Our founder, Vernon Patrick Chmielewski (Vernon or Patrick) founded the first beach volleyball program in Chicago (1982) on Oak Street Beach. VP played NCAA DI collegiate men’s volleyball earning a BA & BS at George Williams College (GWC) (1982-86). He expanded and moved the program (1987) to Chicago’s North Avenue Beach and had the vision to create one of the first sports and entertainment activation companies by marrying sports, music, and lifestyle marketing. Beach volleyball was new, exciting and there was a new FAN base of 21-34 young urban professionals eager to participate. Timing was everything! He guided sponsor brands into the Fan’s lifestyle paving the way for a the new beach volleyball Fan evolution. He created the first Sport & Social Club (1987-2001) and built one of the largest Chicago-based event companies with a participating Fan base peaking at 25,000 per quarter.

Sponsors: WXRT Radio Chicago, WSCR “The Score” Sports Radio, Bud Light, Budweiser, Chameleon Sports Wear, Banana Boat Sun Care, Side Out Sportswear, Miller Lite, Spalding, Wilson Sporting Goods, Quicksilver, and many many more…

He later opened up Command Performance Sports (1993-2012) supporting the corporate events, charitable fundraisers and festivals, professional sports and music industry. He introduced sponsors to sponsor collaborations to eliminate clutter and increase profitability. He hosted the 1st ever Live Music concert on a beach in Chicago. Produced the Highland Games & Scottish Festival’s first Live concert in Grant Park He was a certified NBA agent with a roster of 59 professional basketball clients, while managing 2 Euro-bands. He established Olympic ties with two South American countries for sports development opportunities. CPS developed Euro-sports tours, held tryouts for the Continental Basketball Association, and hosted the first ever Big Man’s Camp at the World Basketball Championships in Indianapolis. He became the lead director and producer of hundreds of pro and pro-am beach and indoor volleyball tour stops, events and tournaments. He was a USA Volleyball member serving as a club director, head coach, official, tournament director, site manager, concessions director and player representative for over 25 years.

He envisioned an all corporate team building, local league and nationwide tournament competition program and formed Chicago Sports Corps (1999-2003).

He served on many charitable boards and worked with many organizations and projects including USA Volleyball Pre-Olympic Men’s Tour, Navy Pier’s Microbrew Oktoberfest, Kenwood/DeKuyper Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, Jose Cuervo Series of Beach Volleyball, World Series of Women’s Beach Volleyball, Chicago Breeze Pro Women’s Indoor Volleyball League, CycloCross World Championships / Kentucky, and many more…

He retooled his toolbox and earned a Masters in Professional Sports Admin from Ohio U. (2013).
Produced Docktoberfest (2013) Halloween Music Festival on behalf of a non-profit.

Now he reopened another agency Sports Activation Intl (2016) a B2B sales and marketing group, and Hoosier Festival (HF) (2016).

 (2016) Participated in a new neighborhood volunteer leadership role for the 33rd Annual Culver Lake Fest. The goals were to attract a broader generation of lake home owners to the festival, create more participatory activities and direct the classic car show. He developed and promoted a new Antique Boat Show, created and sold a multi-year presenting sponsorship, co-developed a new payment processing plan, co-created a social media plan that included redoing all the fest’s social media and online presence, added a coed volleyball championship, increased parking revenue for the fireworks show, and promoted the car show quadrupling the number of show entries thus expanding the number of attendees while increasing revenues for festival vendors.