Rob Gaedtke arrived in Reno with two stories. In the version his mother understood, he had come from Stockton to study journalism at the University of Nevada. In his own telling, Lake Tahoe was nearby and the snow deserved investigation. Both stories worked out. He graduated in 2005, built his career in Reno's agency community, and never lost the instinct to follow whatever looked difficult, useful or fun.
That instinct has taken him from a photographer's assistant job to the top of KPS3, a full-service marketing agency founded in Reno in 1991. It has also taken him through Ironman Cozumel, across India in a motorized rickshaw, up El Capitan and onto the review pages of GearLab, where he has written about more camping tents than most executives have slept in.
His biography can sound like someone emptied a very busy drawer onto the floor. The order becomes clearer when you notice the recurring move: Gaedtke likes to learn how the adjacent thing works. Production led to design. Design led to project management and accounts. Accounts led to strategy, tourism and digital work. By the time he reached the chief executive's chair, he had already learned why nearly everyone else at the table was fidgeting.
The useful education of moving sideways
Gaedtke's first agency stint at KPS3 began on the creative side, in production and design. He became an art director, then left in 2007 for Twelve Horses, which later became One to One Interactive. The departure gave him something a tidy promotion ladder could not: a view from the other side of creative work. He managed projects and accounts, then led travel and tourism business.
The invitation arrived with a scene he still remembers. At a conference, Gaedtke raised his hand to ask a question. Martin Gastanaga approached afterward and offered him a project management job. Gaedtke accepted on the spot. During his first snowy week, Gastanaga tied a rope to the back of Gaedtke's car and they skied around the parking lot before returning to work. It was serious work with permission to enjoy the day, an arrangement Gaedtke would later try to preserve as a leader.
He returned to KPS3 in 2010 as an owner and vice president of creative services. Founder Stephanie Kruse wanted the agency to become credible in digital, not merely decorate itself with the word. Gaedtke had acquired the right mixture of creative and operational experience for the assignment. In less than three years, he said, digital work rose from under 5 percent of revenue to nearly 75 percent. He became president and CEO in 2015.
A CEO who hands over the numbers
Gaedtke's preferred management vocabulary is direct: confidence, candor, fundamentals, agility and trust. The words risk becoming lobby art unless a leader attaches behavior to them. His behavior starts with access. KPS3 says he meets new employees during their first week and personally walks them through the culture and company financials. Transparency arrives before the newcomer has learned where the good pens are kept.
He sits in the office bullpen, keeps a hand in client strategy and will manage a project when the team is stretched. This does not mean a CEO should become everybody's emergency substitute. For Gaedtke, moving among parts of the work keeps his knowledge alive. He has spent stretches buried in financial dashboards, then shifted toward writing or delivery. His phrase is compact: “movement is sticky.” The more he moves, the more he wants to keep moving.
“People get you through it, not numbers and spreadsheets.”Rob Gaedtke
There is a productive tension in that line. He likes measurement enough to define KPS3's purpose around changing how marketing is measured. He has worked deep in the dashboards. Yet he argues that figures do not carry an organization through a hard moment. People do. The spreadsheet can describe the trouble; it cannot make a colleague trust the person reading it aloud.
His advice for difficult news borrows its delivery from a glass of bourbon: straight up. Speed matters. Say what happened, show the plan and do not make the room decode a fog of executive language. Gaedtke admits to overthinking, which makes the preference for clarity less of a natural gift than a practiced correction.
One bad email, one durable ritual
Early in his career, Gaedtke sent the CEO of a major client an email containing a word that should not have been there. He expected dismissal. Instead, the mistake survived as a procedure. When replying to an important message, he deletes the recipient's address, writes the response, and adds the address again only when the note is ready. He shares the story with others.
Experience is often measured in years. The email episode offers a better unit: the number of mistakes converted into useful defaults. Embarrassment fades; a good checklist remains. Gaedtke's professional range works in much the same way. Learning accounts did not cancel his design experience. It gave that experience another set of guardrails.
The tent-reviewing executive
Then there are the tents. Gaedtke is a review editor for GearLab, with at least 26 published reviews and guides. His subjects include family camping shelters with vestibules, tall ceilings and the occasional footprint large enough to cause domestic negotiations at the campsite. This is not an honorary byline. The reviews evaluate equipment through use, which fits his preference for understanding a system by getting inside it.
He describes himself as a recovering hobby junkie. The evidence supports the noun more than the recovery. Rock climbing, rafting, backpacking, road cycling and building things sit alongside his Ironman finish and travel exploits. KPS3's profile notes a 14-mile family backpacking trip in brutal cold that he recalls fondly. Some people forgive an ordeal with time. Gaedtke appears to count the ordeal as a feature.
Even the outdoor life loops back to work. Endurance rewards preparation without promising comfort. Climbing requires commitment paired with adjustment. A tent review punishes vague claims the minute the rain begins. These are not mystical leadership metaphors; they are ordinary forms of feedback. A plan either holds or it leaks.
Reno, returned with interest
Gaedtke's ambitions have remained attached to place. He graduated from Nevada's Reynolds School of Journalism, later served on its dean's advisory board, and became chair of its alumni chapter. In 2025, the Nevada Alumni Association recognized him for Exceptional Achievement while giving KPS3 its Silver & Blue Appreciation award. The student who arrived with one eye on the ski lifts eventually helped organize the alumni.
His civic work extends beyond the campus. Gaedtke joined The Children's Cabinet board in 2014, served as its chair and remains a trustee. The Reno nonprofit works to keep children safe and families together. In 2021, his KPS3 team built a new site designed to help families find its programs more easily. It is a neat example of his preferred overlap: professional skill applied to a local institution, with fewer speeches about synergy and an actual website at the end.
The recognitions have accumulated: Twenty Under 40 in 2011, AAF Reno's Ad Person of the Year in 2017, Leadership Reno-Sparks Distinguished Alumni in 2019 and a Vistage Leadership Award in 2022. The Vistage citation credited him with more than doubling KPS3's revenue after becoming CEO, broadening services and reach, and supporting the development of new leaders.
Stubborn goals, flexible methods
KPS3 describes Gaedtke as stubborn about goals and flexible about methods. It may be the cleanest line in his profile. He wanted to run an agency after college, but the agency was not 3Point and the route was not direct. He wanted KPS3 to build digital strength, but first left KPS3 to learn what lived beyond the creative department. He wants measurement to improve, while insisting that people matter more than the sheet of figures.
The through line is not restless ambition for its own sake. It is range in service of judgment. Gaedtke learned the work from enough angles to translate between them. He can respect the beauty of the idea, the anxiety of the account lead, the limits of the budget and the practical question asked by the person who must build the thing by Friday.
That may also explain the ping-pong reputation, the Office references in presentations and the insistence on fun. A workplace can ask people to care deeply without requiring them to behave solemnly. Seriousness belongs to the promise. Play belongs to the people keeping it.
“Movement is sticky.”Rob Gaedtke
Gaedtke's own movement continues: between the spreadsheet and the campsite, the client huddle and the alumni board, the head seat and the bullpen. His career makes a quiet argument for detours. Learn the neighboring craft. Ask the conference question. Take the role that changes your view. Then, when the larger responsibility arrives, show the team the numbers and tell them what they mean.