NEW YORK (August 8, 2001) - Preston Bealle, former Chief Executive Officer of Babygear.com, has been named CEO of GORP.com, the leading consumer Internet site focused on outdoor recreation and adventure travel. Bealle's appointment by GORP's Board of Directors is another step in the company's focus on revenue expansion.

"Preston has the perfect skills to take GORP to its 'next generation'," said Bob Dorf, GORP's Chairman of the Board and General Partner of Marketing 1 to 1 Ventures. "Over the past six years, GORP has built solid brand recognition with a strong customer base. Now, GORP will be in a position to accelerate its growth rate to provide even more customer services targeted to adventure travelers."

An active traveler himself, Bealle brings a rich background in advertising, business management, negotiation, as well as e-commerce merchandising and marketing to GORP.com. Before his Internet career, Bealle had spent 13 years in large advertising agencies on Madison Avenue where he managed accounts such as Hewlett Packard, General Mills and Sara Lee. After leaving agency life in order to launch and then sell a wholesale food distribution business, Bealle returned to Madison Avenue as director of online advertising at Poppe Tyson.

Bealle made the jump from Internet advertising to Internet commerce and brought that marketing experience to bear in his next role as CEO at Jumbo.com. Bealle later sold that company to @NewYork's parent company, internet.com. In 1998, he became president and CEO of Babygear.com, an online e-commerce site selling baby products.

GORP.com (http://www.gorp.com) is the largest and most trafficked Web site dedicated to outdoor recreation and adventure travel. With nearly 250,000 pages of content, GORP offers a complete package of authoritative, award-winning stories; a large, active community of outdoor enthusiasts; and a full-range of e-commerce offerings drawing nearly 30 million page views per month. Started in 1995, GORP offers a full-service active travel-booking feature with thousands of trips, accessible via the Web or telephone. AOL Keyword: GORP.

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