In the summer of 2009 in Pensacola, Florida, John Murray was working as a research nurse when a triathlon training partner, Andrew Rothfeder, rehashed a 2-year-old conversation where he spoke of a triathlon strength training program at a local high-end gym that was geared to professional athletes. John had recently changed jobs and now was working on the same campus as the high-end gym. In this second conversation, Andrew mentioned an idea about triathlon coaching and asked if John knew of another person that he would like to bring in to hear about this idea. Mark Sortino, who lived in Pensacola as well and had ridden with John a few times, was the first name that came to John’s mind.

Mark and John sat in Andrew’s office for a conference call with a couple of business guys from Colorado who pitched their idea. It was originally framed as starting a USAT Certified Performance Center in the Pensacola, FL area. This sounded like something that John and Mark could wrap their brains around and pull off. There were several more calls, and those Colorado business guys  (Alan Ley, Joe Turcotte and Roger Heroux) flew in for a face-to-face with the facility. After the meeting (Mark and John did not attend) the guys were very enthusiastic about moving forward. At that point, Mark and John were unsure about what their exact roles would be, and at some point, they asked for clarification, ”So, are we just going to be salaried coaches for you?”

They chuckled, “No, we are just coming up with the idea, it’s up to you to make the whole thing work!”

That’s when the true inception of the company began.  

Mark and John signed up for USAT Level 1 Coaching Certification to be held in January of 2010 in Colorado Springs. After completing the multi-day certification class, Roger and his wife Peggy got the entire team over to their house just up the road where the group had dinner and an official meeting with the sole purpose of coming up with a name for the company. Eventually, the group chose Multisport Performance Institute!