Who is Mark Korte and what does he have to do with rollerblading?

I can basically answer that by saying… I am the USD Enforcer, one of the founders of the Stretch Crew, and a Powerslide veteran… since a lot of kids might not know what in the hell that means, I will break it down. I came to be part of USD in the late part of ’98, when the team was Arlo, Champ, Dustin, Jon, and Josh… at the time I was only hired by Powerslide to push papers, but that changed after a week or so. To make a long story short, I had found my calling. I got to know all of the USD team (which was going through a transition period, much like we are now) and I ended up being the filter between the company and the team; I might even go as far as to say the glue, and at the same time I was the International Sales Manager at Powerslide. So I was able to combine all of that into helping make USD (and The Conference Brands that followed) the hottest thing available. During this period, of which I am very proud to be a part of, we had the undisputed best team in Rolling, I built a worldwide flow team to rival all others at the time, and worked with distributors in over 40 countries building USD. I was very adament about everything having structure, and working with the best team of rollers in the world has moulded my personality to this day, and I am grateful to each and every one who ever rolled for USD.

What are some of your past associations and contributions to blading?

I almost had to laugh, because I once read in Arlos Fanzine “Rolling” and I quote: “I am not sure what he actually does at USD, but I think he is responsible for the ‘Original Ass Huggaz’ jeans” – that always made me laugh hard. First, because actually that is true, I came up with that name, just like so many others like “Tommorows Visions, Todays Reality,” Universal Skate Design (which changed from Upside Down), Stretch Crew, and a lot of other names and slogans, even for Powerslide, like the now outdated “We keep the world rolling,” and being an American that speaks fluent German, I had of course an advantage, and a sort of a knack for coming up with stuff. And secondly, because, like so many poeple who work for Powerslide now, you never really know who does what, when, so I can understand the confusion. Currently, I am in charge of the USA Market for all Powerslide products and Team mattters. My heart however, beats “aggressive” and I am well known in the industry and have a relationship with pretty much all of the players. That being said, I intend on making USD a market leader in the US, and I look forward to the challenge.

Where have you been? What have you been doing the last couple years?

Well I left Powerslide in ’05, this was simply because I was burned out. I don’t want to get into it, but I was not entirely happy with the direction it was going at the time and I had some other offers, so I realized that I needed another challenge, and something that would solidify my credentials. Being a Sales Manager, I wanted to grow as a manager, and joining a new golf company was interesting for me. Since I knew my abilities lay in brand building, I decied to give it a shot, so I went to the golf industry, and that is where I have been the whole time. I successfully built a company from the ground up. Little did I know that the people I worked for were less than honorable. Nonetheless, it was a very profitable and eye-opening time. I got to play loads of golf (which I enjoy to this day very much) and I was able to further develop my sales and brand building skills. But, it was not Rolling. I had constantly been in contact with Matthias through the years (the USD Creator, and Big Boss of Powerslide), and we have always had a pretty good relationship. We talked about me coming back and here I am. And I could not be happier to be back on the Powerslide team and doing my part to take us into the future.