In the unbearably hot, middle-of-nowhere town of Fernley, Nevada, PHE’s Chad Jenny and Nevada Adam & Eve proprietor Greg Peters wander up and down seemingly endless bumper-to-bumper traffic. It’s the pair’s first (and eventually final) attempt at unloading a whole trailer’s worth of sex toys, lingerie and costumes on Burning Man attendees stuck in the event’s infamous entrance queue. Luckily for Jenny, he’s not the one with a dildo the size of a Dachshund tied to his back.
“Life on the road can be awesome and is fodder for many great stories,” recalls Jenny. “The last couple years we have had the 55-pound dildo, Moby, in our show booths. That guy has seen some action. It has been licked by more people than you can imagine.”
Adam & Eve keeps growing, and I am very excited for the new programs coming online and to see just how big we can grow.
A handful of years back, Jenny assisted Peters, who operates two Adam & Eve franchises in the Reno area, in posting up a retail pop-up shop of sorts in the tiny desert town of Fernley, a routine stop for Burning Man devotees on their way in to the yearly gathering. Believe it or not, their sex toy trailer probably wasn’t the most controversial booth among the other kooky, artsy vendors, though no one’s sales scheme could boast an attraction like Jenny and Peters.
“The best use [of Moby] was when we had him at Burning Man and used truck straps to belt him to Greg Peters, our Reno operator, and he and I go walking up the miles of RVs and cars showing off Moby and passing out condoms and koozies, Burning Man essentials,” he laughs. “It was a great conversation-starter to say the least.”
Chad Jenny handles wholesale channels and buying at PHE, where his position as national business consultant takes him from the unforgiving desert environment of Burning Man to brick-and-mortar Adam & Eve stores across the country. Jenny landed at the company after a rather frank Google search led him away from a frustrating career in health care.
“I was working in healthcare and knew that I wasn’t helping people,” says Jenny. “I worked for a company that did not care about their patients, let alone their disregard for employees. It was all a numbers game. Fed up, I actually Googled ‘companies that treat their employees well’ as almost a joke, but PHE Inc. was the first return.”
After graduating with a degree in communications from East Carolina University, Jenny bounced between jobs at a law firm, a family apparel and manufacturing business, and a beer distributor. He oversaw marketing and patient acquisition operations for a small group of nursing and rehabilitation centers before landing in the adult toy space, which had a few surprises in store for this former mainstream business manager.
Jenny worked hard to get his foot in the door at PHE once he had made the decision to leave healthcare. He finally landed an interview after making the resume rounds with every staff member email he could find.
“I investigated what PHE was and found out it was Adam & Eve, so obviously I was hooked,” he recalls. “I started sending my resume to every job and every person I could at A&E till someone called me for an interview. And the rest is history.”
Two experiences stand out for Jenny of his initial years in the industry.
“First, I thought I was progressive and knew what there was to know about sex toys and porn. Oh, was I wrong. Those first couple of years really broaden your horizons, point of view, and expose you to a much wider and wonderful world,” he recounts. “And second, how many friends I would make. I have truly met the best people over my career and count many as family now. I get to work with my best friends and I love it.”
Jenny started at PHE as a sales and product manager for the company’s bonus offer program.
“Basically I ran the upsell program for all our phone agents,” he explains. “I had to learn the products and associate like items for our sales program so our operators could sell products that made sense together and would enhance a sexual experience.”
Three years later, he transferred into the retail division to assist store operators as regional business consultant, focusing on product and sales training, store compliance and store events.
Now Jenny holds the reins as national business consultant, which has this busybody working on global marketing and operational projects. Within the last few years, Jenny also accepted a role as buyer for PHE’s wholesale channel, where he eventually took over the majority of the business’s wholesale operations.
“It’s never the same day twice,” he says. “I get to work on many varied projects so I have the luxury of never having a boring day. I arrive to work and immediately go to the day’s emails, provided the phone isn’t already ringing on the drive in. Then it could be following up with a store, a conference call with a manufacturer, working on the wholesale site, planning the next event, working out a marketing campaign, lunch, always lunch, and sometimes going down to the warehouse to pack boxes or pallet up the booth for the next show. The average day is a kaleidoscope of action. Never the same, but always epic.”
Looking back on the familiar faces that helped build his career, Jenny points to a few standout mentors, namely Creative Conceptions’ Richie Bowles, Scott Watkins of Doc Johnson, Rebecca Weinberg of XR Brands, Ruben Dietz and Oscar Heijnen of Shots, and Lynda Mort of ECN.
But it was Pipedream’s most famous pair of troublemakers that really bring back warm memories (and probably a few trade show stories Jenny would rather keep a secret).
“Steve Sav and Rob Phaneuf of Pipedream were the first guys to throw their arms around me and give me some legitimacy in this industry, and I will never forget that,” recalls Jenny.
With a job that regularly includes toting around a 55-pound dildo, it’s hard (pun intended) to imagine how Jenny’s career could get any better with each passing year. But according to him, there’s always a new milestone on the horizon to keep things interesting well into middle age.
“Adam & Eve keeps growing, and I am very excited for the new programs coming online and to see just how big we can grow,” he concludes. “I turned 40 this year, so I guess I am entering a new phase in life. It feels good, feels like growth.”
