TED VAN ZELST recently celebrated his one-year anniversary of joining FanVision as Senior VP & Chief Revenue Officer, and he is hoping that means his schedule will now slow down a little bit. Van Zelst has spent the first half of the NASCAR season traveling to and from different race tracks every week to promote FanVision’s acquisition of Track Scan. Now that the transition is basically complete, he can shift his time away from the operations side and more to the revenue side of the business to focus on additional sponsor opportunities for the company. Since NASCAR and FanVision are a weekend property it is rare Van Zelst gets a full two days off, but when he does he takes advantage by spending as much time as possible at home in Massapequa, N.Y., with his wife and 5-year-old daughter KENDALL.
FIESTA FRIDAYS: A typical Friday, we do have summer Fridays here and I think the office closes and everyone leaves around 1:00pm ET, but it’s rare that I actually get out about that time. So I usually get out of here in time to meet my family for dinner, and if I’m home in time on a weekend we have kind of family date night and all go to dinner at our favorite local restaurant, Don Juan’s Mexican restaurant in Massapequa. We’ve been going there for years. We know the owners, the whole wait staff and my daughter even has a drink named after her called the Kendall-rita. It’s just a fun place where everyone knows our name and we have a blast there every time we go. For me, I mix it up every time, but usually I always order pollo and asked them to add some chorizo.
MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY: I don’t really sleep in. I try to, but it never works out in my favor. My daughter gets up at a pretty decent hour and then I usually try to make breakfast for her. My wife hits the gym every morning, so by the time she gets back I’ve taken care of my daughter and we’re usually sitting in the kitchen having breakfast together that I made. Nothing fancy, usually just eggs and toast, but my daughter loves it and we do it together so it’s nice.
ALL SHE WANTS TO DO IS DANCE: This Saturday is a very special day because it’s my daughter’s dance recital. That’s a lot of fun. She’s been dancing now for three years. At the end (of the recital), since there’s still kind of a small age group, the dads get a chance to go up on stage and I hand her the bouquet of flowers and I get a chance to escort her back to the chair after she’s done taking all of her gratuitous bows for the crowd. It’s a nice moment that I can share with her. They only do the one number for (Kendall’s group), but the actual recital is like three hours long because they have all the age groups and the older kids do four or five different dances. At the end everyone gets brought back onstage and they win different awards and things like that. After the recital we’ll probably grab some ice cream on the way back home and whatever it is my daughter will get pink with sprinkles.
SMALL TOWN SATURDAY NIGHT: Saturday night we’re probably having dinner with some friends and might just do a backyard bar-b-que. We’ll just kind of hang out and our neighbors will come over and we’ll just cook something on the grill and keep it casual if the weather permits. We’re usually more of an out to eat group, just based on the schedules. My wife and I are both working a lot during the week and it’s New York, it’s so easy to just pick up the phone and get what you want delivered, even for Long Island. On the weekends we’re making a bigger point to go out but go out to different places.
SPLISH SPLASH: The last couple days when I was off we went down Tobay Beach. It’s for residents only which minimizes on the crowds. It has the same kind of amenities but they’re less crowded so it’s perfect. It’s got a nice water park, a restaurant and kind of a little gated-off beach that’s ideal for kids. My daughter loves the water park and it is huge. She’ll play in the sand and the ocean, but then after a while she just wants to go to the water park. She likes the slides, she likes crawling around on some of the gymnastics stuff they have in there, they have all these fountains and waterfalls and other stuff -- she just really enjoys that.
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A CAT: We’re out of session right now, but usually Kendall has horseback riding lessons every Sunday. And then the other thing she’s into, more so than dance actually, is this is the first year she took drama. They did a whole skit of “THE ARISTOCATS” -- singing and dancing and speeches. She was young for that group but she really enjoyed it. She likes to do more than just dance. She was one of the Gabbles, which is the geese, and so she had to do a costume change when she did her recital. So that was fun. I don’t remember how long it went, but they’ll build to that one production a year and I think we just had it in May.
GOING BACK TO MY ROOTS: This Sunday I’m very excited because I’m 100% Dutch and my Dutch national team is doing very well in the World Cup. They play at 12:00pm on Sunday so I’ll be dressed in orange, rooting on my team. I just got myself a new orange shirt to support my team. Obviously I root for the Americans first and foremost, but you can’t ignore the heritage. My favorite color actually is orange so I’ll be wearing my orange Dutch shirt and rooting them on. We will just watch from home and we’ll make it a little event. My wife will make some appetizers and stuff and it will be something fun that we do all together. We’ll just enjoy it as a family.
GET YOUR POPCORN READY: If possible (on Sundays) we try to do a movie night with my daughter. We do the whole thing -- the popcorn, I’ll get some gummy worms or Sour Patch Kids from the store in advance and then we’ll just go through and watch whatever movie she wants. The entire Disney library is at her disposal usually. We’ll go through whatever she wants to watch and watch it as a family. I just love movies. You work so hard all the time and it’s non-stop, so you’re never 100% away. Movies are kind of the one escape that I enjoy. So I’ll download and watch a movie on my iPad or on the rare occasion where everything is squared away at home I’ll actually go to the movies on my own and watch something. That’s my getaway. I prefer action adventure and comedy. I’m also a big James Bond buff, so if it’s anything James Bond related, I’m in.
