Hockey Jobs: How Keith Perera went from working at a Cali hockey shop to being brand manager for Warrior Hockey

In MiHockey's new 'Hockey Jobs' feature, we introduce you to the people behind the scenes of the hockey industry.

 

By @MichaelCaples –

WARREN – Keith Perera might have been born in Montreal, but for the last six years he’s been living in Michigan and working for one of hockey’s fastest growing companies.

It’s in that journey from Montreal to the Mitten, however, where Warrior’s brand manager for hockey built a playbook for on how to make it in the sports world.

“I think my story is one of those really good examples of, just get into it, and don’t think you’re going to get something out of it,“ Perera said in an interview with MiHockey. “Part of this is also where I’m from.”

Born to immigrants from Sri Lanka, Perera grew up in Habs Country before moving to Los Angeles just in time for Wayne Gretzky’s Hollywood arrival.

“My dad came straight from Sri Lanka, but my mom had grown up in Canada a lot longer. My dad came to Canada when they got married. My dad was never really into hockey, my mom was into hockey because she had been living in Canada since she was 12. She liked that we were playing hockey and we were interested in it as kids. When I was 12, 13, I’m a Canadiens fan, I lived it, I played, I didn’t play at any high level, I was just a really big fan of hockey. Living in Montreal, you have to be, because it’s all you’re exposed to.

“In ’91, my dad got transferred with his job, and we all went with him to California. It was right after Gretzky got there, so there was a huge hockey boom, but also a roller hockey boom. There were tons of people playing hockey, whether it be roller hockey, street hockey, and starting with some ice. They didn’t have as many facilities at the time, but it was starting to expand really fast.”

Keith Perera at Warrior's headquarters in Warren, Mich. (Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey)

 

Perera capitalized on the rapid hockey expansion by getting his first job as a part-time employee at a new hockey store that opened a year after Gretzky took the Kings to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final.

“I just went in there one day, and said ‘hey, I know a lot about hockey,’” Perera said. “My dad was like, ‘dude, get a job’ so I went in there and asked if they were hiring for the summer, and they hired me. That kind of started me on my journey in the hockey business.”

Through the rest of high school and through his time at University of California-Riverside studying business marketing, Perera worked at the hockey shop. By the time he graduated, the store had expanded to three locations, and Perera was managing the one nearest to his university. But, it was time for the next step in his career.

Perera asked Michael Day, a sales representative for Mission Hockey, if he knew of any job openings at the California-based company.

“The corporate office at Mission was in Orange County, which was about an hour’s drive from where I grew up,” Perera said. “He said, ‘Well, in fact, I think there is an opening. It’s in warranty, it’s probably not the kind of job that someone would ever want, because people are calling in with problems.’ Not that there’s ever a positive, but everyone’s always calling with a problem.

“I said well, if it gets my foot in the door, I’ll do it. I was still living at home at the time, and I was driving back and forth, in southern California. It was maybe a 37-mile distance, but it was an hour drive in the morning, and two hours on the way home. It was a drag. It destroyed my body. I’d leave the house at like 6:30, and I wouldn’t get home until 6:30 or 7 at night, and then I’d wake up the next morning and do the same thing. But I knew that that was what I was supposed to do. It wasn’t ‘a job’ for me. From high school, I knew all the product, and I was always kind of geared towards product. I was a product geek, I’d tinker with things and fix things at the store, and then I’d try to fix things when I worked at warranty in Mission.”

While it may have been working in a thankless customer service position, it was actually one of those life-changing breaks for Perera.

“My story has a lot of those breaks in it,” Perera said. “The hockey business has been amazing to me, because people have taken me under their wings, and I’ll always talk about that, I’ll always give them props.”

Perera quickly rolled into the second helping hand he got during his time at Mission – from the guy who built the company.

“One day, the founder of Mission, Tom Wilder, who was kind of like revered in our office because he was the tinkerer and forward-thinking and advanced-concepts kind of guy, he came up to me back in the back of the warehouse where they hid the warranty guy. He said ‘I noticed that you’ve been working a lot in the workshop, and you’re trying to fix things.’ We had sewing machines in the R&D area, and I would use them to fix skates. He said, ‘have you ever thought about if you want to work in R&D or work as a product manager?’”

Perera started working as a product developer during downtime in the warranty department. Eventually, Wilder pulled him out of customer service, and Perera became product manager for Mission’s skate division. He ended up working as the skates and protective product manager for five years before the company merged with Itech.

When the merger took place, Perera was left looking for new work. He ended up joining Tommy Armour, a small golf company that dealt primarily in commercial business, selling to chains like Walmart, Target and Sports Authority.

“I took a risk on it,” Perera said. “At that time, I was in the hockey business, but there aren’t too many hockey companies to work for. I figured, ‘I have the title of a product manager, let’s try something different.’ And I love golf, so I took a little hiatus into the golf business, which was awesome in a way, because I tried something completely different. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but it taught me that I could do that. I could do something new using the skills I already had.”

The hiatus from hockey didn’t last long, however. Perera received a call from Neil Wensley, a former work associate, with an offer to get Perera back into the hockey business.

“This is another one of those breaks,” Perera said. “He contacted me and said ‘Hey, I need a product manager for this new hockey company called Warrior.’ I was like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’ll look into it, because I trust you.’ He was the product manager at Easton, the skate product manager when I was the ice skate manager at Mission. That’s how we knew each other; we were basically the same guy at different companies. That’s the best thing about the hockey business – there’s so much respect for each other. When you think about it, there’s only like five guys in the world that have that job. We all know each other, we know who we are.

“That’s the other thing about the hockey business – keeping your reputation intact and together,” Perera said. “It’s very much like how professional hockey players are, it’s very much like how junior players are, it’s all about your rep. If people know that you’re a certain rep, it gets around real quick. The hockey business is a small business.”

Perera traveled to Michigan to interview for a position with the Warren-based company’s new hockey division, and landed the product manager job shortly after sitting down with Wensley.

“I started as a product guy here,” Perera said. “Not to say it’s been perfect, but Warrior’s been such an amazing ride for how fast we’ve grown, how far we’ve come, from the product standpoint, we’ve taken some changes on some things, some things have worked and some haven’t, but the things that have worked have been great for us. That’s what I love about it, we keep trying and we keep doing. I think that if I worked anywhere else that didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be working there very long. That’s what I love about working here, how passionate and how fast-paced the work environment, and the fact that the people here trust you to do your job, and if you want to try something crazy, try it.”

Perera was promoted from product manager of sticks to the brand manager for Warrior Hockey in April. Now, he oversees all marketing efforts for the company’s hockey division.

“As a brand manager, my responsibilities are for how our brand is portrayed, whether it be from print ads to television ads to our social media, how we’re portrayed on social media through all the different channels on there, our relationships with various leagues like the NHL and the CHL in Canada and the U.S., and international, as well.

“It’s kind of a global situation, because there’s a lot going on in Canada, there’s a lot going on in our businesses in Europe and Asia, and of course our business in the U.S. So it’s overseeing all that. That’s not to say I do it all myself, we have an amazing team of people.”

He said that every day has been a new adventure since taking over the brand manager position.

“In a way, I don’t know what I’m doing on a daily basis, but I think that’s the best part. It’s allowing me to try to figure things out. I think sometimes it’s good to shake your life up a little bit and be taken out of your comfort zone, because it proves that you’re adaptable, you can work it through, things can happen if you work hard enough, and sometimes it can be an opportunity that you don’t even know is there.”

Serving as brand manager for Warrior means some additional perks, as well. Perera spends plenty of time with the company’s collection of hockey superstar representatives for photo shoots, commercials and other marketing activities.

“I’m a hockey fan at heart, for sure,” Perera said. “It is very much a perk. We are very lucky to have an amazing stable of NHL pro players, from Max Pacioretty – I have to say him first because I’m a Habs fan first – to Henrik Zetterberg. There’s so much Zetterberg stuff around my house and in the environment that I work in that my son’s first hockey player name that he said was ‘Zetterberg.’

“Just the ability to hang out with these guys in a natural environment and just kind of learn a little bit about who they are and how they act, it’s a cool thing. We prop these guys up as gladiators and as warriors, really, but to see them without their armor on, and to see them as regular people, is really a treat.

Perera also cherishes his opportunities to work with hockey’s highest leagues. Warrior works closely with leagues all over the world, including the National Hockey League.

“Working with the NHL – as far as some of the stuff we do to help with the game in any way we can – they likes us because we’re a young company and we kind of bring a different flavor to things. There are other companies that have been around for much longer than us, but the NHL kind of likes us because we bring a different take to it. We have to do it responsibly, but maybe we’re bringing in a new fan that they didn’t have before. It’s certainly something that’s very exciting to work with the NHL and the players.”

He’s also enjoying his stay in the Mitten.

“I love it,” Perera said with a grin. “I like living here. I think, coming from a Montreal-born kid to an L.A.-raised boy…since I moved here, I got married, I have two kids now, and I don’t see a better place to raise a family as far as the way the people are, the environment that you have, and just the fact that things that are important to people are, to me, is what matters. So I’m pretty happy with what happens in the office and what happens at home. It’s been a pretty good ride for me so far.”

As far as advice goes for fellow hockey fanatics looking to enter the business, Perera has plenty. He said that he wants to be able to provide chances for aspiring hockey industry executives just like the people that helped him along the way. However, he said that when those chances come, the beneficiary better be ready to work to seize his or her opportunity.

“Don’t expect anything,” Perera said. “Don’t expect that somebody is just going to hand it to you. Put yourself in the right environment. Everything I described in my story is based on environment. I happened to be in the right place at the right time a lot of the time, but I was in that place. Once I was in that place, and I was given that opportunity, I worked my butt off to get to where I needed to go.

Perera also said to make sure you are earning the respect of others.

“At the end of the day, you spend a lot of time at work. If people don’t like you, and you’re a pain in the butt to deal with, you’re not going to be there anymore. That’s a very important part of it. Work hard and be a pretty cool dude, somebody that somebody wants to hang out with, and take advantage whenever somebody gives you an opportunity. Thank them, and take advantage of it, because they don’t come around often, or ever, really. It’s tough.”