Ian Weiss is director of sales at Sales & Marketing Professionals. He’s known throughout the pet industry as being a strong sales professional. Prior to being with Sales & Marketing Professionals, he’s been a part of Central Garden and Pet, Dogswell, Arlee Home Fashions and Better Choice Company.
However, there’s more to Weiss than his sales and marketing experience and Bachelors of Science degree with a focus in Animal Sciences from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Pet Age recently connected with Weiss to learn about the man outside of the pet industry.
How did SCUBA diving become an obsession for you?
I went to Thailand back in 2008 and got certified. My initial experiences underwater were out of a movie. The colors and the topography under water was otherworldly. I was instantly hooked. I didn’t really realize at the time how much it would impact my life. I took a 6-month “mini retirement” to backpack through Southeast Asia and Australia in 2014. I dove everywhere I went and honed my abilities and deepened my obsession with the hobby.
I now am part of an international dive group where I am the only person from the U.S., and we travel to every bucket list location to do the most meaningful dives. I’ve been to Mexico (Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, the Soccoro Islands and Baja California), Indonesia (Raja Ampat and Tulamben), Egypt (Red Sea), Maldives, Vietnam, Australia, Borneo and many other places. This year, I go to Fiji and Tonga and I’ve already booked Galapagos and Cocos Island Costa Rica for 2027.
What’s your best story from your bartending days in New York City?
There are so many stories to tell. I started as a bouncer in 2005 which really was just theater of the mind because I’m not a fighter. I worked with career security guys from the biggest clubs in NYC and they taught me more about street smarts and common sense when it comes to dealing with people than I could have ever learned anywhere else. This evolved into me becoming a bartender at some very high paced and fun bars around the city.
As my mixological skills grew, I needed a hook to keep regulars coming back so I learned all sorts of tricks that kept the crowd interested. One night, one of the women I worked with taught me how to spit fire and she and I would stand at opposite ends of the bar and spitting fire balls at each other. The crowd would go nuts. It would get really loud, and we would make a lot of money.
What’s your travel horror story?
I was on my way to Indonesia for a dive trip. My flight had a layover in Frankfurt Germany to refuel. I took the opportunity to go to the lounge during the layover but when I got to the front door, my passport was not in my pocket where I had left it. I’d had it when I got on the plane in New York City but, after sleeping on the overnight flight, the passport was not on my person. I asked the gate agents to please look for it on the plane as I know I had it when I boarded and I assumed it fell between the cushions as I slept. They told me that the plane had been cleaned and nothing had been found.
Here I was in Germany with another 48 hours of onward flights to Indonesia and a boat filled with friends waiting for me and no passport. With the worst case scenario building in my head, I started sweating, my heart started to race and I felt my face turn white. I begged one last gate agent to PLEASE go back on the plane and look between the cushions of seat 13A (I’ll never forget the seat number). It had to be there. After another 10 minutes of sheer panic on my part, he emerged from the plane with my passport in his hand. It was a lesson well learned.
If you could go anywhere with one person, where would it be and who’d be your travel companion?
Those that know me well know my penchant for food. I truly believe that you learn about a country and its culture through food. The more people you have in a group, the more things you can try and more of a shared experience happens for all. There are so many interesting people to break bread with and so many amazing places to go in this world to go to so it’s almost impossible to narrow it down.
I’ve always said that if I were to win the lottery, I would want to travel with Andrew Zimmern and/or Anthony Bourdain and experience all of the flavors and smells that they have spoken of on each of their tv shows and in their books. When Anthony Bourdain at Bun Cha in Vietnam with Barak Obama, I got butterflies in my stomach. Not because a U.S. President was eating in Vietnam with a celebrity chef from my hometown but because, I know what it feels like to eat those noodles sitting at a plastic table on a plastic stool. The feeling of immersing oneself in another culture and eating whatever is put in front of you regardless if you know what it is or not thrills me to my very core. Who else is hungry?
How would you describe your favorite way to unwind?
Most people get very stressed from traveling. It is 100 percent the opposite for me. If I get stressed or am on a long trip and feel homesick, going to an airport and getting on a plane always soothes my nerves. Maybe it’s because it means I’m heading out for an adventure or home from a long period of time away but in some sick way, all my stress disappears when I enter an airport.
I’m very fortunate that my career includes the amount of travel that it does and that it allows me to travel on my own. It doesn’t matter if I’m traveling alone or with others. The acts of getting from point A to point B or C keep me energized. This level of relaxation makes it very easy to meet people as I move around. Some join me or become part of my life in some way and some simply fade into the rest of humanity but each person I meet adds something no matter how small to my life and that is a gift.
