The ChurchGear Team
Here at ChurchGear, we are a motley crew of churchgoers who have banded together to serve the Church in a unique way. We try not to take ourselves too seriously but we do love helping churches sell their used production gear. Here’s a quick bio about each of our goofy staff members.
Toby Walters
Founder & Saint of Sarcasm
Toby is our fearless leader and captain of sarcastic, comic relief. He’s been leading worship and selling gear for over 20 years. He has a wife who loves him with the fiery passion of a million suns (and is also currently rolling her eyes) and two kids that Toby is trying his darndest to develop a love and passion for music and the church…or at the very least, turn off the light when they leave a room! Toby has a strong passion for the church and worship/tech staff members. He wants to save you from that scary closet full of old gear that haunts the back hallways of every church in America!
Brian Dishon
Chief of Staff & Prince of Pep
Brian is our chief of staff which basically means he’s a playground monitor with a whistle making sure that while we’re all playing games and goofing off, we do get a little work done as well around here. Hailing from up north where the land is flat and cold…aka, boring, he and his wife made their way down to Nashville in the 1900’s to pursue Christian radio. Brian worked in marketing in the Christian music industry for a long stint while also serving as a multi site director at a mega church for several years. While he may know next to nothing about the gear we sell, his teenage son is an avid musician and reminds him every day how much of a noob he is!
Frank Sandoval
Director of Operations & Safety Sergeant
Frank oversees all of our operations. From inventory tracking, to warehouse oversight and even the occasional Biliopancreatic Diversion. Originally from CA, Frank has a long history of leading tech divisions at major corporations. He spent several years in the marines and runs our ship with a dogged discipline that keeps us cowered and in line. His lunch hour is our favorite time of the day when we get to act like sugar crazed preschoolers until he comes back and scolds us. Thankfully Frank has us to boss around because as soon as he gets home, his beautiful wife and two boys have a “honey-do” list as long as his life. Did we mention that Frank is the oldest in the company? We certainly remind him of it everyday!
Sara Day
Director of Logistics & Company Mom
Sara keeps everything flowing that relates to human interaction. She keeps the rest of us from burning down the house…as any good mom would do. She has been supporting the dreams of her rapper (yes, rapper!) husband and 3 amazing kids for 25 years. Sara worked on a church staff overseeing communications of all ministries. She makes sure that all of our customers feel like they matter…because you do! When the rest of us start acting too immature, she is the adult in the room. On the rare occasion, she joins in with the nonsense, we are all in trouble.
Blake Hodges
Brand Director & Ninja Skill master
Blake oversees all of our branding, marketing, and content but has hidden ninja skills ready to burst on the scene at any sign of danger. He is married to a woman roughly 78 times out his league and raises an army of cats. Blake’s best friend since 5th grade is a worship pastor so he’s literally been raised to love and serve worship & tech staff. When he isn’t doing our branding, he is calculating the gas and time it’ll take to get across the country to church staff conferences, worship conferences, FILO, etc! We can’t get him on a plane!
Drew Hester
Director of Business Development & High and Tight
Drew hails from a long line of tobacco farmers in NC. Planning to go into the family trade, he accidentally chose Liberty University and quickly realized their tobacco major was a bit underfunded. Finding his calling in church production, he has a strong passion to help churches find the gear they need and save them money at the same time. He’s young, handsome and healthy and if that wasn’t enough, goes running every morning just to make absolute sure the rest of us feel like slackers! His amazing wife and three young kids are scheming to add at least 10 more children to the clan. Good luck, Drew! Maybe that’s what all the running is about.
Jared Nickless
Commercial Sales Director & Boy Band Bangs
Jared is our resident rock drummer and has the tattered jeans to prove it. Personally owning somewhere north of four million pieces of gear, we decided to put him in charge of selling ours! He leads all of our sales and pricing strategies as well as leading the sales team. Jared and his wife met in middle school youth group at their church in Southern CA. He turned those boy band bangs in her direction, gave her a nod and said in a squeaky teenage voice, “I play the drums”. They now have a young son and Jared is constantly tearing toys out of his hands and replacing them with drum sticks. When not pricing gear or playing drums, you’ll find him and his family on the beach in FL. You’ll never catch his legs though outside of those rock star jeans. Hope you wash them every now and then, bro!
Doug Hester
Director of Software Development & Super Secret Agent
Doug is our company hacker and does something all day with codes the rest of us don’t understand. A native of the Raleigh, NC area, he grew up on a tobacco farm but decided not to follow in the family business, choosing software development instead. Doug is married to an amazing woman and they have four children…one of whom works for ChurchGear as well! They are constantly competing for the title of “Greatest Hester” and every time his son is in the lead, someone hacks into the software and changes the results. Besides his family and tobacco, Doug loves church production and has served on his church’s tech team for nearly 20 years. In his spare time, he enjoys hacking Digico consoles. So, our conclusion is that tobacco farmer + computer hacker + code breaking skills = secret agent. We haven’t been able to prove it yet but we’re getting close!
Edwin Villa
Tech Director & Latin Lover
Edwin is ChurchGear’s version of a tech director. Ironically, he spent several years in the church world as a tech director so he was thankful not to have to change his title on his business card. Edwin grew up in Mexico City and married his wife who hails from Belarus. They have two little boys who will grow up speaking Spussianish (Spanish, Russian, and English). Edwin leads our tech department, overseeing all of the testing, certification and repair of the gear that enters through our doors. He and Frank secretly talk about the rest of us in Spanish but we’re learning to catch the key words like “tonto” and “cabeza de chorlito” to know when they’re talking about us. We suppose the most shocking fact about Edwin and his family is that they moved to join us from CA. This almost never happens!
Chris Rowell
Shipping Lead & Alaskan Wilderness Guide
Chris hails from the Alaskan wilderness…or at least a neighborhood in a suburb of a city that is within a short drive of some Alaska wilderness. He is a PK (pastor’s kid…uh oh) and was raised in the church with a passion for music. Chris is the oil that keeps the engine running in our warehouse. From testing, repairs, packing, and shipping gear to fixing everything that breaks around the shop. Not to mention, having to deal with the daily jokes about being a pastor’s kid!
Riley Rager
Listings and Inventory & Mustached Magician
Riley was hired at ChurchGear to meet our “mustache quota”. He wears it like a young Burt Reynolds and wows our clients with amazing mustache tricks! Riley hails from PA and has a love for music and the church. He plays drums and guitar and will rock your face off if the situation calls for it. Riley handles all sorts of testing gear, photos and travel at ChurchGear. And after many months of courtship and sweet tea on the porch, he has finally married his betrothed, Maddy.
Jonah Day
Photographer, Tech Team & Whale Sound Savant
Jonah comes from a long lineage of ChurchGear employees. He is one of at least two generations of “Day’s” to come aboard the company. Originally from Northern CA, he leads worship and uses guitar effects pedals to make whale sounds at many modern churches. Jonah does all things in our warehouse. From testing gear, packing and shipping and taking photographs to providing a strong competitor for the in-house “moustache-olympics”, he is an indispensable crux of our crew. Newly married to his beautiful wife, Steph, we are slowly but surely convincing them to start working on the third generation of Day’s to come aboard at ChurchGear.
Cobie Potesta
Lead Admin & Neuroscientician
Cobie is our lead admin and the glue that keeps the Tasmanian devil that ChurchGear is from spinning off into a million random pieces. Like half of our company, she is a refugee from CA. She’s married to a production wizard and while she doesn’t know the difference between an XLR and DMX, she can nod and smile with the best of them! Cobie also has a cute little baby boy and somehow balances it all beautifully. One of the most unique facts about her is that she has a degree in neuroscience and has done brain surgery on laboratory mice. We’re a little worried she may just be running secret experiments on the rest of us at ChurchGear but nothing has been proven yet. Although, there’s at least one of us around here that could use some neurological “updates”.
Nathan Knudsen
Video Tech/Content & Fountain of Youth
Nathan is our “young” hire at ChurchGear. We all looked at each other, realized how old we were and decided we needed someone who could connect with the youths. We were able to hire Nathan right out of elementary school and put him to work. Don’t tell the TN labor force! He hails from the Columbus, OH area and is working on his degree through Liberty University. He’s the smartest kid in our class so naturally he deep dives into all of our complicated video gear and also has a great talent at shooting and editing video as well as photography. He’s an accomplished musician, the tallest one in the company and has boyish good looks. Darn youths!!!
Ryan Montgomery
Customer Support, Shipping Team & Near Death Expert
Ryan comes to us from across the pond. The pond being Percy Priest Lake in Nashville. When he’s not creating custom packaging presentations, he’ll tell you wild tales of being on a fishing boat in Alaska and almost dying…twice! With a jawline that’s able to make any young girl swoon, he’s actually a nerd at heart. Whether it’s coaching youth football, serving on the production team at his church or playing video games, he’s the cliché of the lovable nerd in every 80’s romantic comedy that always ends up winning the pretty girl in the end!
A.J. Rucker
Sales & Shoe Mogul
A.J. works in our sales crew and travels to churches to pick up gear. With a smile like that, we try and get him in front of our customers and church partners any time we can. Highly recruited to play college football and basketball, he turned down most Div. I schools and a few NFL teams and made a commitment to play for ChurchGear instead. Hailing from Knoxville and a die hard Vols fan, you’ll find him at the UT stadium during the fall in full body paint with an orange wig. Also a worship leader at his church in Nashville he somehow finds time to balance life with a beautiful wife and new baby boy! And, being 6’3” makes him the new tallest ChurchGear team member which is great because we finally have someone who can reach the gear on the higher shelves!
Jordan Kurley
Fulfillment Shift Manager & Hair Metal Hero
Kurley is a shift manager in our shipping and fulfillment department, bringing a never quitting work ethic and smouldering good looks to boot! Originally from New Mexico, he spent a few years in Illinois developing his calling in ministry and music before making his way to Nashville to embarrass the rest of the musicians with his incredible guitar chops. He used those guitar skills to woo his beautiful wife, Emily, to him like a great snake charmer with a hypnotic spell. With one young son at home and another in the oven, we don’t know how he has the energy to keep out shipping dept. afloat!
Jackson Smith
Fulfillment Shift Manager & The OG ChurchGear Jackson
Jackson is a shift manager in our shipping and fulfillment department. If you notice that he has the same title as Kurley, that’s because we’ve pitted them against each other into a mortal kombat for greatest shipper on the planet. During their lunch breaks, they duel it out until one of them submits or Frank comes in to say, “No horseplay in the warehouse!” Jackson may have an innocent looking face but he is secretly a killer drummer, music production tech and NBA center. While he is also competing with the rest of the ChurchGear crew for the title of best “Jackson”, he’ll always at least be the first.
Reece Fisher
Content Manager & 80’s Exercise Celebrity
Reece is the result of ChurchGear’s attempt to build a time machine. When a flux capacitor showed up at our warehouse from a church in Indiana, we used it to go back to 1987 and grab the first person we could find. Reece now joins us in the present day to produce all of our content. He’s simultaneously working towards his degree at the Belonging Co. College and teaching Jazzercise on the weekends. Some of the random items he’s pulled out of his trunk on filming days are as follows. Multiple frisbees, a volleyball, a variety of headbands in different colors, 3” running shorts, Shrek t-shirts, 9 different pairs of sunglasses, and a 14 pound burrito.
