Mark Rijkse has been formation display flying with the Aerostars since 2001.
Mark Rijkse has been formation display flying with the Aerostars since 2001.
Even before he was at Jackson Park kindy, Mark Rijkse dreamed of being a fighter pilot.
But at 13 an optometrist dropped a bombshell - Mark needed glasses, a no-no for fighter pilots.
Today, he sits at the controls of a Russian Yak 50, leading Europe's largest civilian aerobatics team, the Aerostars, as it loops and back-flips across the UK.
Before launching into the whys and wherefores of this no-holds-barred action man, we need to say if there was a gold medal for Our People's most reluctant participant it would be Mark's.
Had we not been primed with a good deal of "inside info" it would have been a hard ask to prise his exploits out of him.
He insists no one where he grew up will give a toss, we argue to the contrary, winning by the slimmest of margins.
He heli-skis, sails in classic ocean races and clocks up kilometre after kilometre in testing cycling challenges (often for charity).
When Our People cornered him he was fresh off the boat from Britain's testing Fastnet race, crewing on a Volvo 70 round-the-world race boat, his third time aboard, previously tackling the Caribbean and Mediterranean.
He's a qualified Ironman (10 hours 52 minutes when the body-punishing event was Auckland-based), former triathlete and multi-sport enthusiast.
Mark Rijkse has packed alot into life since leaving his hometown. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
With so much hard-out activity it's unsurprising he no longer runs "because my knees are shot".
"Shot knees" also put paid to his rugby playing days. He spent two years in Rotorua Boys' High 2nd XV, downplaying his contribution.
"The school was strong at rugby, I wasn't, taking it up after initially playing soccer."
On the professional side of Mark Rijkse's ledger, the Canterbury University law graduate is at the helm of London investment company Aldington Capital, its headquarters deep in the Monopoly board's blue chip Mayfair area.
Why, we ask, isn't such a firm not based within the more commercial Square Mile? The response is a typical Rijkse one-liner: "There're too many suits in the City."
We chat over lunch at a French restaurant Mark casually refers to as his firm's "canteen".
"When we [he has two partners] started out in 1999 we came here to plan strategy."
His eyebrows ratchet up several notches when we order trout. Rotorua gave him an aversion to it.
"Dad was a mad-keen fisherman, we'd eat it all weekend, school sandwiches were smoked trout, I'd pray for it to run out so we could have Marmite and lettuce."
Back to his business: Aldington Capital's made him "a man of property", Mark's too gentlemanly to talk money but it's obvious he's "done good".
A recent transaction was sufficiently profitable for him to devote this British summer to less work, more play especially with his children Caroline, 13, Scarlette, 11 and Spencer, 8. They lunched with us, their lawyer mum, Elise, is French-born, US and Belgium-raised.
Bi-nationalism's in Mark's make-up. His New Zealand mother, Sue, (a teacher who died suddenly at 52) met his Dutch father, soil scientist Wim Rijkse, skiing in Austria in the 1960s, settling in New Zealand via France, Pakistan and Indonesia.
Mark Rijkse 15 September 2015 Daily Post photograph supplied.
Mark was a toddler when the DSIR posted his father to Rotorua and his sister Emma was born here.
His sailing days began on Lake Rotorua. "First in a tinnie at Hannah's Bay but most of my childhood and teens were spent at the yacht club, I did okay at club, regional and national level but nothing spectacular."
When his parents bought his first P class, the deal was Mark worked to pay for the extras, the mast included.
His entrepreneurial career began behind Springfield Dairy's counter.
When he wasn't sailing he learned the clarinet, piano and guitar.
Re-emphasising he was no great shakes on the rugby paddock, he does admit to topping his class in English, maths and science, being an enthusiastic debater and keen on drama.
"In my last year, I played the lead in the school play Stiff Luck For The Undertaker, I think I had the role because I was the only one to hold a tune."
His secondary teachers may have considered him good at English, his mother didn't.
"I had the humiliation of her teaching me at intermediate, she was scathing about something I wrote, scrawling in red ink that it was conceited."
Skiing entered his life when, at 14, he stayed with a South Island uncle.
Indirectly, skiing led to flying. Forced off Ruapehu by a white-out, Mark and a mate dropped into Ohakea's Air Force museum. "We decided to learn to fly."
Mark pocketed his private pilot's licence at the Wellington Aero Club in 1994.
He was in the capital with law firm Simpson Grierson until a recruiter for global biggie, Clifford Chance, signed him up for its London branch.
Time at Japanese investment bank Daiwa followed, but come the 1999 downturn he became "surplus to requirements".
Born: Palmerston North, 1968 (New Year's Day baby).
Education: Jackson Park Kindergarten, Otonga Primary, Rotorua Intermediate, Boys' High, Canterbury University.
Family: Father Wim Rijkse (Mount Maunganui), two daughters, one son.
Interests: "My kids", work, flying, sailing, heli-skiing, cycling "I managed the London 100 this year in 4.49, not bad for an old man", avid All Black fan, secretary Chelsea- Westminster Swimming Club.
On growing up in Rotorua: "I didn't appreciate a lot about it at the time, the beauty, the bi-culturalism, jumping off the jetty at Tarawera's Stony Point, my kids have done it too."
