Cole shares his 35-year journey from car enthusiast to magazine editor to automotive marketing business owner. Starting with dirt bikes in the New Mexico desert, he became editorial assistant at Hot Rod Magazine in 1990 before launching 4×4 Power—where he built an entry-level off-road publication alongside Trent McGee and Tori Tellem. After twelve years at Peterson Publishing, he transitioned to Chrysler, where he worked in PR for engineering and traveled globally with executives. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Cole started CQ Marketing and now serves clients including Flexlite and Dynatrac, while launching passion projects like Pavement Pounder Events.
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Cole emphasizes the importance of staying curious and adaptable. Career paths have dissolved—no single company will define your future. Take opportunities, fail forward, and find work that excites you daily. He credits his success to surrounding himself with passionate people and collaborating with industry leaders who cared deeply about quality and customer experience.
Don’t obsess over finding the perfect path. Get your degree, stay open-minded, and pursue what energizes you. Beware of working in your hobby—passion can turn to drudgery as a 9-to-5. Find the balance between funding your lifestyle and doing work that matters to you.
Cole is exploring adventure tours through Pavement Pounder Events, blending his hot-rod expertise with touring experiences. Maybe he should collaborate with Big Rich on an off-road tour concept combining both their industry backgrounds and storytelling skills?
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:10.100] – Big Rich Klein
My guest this week went from a car guy to a photography student to an employee at Hot Rod magazine, on to Four Wheel and Off-Road magazine, then was put in charge of 4×4 Power, where he hired guys like Trent McGee Tori Tullum, John Cappa, started events like Power Tour and Ultimate Adventure, and after 12 years at Peterson, left to work in Detroit and now has his own marketing company. My guest is Cole Quinnell. Hello, Cole Quinnell. It’s so good to have you on the podcast. As far as I know, we’ve never met, but I’m really looking forward to this to get to know you. I’ve done a lot of the ex and old media magazine print guys, and so I’m really looking forward to finding out your history.
[00:02:07.340] – Cole Quinnell
Oh, thanks, Rich. Thanks for asking me on this. And, and you know, it’s ironic, we have been in the same circles for decades, so I’m sure we’ve stood next to each other at multiple events and not even known it.
[00:02:17.290] – Big Rich Klein
Probably, probably so, whether it’s SEMA or Easter Jeep Safari or God knows where. Yep. Yep. So let’s get right into it. And I’m going to ask the first question I ask almost everybody, and that’s where were you born and raised?
[00:02:34.250] – Cole Quinnell
Well, born is easy. I was born in Reno, Nevada. Raised. Raised is a little different because I actually never lived in Reno. I was just born there. And my parents lived in a small nearby town. And, uh, almost immediately moved to, uh, Oregon, Hermiston, Oregon. And I lived there until I was 5 or 6, and then they moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Oh wow. Um, and I lived there until I finished college and then moved to Los Angeles, and then eventually on to Southeast Michigan. Most people call Detroit, but You know, it’s like calling Northridge Los Angeles.
[00:03:19.390] – Big Rich Klein
It’s the same but different. Right. And let’s get into why your parents moved from outside of Reno. What was the small community?
[00:03:30.560] – Cole Quinnell
It was called Fallon, Nevada.
[00:03:32.690] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. Anybody in the Pacific Northwest or California, Nevada? Will know Fallon. Yep, yep.
[00:03:42.910] – Cole Quinnell
And my parents were both, um, they both grew up from with farming families. Um, my mom was from Montana and, uh, her parents owned, um, a dairy farm. And my dad lived in North Dakota and they owned a traditional, uh, farm, okay, with about about 500 acres and, and grew all sorts of things. Um, and both of them became school teachers and met in college and, uh, moved to Nevada. And, um, the move to Hermiston was for better jobs. Uh, I had— I still have allergies and asthma, and at that time, this was the 19— 70s, um, you know, the doctors after a while were like, well, you know, the kid’s allergic to everything that grows. You need to move to a part of the country where nothing grows. And, um, you know, particularly pollens, right? Okay. So, um, my dad got a job at White Sands Missile Range in, uh, in southern New Mexico and moved to the desert. You know, the only thing that grows there is cactus. So, right, it’s the perfect place for a kid with allergies. READ MORE
