MEET RYAN TOTKA

Founder of RedCarpetMonday®, TornadoPromotions.com, EliteJets, ThrowUpTheX and AthletePromotions, Ryan was born in Edison, New Jersey on December 30, 1977. Ryan graduated from the University of Central Florida in 1999 with a degree in Business Administration and a minor in Marketing. He was named the winner of the 2003 University of Central Florida Rising Star Award for the College of Business, nominated for top 40 under 40 in the Orlando Business Journal and named 2010-11’s Most Influential Businessmen. Ryan currently resides in Dallas, Los Angeles and Orlando  and has started four successful companies over the past 20 years.

Founder of RedCarpetMonday®, TornadoPromotions.com, EliteJets, ThrowUpTheX and AthletePromotions, Ryan was born in Edison, New Jersey on December 30, 1977. Ryan graduated from the University of Central Florida in 1999 with a degree in Business Administration and a minor in Marketing. He was named the winner of the 2003 University of Central Florida Rising Star Award for the College of Business, nominated for top 40 under 40 in the Orlando Business Journal and named 2010-11’s Most Influential Businessmen. Ryan currently resides in Dallas, Los Angeles and Orlando  and has started four successful companies over the past 20 years.

Ryan’s entrepreneurial roots started very young in New Jersey. To earn some extra cash as a kid, he shoveled snow in the winters, raked leaves in the fall, delivered newspapers and sang Christmas carols door-to-door during the holidays. Being actively involved in sports all his life, he had dreams of pursuing a career in baseball, which fell through due to a knee injury. At Spruce Creek High School, he was also among the top wide receivers in Central Florida. Ryan also earned an I.F.P.A. Certified Personal Trainer degree and has been always believed in the positive effects of having sports and fitness in your life.

In 1998, while attending the University of Central Florida, he started CollegeInvestors.com, a site teaching college students about investing, offering career advice, a section for students to post their resumes and other fun college stuff. The site was voted to the Top 100 sites for college students by U Magazine. He was hired as the “Webmaster” for StockDr.com, Inc., an Orlando-based money management company and nationally syndicated investment radio show, where he worked for three years.

This is when he decided to take the next step into entrepreneurial freedom. Since then, Ryan has started four successful Internet companies. Totka.com Website Services, a website development company and TornadoPromotions.com, Inc., an Internet marketing consulting firm based out of Orlando, Florida.

His company has helped hundreds of corporations with search engine optimization, website development, domain name registration, website hosting, and achieving maximum success on the web. He has implemented successful marketing strategies for many well known companies such as American Express, Overture, EliteJets, Insurance.com, PriceLine.com, LowerMyBills.com and more.

Another company Ryan co-founded in May of 2006 was EliteJets, which provides corporate executives, celebrities and luxury travelers private jet charter services to destinations all across the globe.

Other web ventures include TornadoEntertainment.com, a site promoting top athletes such as Lebron James, Torry Holt, Daunte Culpepper, Carmelo Anthony and many other top athletes and entertainers. They have also co-founded MusicFreedom.com with JC Chasez of *NSYNC, a popular music site promoting unsigned musical talent.

Real estate has been another passion for Ryan. He has started two real estate information sites, Orlando-Developments.com, a site featuring luxury communities in the Orlando area and CondoBoom.net, which displays the latest preconstruction, new and condo conversions throughout the state of Florida.

While understanding that networking is the key to any successful business, in May of 2006, Ryan created RedCarpetMonday®, an exclusive Invitation-Only business network for Central Florida’s top business owners, professionals, senior level executives and entrepreneurs. The live events are designed for professionals to relax, socialize and share business ideas. The website is a networking community for members to interact and build business relationships. All the event details, dates, times and locations are at RedCarpetMonday.com.

As years went by, he found his true passion in combining sports, business and the Internet. Being involved in sports all his life as a fan and a player, he has a vast knowledge of the marketing and business of sports, looking for the most creative ways to promote and book athletes for appearances. He founded AthletePromotions, one of the top athlete booking / sports marketing agencies in the country, specializing in booking sports celebrities for corporate appearances, speaking engagements, autograph signings, endorsements and more.

Along the way, Ryan and his team have booked many world class sports celebrities, such as Mark Cuban, Russell Wilson, Magic Johnson, Terrell Owens, Wayne Gretzky, Tim Tebow, Nick Anderson, Thurman Thomas, Mike Ditka, Mike Tyson, Joe Theismann, William ‘The Fridge’ Perry,Steve Garvey, Dennis Rodman and many more. Being a loyal UCF supporter, in the fall of 2007, Ryan created KevinSmithforHeisman.com, a site helping UCF running back Kevin Smith get nationwide Heisman respect.

He also built, markets and manages the official websites for Allen Iverson, Terrell Owens, Brendon Ayanbadejo, Clinton Portis, Marcellus Wiley, Kenny ‘The Jet” Smith, Danny White, Ray Lankford, Spud Webb, Thurman Thomas, Dan Hampton, Dan Fouts, McKenzie Milton, Brady Anderson, Thomas “Hitman” Hearns and others.

Being an Orlando resident and die hard Magic fan, in 2011, Ryan started a grass roots campaign called StayDwight.com, a fan community to help keep Dwight Howard secure in Orlando. With the departure of Shaq years ago and what we have seen happen in Cleveland with LeBron, he thought it was a must to help rally the community to show Dwight he means to the city of Orlando and keep the economy and local businesses going strong for years to come. Check out some of the campaign headlines receiving national exposure from ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, CBSSports, NBCSports, AOL SportingNews, the Orlando Sentinel and NBA.com

With a strong passion for baseball, one day Ryan would like to own a minor league baseball team and implement sports marketing tactics, like his childhood idol Mark Cuban founder of Broadcast.com, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet. When it’s all said and done, Ryan would like to be known as one of the most influential faces in the sports marketing industry.

His other hobbies include traveling to NYC, Chicago and Las Vegas, collecting sports memorabilia and vintage sports t-shirts, eating sushi, playing fantasy football, flag football, golf, tennis, biking and coming up with new business ideas. Ryan actively follows the business ideas of Mark Cuban and Gary Vaynerchuk, and enjoys listening to the music of John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Robin Thicke, Jason Derulo and Michael Buble.