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Richard Freedman
Owner at Dead Squared Fitness and Nutrition/Managing Partner GOL-FIT.com
Professional Background
Richard Freedman is a distinguished professional whose expertise spans multiple industries including finance, fitness, and health. Beginning his career after graduating from Rutgers University in 1968 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, Rich laid a solid foundation for his professional journey at Shell Oil Company. Over the course of more than three decades, he held an impressive range of executive positions, demonstrating exceptional leadership and management skills in high-stakes environments. He served in key roles including Assistant General Auditor, Controller of the Wood River Manufacturing Complex, and Controller of Coral Energy, Inc. His unparalleled skills were further recognized when he was appointed Vice-President of Finance and Business Development for Billiton Metals Inc., followed by his role as Managing Director at Billiton Commodities Inc. Rich took an early retirement in 2000, closing a remarkable chapter in his corporate career.
Driven by a passion for fitness and health, which he developed under the mentorship of former professional football Strength & Conditioning Coach Dan Riley, Rich transitioned to a new vocation focused on wellness and physical education. In 2006, he received his Fitness Certification from the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) and expanded his qualifications through additional training under US Olympic Coach John Schaeffer. His commitment to continuous learning in the field led to numerous certifications in specialized areas such as Fitness Nutrition, Fitness for Older Adults, Youth Fitness, Exercise Therapy, Bodybuilding, and Advanced Sports Conditioning. His expertise was recognized when he achieved the prestigious title of "Master Trainer" from ISSA in 2011.
Education and Achievements
Rich's educational background played a pivotal role in shaping his analytical and organizational skills, essential for both his corporate and fitness careers. Graduating from Rutgers University-Newark with a BA in Economics provided him with a solid grounding in business principles and economics that he carried throughout his professional life.
As part of his commitment to bridging the gap between fitness and golf, Rich became a certified Golf Fitness Instructor by the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) in 2013. That same year, he also co-founded Gol-Fit.com with PGA Professional Quincy Heard. Gol-Fit.com combines golf training with fitness clinics aimed at helping golfers enhance their performance through physical training. This initiative collaborates with the Summit Golf Foundation to support foster children in the Portland, Oregon, and Southwest Washington areas, illustrating Rich's commitment to community and wellness.
Rich extended his impact in academia as the Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Warner Pacific University Golf Team in Portland, OR, where he contributed his knowledge and experience for six years. His wide-ranging expertise is further demonstrated in his written works, including the publication of his book, "The Fountain of You - Getting Stronger, Living Longer" (Inkwater Press, 2016), which emphasizes health and wellness strategies. Additionally, Rich wrote an insightful article for Costco's Connection Magazine, titled "Fitness as We Age," showcasing his dedication to educating the public on the importance of fitness across the lifespan. He continues to share his knowledge and fitness insights with members of the Royal Oaks Country Club in Vancouver, WA, through their newsletter.
In 2021, Rich is set to launch a new fitness product known as the BESS Box. This innovative and fully portable fitness workstation is designed to offer a multitude of uses and enables users to perform an extensive variety of balance, endurance, strength, and speed exercises, marking yet another exciting venture in his fitness career.
Achievements
Richard Freedman's remarkable achievements testify to his dedication, expertise, and passion for promoting fitness and health in diverse populations. His transition from a successful corporate career to the field of fitness exemplifies his versatility and commitment. Some notable highlights of his career include:
- Extensive tenure at Shell Oil Company in various executive capacities, shaping financial strategies and management practices.
- Certification as a Fitness Trainer and "Master Trainer" by ISSA, demonstrating a high level of commitment to the field of fitness and health.
- Co-founding Gol-Fit.com, which creatively merges golf with fitness programs, enhancing performance while aiding community causes.
- Contributing as Strength & Conditioning Coach, positively influencing the athletic performance of college golfers in Portland, OR.
- Publishing significant works on health, wellness, and fitness for broader audiences, advocating for active lifestyles and longevity.
- Introducing innovative fitness solutions like the BESS Box, aimed at enriching the fitness experience for users.
In summary, Richard Freedman's dynamic career and contributions to the fields of finance, fitness, and health portray a professional who not only excels in his endeavors but also profoundly impacts those around him. His unique blend of experience, continuous learning, and community outreach positions him as a notable figure committed to enhancing the lives of individuals through fitness and wellness.
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.