Meet Ben Rosario | Executive Director – HOKA NAZ Elite

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ben Rosario and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ben, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I’ve come to enjoy taking risks when it comes to business. At 26 years old, I started a small business with a close friend of mine– a running retail store in Saint Louis, Missouri, with money we had scraped together from friends and family. By the time we opened our doors we had less than $10,000 in the bank. We were desperate to succeed. And that desperation turned out to be a great motivator. We paid back all those personal loans, with interest, in two years, and over the course of the six years I co-owned the stores we were never late on a payment to any of our vendors. That experience taught me to embrace risk, and use it to my advantage. When my wife and I launched Northern Arizona Elite in 2014 we spent quite a bit of our own money that first year, and that drove us to make it work. That was our hard-earned money and we didn’t want it to go to waste.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
HOKA NAZ Elite is a professional distance running team. We launched in 2014 and operate as a 501(c)(3) and work with 18 professional athletes, helping them reach their athletic goals and dreams. But we focus on more than just performance. Our mission is to entertain, inspire, motivate, and bring joy to runners and non-runners alike. And that mission is what has set us apart from our competitors. From day one we have shared our journey with running fans all over the globe. Through social media, videos, blog posts, and a weekly newsletter we’ve been able to build an enormous fan base, which in turn makes us more valuable to our corporate sponsors. Of course, it wasn’t easy. Starting a team like this is a huge challenge. Most of our competitors start with the backing of a major shoe company and go from there. We started on our own and pitched our concept to the shoe companies. Fortunately, HOKA believed in what we were doing and came on board as our title sponsor in 2015. Since that time, our athletes have produced more than 80 wins, 15 national titles, 11 World Marathon Major Top Tens, six international medals, and one U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon victory. Along the way, I’ve learned that managing so many high level athletes is as much about building relationships than it is about the nuts and bolts of training. I’ve also learned that winning is the easy part, it’s how you deal with losses and failures that determine whether or not your team will last. And if there’s anything to learn from that for the general population, it’s that sports, like any kind of business, isn’t linear. You have to take your lumps, analyze what went wrong, and be better the next time.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Flagstaff, Arizona is a must-visit spot. If you come here for a week you could run, hike, or bike any of the hundreds of miles of trails we have at the base of the San Francisco Peaks. You could hang out in our cozy little downtown and enjoy a burger and a beer at any number of local restaurants or brew pubs. You could take a day trip to one of the seven natural wonders of the world–the Grand Canyon. It’s only 90 minutes from town and it will take your breath away. Same goes for the gorgeous red rocks of Sedona, a city that’s just an hour south of Flag. And I have to bring it back to running one more time. If you’re into the sport, there is no better place than Flagstaff. If you’re here for a week you might see a dozens of pro runners including members of our team like Olympian Aliphine Tuliamuk or NCAA Champions Olin Hacker and Wesley Kiptoo. You might also see other Olympians that live here like Abdi Abdirahman or Molly Siedel. And of course, you could stop by Northern Arizona University, home of the six-time NCAA Cross Country champion Lumberjacks.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My entire career has been in the running industry so I have to thank the person who introduced me to the sport, my middle school coach, Bob Bante. Without Bob, who knows? My life might have been totally different.

Website: www.nazelite.com

Instagram: naz_elite

Linkedin: Ben Rosario

Twitter: naz_elite

Youtube: naz_elite

Image Credits
Aliphine Tuliamuk winning the Olympic Trials and Aliphine, Steph Bruce, and Kellyn Taylor embracing after the Olympic Trials – credit to Dan McCauley, Atlanta Track Club.