet International. I have been at DeFeet now for almost seven years, and I've been a lifelong fan of the brand. DeFeet is a sock and accessory company that's mainly focused on cycling. Obviously, socks are good for wearing every day or for any activity, but we have really made it our goal to be the premier cycling sock. We started right here in Hildebran and we are 30 years old this year. The founders, Hope and Shane Cooper, are still very active in the business and active cyclists, and Shane is constantly innovating and looking for ways to improve the sock. 

DeFeet, from its inception, has been focused on a better way of doing things ecologically. Our socks are made from recycled water bottles, and those water bottles are chipped and turned into pellets, and then turned into yarn in North Carolina; actually, all of our yarns are made within an 80-mile radius of our facility. Our refuse, or the product that can't be sold, goes to a recycling company in Morganton where it gets turned into another product so we have virtually no waste. It’s a true cradle-to-cradle design model.

How large is the company? How many employees?
We typically have between 40 and 50 employees, depending on the time of year and how busy we are. We have a lot of folks in the back making our product but it’s a small front office with the owners and our design and marketing teams. I help in all those, but my main focus is our sales side, from retail, to wholesale, to custom; you name it, I help with all of that.

When you're not working, you like to ride?
Yes. My whole life, really, has been about the bike in some way. I got my first mountain bike when I was 12 and started riding. I grew up in Mountain View and rode a BMX bike around; that was kind of the genesis of mountain biking. Soon after that, I got into road biking and became a serious cyclist. 

Now I ride three or four days a week, usually a combination of mountain biking, road riding and gravel riding. Road is easy because you walk out your door and you ride; that's probably once or twice a week for me. For mountain biking, I like to run down to Hickory City Park or to Mountain Creek Park, which is really convenient. It's so much closer and faster to get there than you think because it's right off the newly widened Highway 16.

Tell me about your experience of riding at Mountain Creek Park.
I think anytime you hear a new park is going to be built, you're excited, but you never really know how good it's going to be until you get there. I was fortunate enough to get to pre-ride Mountain Creek Park with the trail builder and get a lot of insight. Elevated Trail Design constructed the trail network, and it’s amazing.

The Loblolly Loop and Mountain Creek Loop are awesome, especially Mountain Creek. That five-mile stretch… you can just haul on it and get a really good workout in. For me, going and making a couple laps of that and then maybe throwing in a few of the fun downhill sections, that's a goal for me, because I want to go out and get a good workout in. I can spend an hour out there and get in all the riding I want and be back home in 35 minutes, which is really neat because a lot of times people have to drive a long way to ride a trail system. It's nice to have something so convenient in our county that we can run down to.

I think the fact that they made the park so family-focused was a great idea because often there's nothing else for your family to do. My child is older now, but if I had younger children, I like the idea of being able to go to a park where my wife, if she wasn't riding, could go and play with a young child at a playground, or go down to the lake. I think it’s really cool to have the paved sections for someone either with a stroller or a wheelchair. And it's long enough that you could get some good fitness out of it as well.

I think it's neat that they included so many amenities at the park. Obviously, my focus is going to be the cycling component, but it's really neat that we have all those options right there. It's super exciting.

Is there anything else that you would like to add?
I think in closing, it's really important that we kind of step back when we're looking at what the community needs; obviously getting people on board with the idea of building a new park is great, but it’s important to understand what the desires of the community are. I think that Catawba County did an amazing job hitting all the key areas: lake access, playground for kids, pickleball courts, the pump track, the mountain bike park, walking trails. I mean, you’re given a Swiss army knife of great activities for an entire family or an individual, and I think that's cool because that's what drives community, that's what drives commerce, and that's what makes Catawba County a great place to live.