Wayne Gorsek and his good friend
Wayne Gorsek
Wayne Gorsek, adopted and raised by his grandparents, thought he was going into the Air Force because of his love of aviation and flying, during this time he earned his private and multiengine ratings and bought his first airplane, a Rockwell Commander 112 single and later a Cessna 310Q twin. However, in the 1970s, his grandfather contracted Parkinson’s disease, and Wayne began to search for a way to save him. This put Wayne on a new path and in 1994, Wayne, a born entrepreneur, started a tiny vitamin company in Springfield, Illinois, out of a basement. He grew his small company, Vitacost, into the most successful online vitamin retailer in the world, based in Boca Raton, Florida. His company became one of the few in history to earn “INC 500 Hall of Fame” status. For 15 years, Wayne’s company grew at a remarkable 50 percent a year pace, and by thousands of percent over 15 years.
Wayne took Vitacost public in 2009 as the largest shareholder and Chief Operations Architect. At the time of the IPO, Vitacost was shipping over three million orders per year, had revenues of about $200 million per year and had created over 300 American jobs. In December 2009, a few months after the IPO, Wayne earned his Embraer Phenom 100 (an advanced business jet) single-pilot type rating. An unexpected turn of events also occurred in December 2009 after their IPO occurred at Vitacost.com. The Board of Directors forced Wayne to retire from the company he had founded for no stated reason. Interestingly and maybe not surprisingly, Vitacost.com went from multimillion dollar profitability in 2009 to over $34 million in total net losses to the end of Q1 2012, eventually Kroger acquired Vitacost in 2014. Wayne used the opportunity of his “retirement” to earn his Phenom 300 single-pilot type rating.
Being the consummate entrepreneur, Wayne decided to launch a new superior nutritional company in 2011 based on cutting edge science and state of the art manufacturing equipment related to vitamins, herbs and natural health products. Wayne founded Las Vegas Nevada based www.drvita.com, and just as his previous company, the operations are 100% U.S. based, including manufacturing and customer service. Wayne new business venture created hundreds of full time employment opportunities with excellent compensation and benefits to provide his customers with the best quality and service possible. Wayne has integrated the capabilities of his business jets, to rapidly travel to meet with raw material, equipment and other suppliers located all over the USA. What would typically be a painfully time consuming multi-day trip using commercial airlines plagued with delays, cancellations, oversold flights and worse becomes an enjoyable and productive same day trip. The power of business aviation provides Wayne a level of safety, efficiency and security impossible via commercial airlines. Wayne’s next goal is to make www.drvita.com the #1 online vitamin company in the world, just as he did with Vitacost.
www.DrVita.com, www.natureslab.com and www.drvitalab.com have a new 72,000 SQF state of the art nutraceutical manufacturing, lab, customer service and distribution center. DrVita is one of the few companies that manufactures and lab checks their own brand in house. Wayne has invested over $26 million of his own money to create the most advanced and superior manufacturing, lab and distribution technology. Most of Wayne's products are distributed through DrVita.com, but he also has a distribution deal with Costco and manufactures his products under other labels, including Nature’s Lab. DrVita has just under 300 products on the market, including multivitamins, fish oil and chia seeds.