Management Team
Meet the Team (in alphabetical order):
Rocio Celaya-Kuiken
You can read more about her work experience on her LinkedIn profile. Two years ago (during the Pandemic), she moved back to Mexico, to our beautiful and beloved San Carlos, with her husband Ryan. Most recently she started a tourist transport business in San Carlos with other partners, Bichaá Tuk. And about pickleball, well… she is still learning but loves to play because she sees it as a way to de-stress. |
Ryan Kuiken
Ryan joined the pickleball board in late 2021. This past year, he has been working alongside James to market the club, increase visibility, and help secure funding for the new courts. Ryan, with the help of James Main, Darren Thompson, Kevin Duff, Art Bauer, Rocio Celaya, and Mariel Rivera works to organize club events and leveled play for our members. In his spare time Ryan enjoys … wait, what is spare time? |
Mariel Rivera
In the past few years she has been specializing in digital strategy consulting and has had the opportunity to co-create and implement strategies with different national and international brands to increase their sales, scale markets and digitize their online presence. However, her big passion is social activism and sustainable development. She has over 10 years of experience in partnership development, public relations and project management, business consulting for local, national and international companies and organizations. Since University she has always been deeply involved in nonprofit and social work. She joined the board of the Hermosillo Rotaract Club in 2010 organizing a large range of social initiatives for over 4 years. In 2014 Mariel was located in our town working at the Tourism and Economic Development Council of Guaymas. One of the projects she led was the creation of the first Residents Attention office of San Carlos and she created the partnership with the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. At the same time she founded the chapter of AIESEC in Sonora giving leadership development opportunities to young people in Sonora and Baja California. After that in 2015 she was recruited to work as the Vice President of the National Board working as Director of Business Development of AIESEC in Mexico A.C. in Mexico City. Later in 2016 she was hired by the global office of AIESEC International, one of the largest youth non-profit organizations in the world. She was in charge of leading global partnership development in the continent of Americas coordinating a team of 25 regional managers with offices in 20 countries with the main movement in the Panama, United States, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico Offices. Supporting the management of regional employee branding projects with companies such as DHL, DELL, SANOFI, SIEMENS, BOSCH and working for the activation of young people for the Sustainable Development Goals, seeking alliances with the UN, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank among others. She was later Vice President and Board Member of AIESEC Alumni International from 2018- 2021. And since 2020 she serves as part of board of advisors for the “OINAH” Organización Interamericana para la Ayuda Humanitaria AC. Living now in San Carlos, Mariel and her husband Darren own First Step Group, a real estate company that includes Property Management, Vacation Rentals, Remodel projects and Mortgages. In her free time (if there is any) she serves as a mentor for “Social Disrupters” initiative that provides opportunities for young people either from low-income families or with disabilities to explore their paths in the IT and digital marketing industry by receiving training and later paid experiences in web development projects. She founded Social Disrupters in the search of creating an organization that could promote labor inclusion and at the same time offer quality marketing & technological development services. She considers herself a truly beginner Pickleball player but she believes in the positive impact of the sport globally and for our community, |
Darren Thompson
Darren has played pickleball all over the world and won the Nationals Mixed open in Italy, second at the Men’s open in France, first place at Nationals in intermediate Singles in France. He has played multiple US nationals, US Open and Hawaii Open. Darren won the Men’s open with Scott Moore at the Sombrero Showdown a few years back. Darren has a bachelors degree in Chemistry and worked as a chemical engineer for Johnson and Johnson where he was black belt certified in six sigma. He most recently returned to the work force during the pandemic and worked for Roche in quality control producing Regenerons Monoclonal antibody cocktail Covid drug. Darren and his wife Mariel own First Step, a real estate company that includes Property Management, Vacation Rentals, and Mortgages. Darren has owned a property management company in San Carlos since 2009 managing 20 properties in Bahia Delfin. Darren was the treasurer for the San Carlos Rotary from 2008 – 2010 and was named Rotarian of the Year for helping raise over $100,000 dollars of disaster relief for the surrounding communities after Hurricane Jimena. Darren was born in Guadalajara Mexico, is a duel citizen Mexico/USA and has lived in San Carlos full time since 2006. |
Rocio Celaya-Kuiken loves to bring projects and events to life. She is from Sonora, but moved to NYC in 2009 where she worked for the General Consulate of Mexico in New York and a few nonprofit organizations as a Communications and Marketing Project Manager. She has more than 10 years of experience in fundraising, event planning/logistics, developing communication and outreach plans, and managing marketing projects.
Ryan is MainBloq’s founder and CEO, has over 10 years of high-level sales and business development experience with T-Mobile and PayChex where he was awarded the #1 national rank in sales for both firms, and is a partner in Bull Run Capital, a private digital asset trading fund focused on DeFi trading and Yield Farming. MainBloq is a groundbreaking digital asset trading platform serving banks and hedge funds which was purchased in 2021 by publicly traded 
Mariel has a degree in Business Management Engineering and is currently finishing her Masters in Marketing & Digital Business at IEBS (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Business School).
Darren Thompson has been on the construction committee for the past year. He has been instrumental in getting us as far as we are in the building project, overseeing much of it in the summer when several board members were up north. Darren also helped extensively in getting Mirador switched from rundown tennis courts to pickleball courts and served on the board from 2017 to 2019.