NECTC Board of Directors

Rori Alter was introduced to the world of Triathlon in 2005 through the first friend she made at Boston University. It wasn’t until 2007 that she took on her first Sprint Triathlon and loved the sport so much that she founded and became captain of the Boston University Triathlon Team. Rori graduated from Boston University with her B.S. in Health Sciences and Human Physiology and is currently a Doctorate of Physical Therapy student at New York Institute of Technology. Rori works as a personal trainer and group fitness instructor at Excel Physical Therapy & Sports Rehabilitation and Excel Workout to help pay for her graduate career. Rori hopes to one day work with disabled veterans and athletes with amputations, spinal cord injuries, or traumatic brain injuries. In addition, Rori hopes to own her own physical therapy practice and training facility for both abled and disabled athletes.

Rori became a member of the NECTC board at the end of 2008 as the Race Coordinator for the 2009 season. In 2010 she became the Board Director and continues to hold this position for 2011. Rori took on the additional role as the Annual Athlete Development Camp (ADC) director in 2010. As the conference director, Rori oversees the board and ensures that each position is filled with qualified individuals who can serve the NECTC community to the highest degree possible. For the 2011 season Rori’s goals include increasing awareness and involvement in the NECTC and ADC among collegiate athletes, increasing sponsorship and donations to help support the NECTC and reduce race fees, and developing fundraising opportunities to help decrease the costs of the camp and races. Rori hopes to watch the NECTC continue to grow as it has over the past few years she has been a part of the conference. She also hopes that there will soon be an alumni association of the NECTC so that alumni can donate, volunteer and help sponsor the conference that helped kick start their triathlon careers.

Websites:

• http://www.scottrigsbyfoundation.org/
• http://excelworkout.com/

Russell Ericksen transitioned from running on the soccer pitch as a very young child to the track and cross country courses in high school. In his younger years, he enjoyed participating in other coached sports including swimming, cross country skiing, basketball, and baseball, among many other things. Suffering a knee injury right out of high school, he focused most of his undergraduate years on cycling, and became Boston University's cycling team treasurer for two years and president for one. In more recent years, he has been able to get back into running and whittle his marathon time down to 2:45 at the 2010 NYC Marathon. After experience in all three sports, Russ began competing in triathlons at the age of 19 and enjoys all distances. Although his favorite is the half ironman/70.3 distance, his experiences in ironman distance races (7 to this date) will never be forgotten, especially meeting and racing with friends in Korea, Japan, and the world championship in Kona.

Russ wanted to give back to the triathlon community that has helped him grow as an athlete and competitor over the years so he accepted the treasurer position for the NECTC in 2010 and continues to hold this position for the 2011 season. Russ hopes to help keep the conference running smooth by preparing the annual conference and camp budgets to ensure that funds are available to allocate to the teams and athletes of the conference.

Personal goals for the not too distant future include finishing up his PhD (and therefore school for-e-ver) and obtain a position in Singapore. Additionally, he is aiming for a sub-2:30 marathon, and hopes to qualify again for the Ironman World Championships, and the 70.3 Championships.

Over the past 9 years, Russell has helped organize and execute a 5-day cycling event, raising money for AIDS vaccine research and hopes that some day everyone will have an opportunity to participate in it or a similarly amazing adventure.

Website:

• www.charitytreks.org

In the summer of 2008 Isaac Spingarn competed in his first triathlon at an event to support his local highschool. He was tricked into this sport by a crazy friend who though that Triathlon is the best sport. Having quit “jock” sports in high school, he took up cross country at the mocking suggestion of his lacrosse coach. During his first year of college, he joined the then brand new Stevens Cycling team, which he is currently heavily involved in. Believing that having a background in two of three events of a triathlon was good enough, he went head first into his first triathlon and continues to live by the float-hammer-jog theory.

Isaac served on the board of the Stevens Triathlon team and continues to serve on the board of the Stevens Cycling Team since joining the team three years ago. As an institution, Isaac is very proud of the dedicated Stevens-ites for clinching second place in the NECTC for the 2010 season, while having a very limited pool of athletes to draw from and standing staunch in the face of much larger schools.

Having a weak constitution, Isaac was coerced into the NECTC after the “Great Flood of Montauk” and served as the "we-need-this-done-guy" for the 2008 season. He now has a title, the Communication Officer, but in general he can be made to do anything using particular rhetoric. As the current Communications Officer on the NECTC board, Isaac serves to link the board members with the entire NECTC community. His goals for the 2011 season are to improve the communication between the NECTC board and the entire athlete pool (not just captains) regarding races, fundraisers and sponsorships. In addition, Isaac will be working on recognizing the feelings, thoughts and opinions of the NECTC community regarding what the NECTC provides them in order to design a conference for and by the athletes.

Isaac enjoys working on bikes in his spare time, but in the near future he is aware that there will not be much time for that as he will be likely sitting behind a screen working on some mundane project for years at a time. Though he enjoys racing triathlons, his main calling is road cycling and has recently founded the cyclocross branch of the Stevens Cycling team during his first race with Board member Ian King. Now that sport is nuts! No cushy transition areas to put running shoes and your visor on before you strap your bike to your back and start running through sand. (Never again will he complain about Buckman's finish....)

Ian King has always taken the approach that the more difficult something is, the more rewarding it will be in the end. He was initially a runner and a baseball player in high school, opting to try swimming his junior year. At that point, with two of the sports already down, he decided to enter his first triathlon in the summer of 2007, the New Jersey State Triathlon sprint. Ian joined the Coast Guard Academy Triathlon Club during his first year at the academy, and has served as the Secretary/Treasurer and Co-Captain for the past two years. Ian will be the USCGA Triathlon Club President for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Ian is currently pursuing a degree in Government, with his concentration in International Affairs. Ian’s academic interests include Latin American politics and security studies. After Ian graduates in May of 2012, he will fulfill his service obligation as an officer in the Coast Guard, patrolling our nation’s borders and territorial seas.

As the first ever Fundraising Coordinator, Ian hopes to be able to lay a foundation for the NECTC to effect positive change, particularly in the multisport community. He loves the camaraderie that exists among all of the collegiate triathletes and believes that it can be channeled towards making that difference.

Mike Abbene enjoys nothing more on this planet than pushing himself to new limits (besides sushi and non-light beers). He started triathlon two seasons ago having gone from never running a 5k to his first Ironman on November 6th, 2010. He was the president of the NU triathlon team for two years and has helped the team grow from 10 to 25+ active members. Currently, he is the Captain of the NU team and is scheduled to graduate in May 2011 with his B.A. in Business Administration. Mike has no clue where or what he wants to be doing five years from now, but as long as he is traveling the world to do new exciting races he will be happy...oh yea, he wants to be rolling in dough : )

One of Mike’s main goals as the Collegiate Commissioner of the NECTC is to increase the number of schools that participate and are active in the NECTC. Additionally, he is working to move the date of Collegiate Nationals so that the time frame is more beneficial for the Northeast schools. The CCA is working to pass a collegiate triathlon constitution, implement a Nationals qualification system for the 2011 national competition, and increase the funding and visibility of collegiate triathlon at each individual University.

Zuzka Trnovcova dreamt about the sport of triathlon in high school because she wanted to be challenged not only academically, but also in her free time. Zuzka was recruited for the MIT rowing team her freshman year but left after just 1 year to fully focus on her dream—competing in triathlons. At least that she thought. She joined both MIT Triathlon and MIT Cycling Team in the fall 2006 and did her first triathlon a couple weeks after, on a borrowed road bike, with no wetsuit, pouring rain and with the concept of transition being explained to her only the evening before the race. After the freezing race experience, Zuzka thought only of one thing - that she needed to buy a wetsuit before doing another race. Since the triathlon team was active only during summer and fall, Zuzka decided to focus on cycling until summer 2007, when she did 3 more triathlons, besides several cycling races and daily 45mi bike commute to her internship. Since then, Zuzka has been training and racing both for cycling and triathlons every year, including 3 USAT Collegiate Nationals, 2 Age Group World Championships, 2 half-ironmans and 4 USA Cycling Collegiate Nationals. She won several local age group races and, thanks to her focus on cycling, had 11th best female bike leg in 2009 USAT Collegiate Nationals.

Zuzka joined the NECTC board as a Collegiate Commissioner in the spring of 2008, when she worked mainly on improving communication within the conference, with the Collegiate Commission and with USAT and getting new teams involved with the conference. At the same time, she was the treasurer and vice president of MIT Triathlon Team and the logistical officer of MIT Cycling Team. During her time as a VP of MIT Triathlon Team, the number of active members increased from 2 to about 30 and the team began being active year-round and working with a wonderful swim and triathlon coach Bill Steele. Shortly before her commissioner term was over, Zuzka became NECTC webmaster. Her goal in this new position is to improve the content and usability of the NECTC website and thus further improve the communication within NECTC and the presentation of the conference to the triathlon community as a whole. Zuzka is also responsible for scoring throughout the season.

Zuzka graduated from MIT in September 2010 and currently works as a software engineer for Oracle in New Hampshire. She still keeps in touch with her Triathlon and Cycling Teams by riding her bike to Boston almost every weekend and is planning to continue training and racing as long as possible.

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