Meet The Team
Steve Freeman
Steve Freeman started his professional career in 1991 with Procter and Gamble after graduating from college. After three years with P&G he left to join Resource Marketing, one of the original Costco dedicated food brokerages. He started working with the Costco Canada regions and quickly built these up and eventually handed this responsibility over to a dedicated team. Steve then started working with several of the the Costco U.S. regions which included working on Costco Corporate (Kirkland Signature) items and initiatives. In 2003 he became a partner in Resource Marketing and was responsible for the day-to-day operations, sales, and new business development.
Over his 27-year career Steve has traveled the world with the buyers in search of new items and suppliers for Costco. His main areas of focus have been with Depts. 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, and 19 and at some point, has worked with all regions of Costco and Corporate. Resource Marketing was acquired in 2014 by Advantage Solutions and in his last role Steve was overseeing the Costco business and teams which included client sales, operations, and the integration of recent acquisitions.
Erin Pavelko
The newest member of the Next Step Club Solutions team, Erin has almost 20 years of experience working with Costco. She started her career working in the Costco MX buying office and then moved into the food brokerage side of the business where she spent several years managing business for clients in the Costco S. Cal and MX regions. Erin has a great understanding of food trends and has developed a variety of new items for the manufacturers selling to Costco.
Erin is based in San Diego focusing on item/product development and overseeing the Costco business in the west coast & TX regional divisions of Costco.
Sandy Clyman
Sandy has over 30 years of working in the Food industry with National and Independent Retailers, Food Service, Convenience, Natural Foods and since 1998 has focused his efforts on Costco working with suppliers across multiple departments working with Steve and his former company.
Sandy joined Next Steps in October of 2019 and as he put it “Joining Next Step Club Solutions, I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to return to my roots and to work alongside my longtime friends and colleagues”. Sandy and Steve have worked together for over 20 years and have collaborated to create many successful items and long-time partnerships with Costco and its suppliers.
Sandy is based on the east coast in Raleigh, NC and continues to work and focus on the SE, NE and MW regional divisions of Costco.
Nancy Adell
Nancy Adell has worked with Costco for over 30 years and most of those years were working closely with Steve Freeman and Sandy Clyman at their former company, Resource Marketing. She worked alongside Tim Salios and Erin Pavelko after Resource Marketing was acquired by Advantage Solutions and has enjoyed working with the team at Next Step Club Solutions since September 2019.
Nancy has an invaluable understanding of how Costco operates and their relationship with vendors. Over her career she has worked with all regions of Costco, including international and corporate and strives to achieve superior customer service to our partners and Costco.
Nancy is based in Washington State about an hour north of the Costco Corporate buying offices.
Tim Salios
Tim Salios has dedicated over 15 years working with Costco on the food side and hardlines side of the business. Before joining Next Step Club Solutions, Tim worked for Advantage Solutions, for over 30 plus years and where he got to know Steve Freeman. Tim had the opportunity to work side by side with Steve previously and is excited to be a part of the new company, Next Step Club Solutions.
Tim has a clear understanding of how Costco functions and has had the opportunity to work with Costco both nationally and regionally. He has worked with several key CPG vendors during his tenure and has enjoyed many successes with Costco. As a result, like the rest of the Next Step team, Tim has built great relationships with the buyers and management at Costco.
Tim is based in Rancho Mirage, California and works with our partners in the Costco west coast regions as well as Costco Corporate for hardlines.
