About

BIO

Darren Choate was born in a small town in northwest Colorado. His family moved several times during his early years, including stints in Colorado, Utah, and ultimately, Arizona. In the late 70s, his family moved to Round Valley, Arizona, a small community in the White Mountains. His formative years, fifth grade through high school graduation were spent in the rural community, surrounded by thousands of square miles of forest and wilderness, providing the stage for him to become an ethical sportsman, conservationist, and outdoorsman. Choate has called Arizona home for over 45 years.

After graduating high school, Choate served a four-year tour as an airman in the US Air Force, stationed at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska. While living in Alaska, his enjoyment of the outdoors expanded to include overnight trips into the remote reaches of the Last Frontier. After an honorable discharge, Choate returned to Arizona to attend Northern Arizona University, earning a Bachelors of Science and a Masters of Education. Most of his professional career was spent as a service professional at Northern Arizona University. 

Later in life, Choate turned his passion for freelance writing and photography into a new career path. In 2011, he founded a digital magazine, Western Whitetail. Eventually, he took a position with Grandview Outdoors, where he performed the editor-in-chief role for consumer titles, Whitetail Journal, Bowhunting World, and Predator Xtreme, and B2B titles Hunting Retailer and Archery Business. Currently, Choate is the Digital Editorial Director for Outdoor Sportsman Group. He is a voting member and proud supporter of the Professional Outdoor Media Association (POMA). Additionally, he advocates and supports several sportsmen’s organizations.

Choate has a passion for hunting and enjoys writing about his experiences. His articles have been featured online and in magazines for brands including Petersen’s Hunting, North American Whitetail, Bowhunting World, Whitetail Journal, Predator Xtreme, Western Hunter, Quality Whitetails, Cabela’s Outfitter Journal, Fur-Fish-Game, and Game & Fish.

Choate and his wife of 35+ years have two grown sons and several fur babies. The happily married couple resides in Arizona.

Entrepreneur, Educator, Editor, Writer, & Photographer

A motivated, goal-oriented professional with 26+ years of experience creating teams to develop, write, edit, and manage content for software, educational, digital, multi-media, inter-media, and print products.

• Proudly served our country as an Airman in the USAF.
• Developed a life-cycle production model to produce high-quality content efficiently for multi-platform dissemination.
• Co-patented an educational delivery model to assess knowledge used primarily in healthcare software publications.
• Directed a multi-disciplinary training and testing program at a state university.
• Performed Editor-In-Chief role for five print titles in both B2B and consumer markets.
• Designed the original editorial content package for the B2B publication, Hunting Retailer.
• Programmed a WordPress-driven sales tracking application.
• Founded DRCMedia, with services including web development, business operations, and digital content creation.
• Founded Western Whitetail, comprising a digital magazine, blog Vlog, social media channels, and apparel sales.
• Co-founded Toy Storage Nation, a media brand advocating for the Recreational Vehicle storage industry.
• Direct and oversee the editorial content of the Hunt, Shoot, and Fish verticals for all Outdoor Sportsman Group brands.

CORE COMPETENCIES

#Editing #Writing #Photography #ContentManagement #WebDevelopment #SoftwareDevelopment #Multimedia #BrandDevelopment #LifeCycleProduction #BusinessPlanning #BusinessStrategy #SocialMediaMarketing #InstructionalDesign #EmailMarketing #DigitalContent #SEO #SEM #HTML #AdobeCreativeSuite #MicrosoftOffice #WordPress #Mailchimp #WooCommerce #QuickBooks #TeamFostering #DiverseTeams

VOTING MEMBER