Karen Chavez

Karen’s unique talents and skills will support Kingdom Franchisees by assisting them on their journey of staffing their clubs and with human resource issues.

Karen Chavez, with her team at OnePayHR LLC, is available to assist in the entire employee life cycle, from the decision to hire and the required onboarding, to payroll and workers compensation, to employee separation. 

She began her career as an entrepreneur in 1997, co-founding a Phoenix-based company and growing from having no clients into a nationally recognized company on the watch list for merger opportunities. She then worked internally with large companies holding various positions including Vice President of Operations, Director of Implementations, Vice President of Client Experience and Project Management.  

Karen earned a Business Degree with a Minor in Marketing and Hospitality from the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management.   She has served on the Board of Directors with impactful non-profits, such as the Child Crisis Center (6 years) as well as the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (3 years).  She also managed the largest fundraiser for each organization each year as part of her Board service.

Karen knows, embraces, and represents the Pickleball Kingdom culture as she loves to coach, empower, and evaluate team members to provide the best possible customer service while embracing teamwork, accountability and developing a respectful workplace. Karen handles the hardest situations with a smile, but also with a knowledge and strength that produces organizational results.

Karen Chavez

Ace Rodrigues

Founder and CEO

When asked how he came up with the concept of Pickleball Kingdom, Ace likes to say, “On a windy, dirty court while standing in the sun waiting to play on January 9, 2021, I said out loud, ‘There has to be a better way.’ And then God threw this lightning bolt of a mission into my heart that has lit my brain on fire, and it’s been blazing ever since.”  

And the pickleball world has been better for it. Ace’s past experiences founding companies, scaling growth, and creating support networks, primarily in the financial services and energy efficiency sectors, serves him well in setting the go-forward vision to build Pickleball Kingdom.   

Having developed and coined numerous concepts and phrases that are now industry standards, Ace’s innovative approach continues to craft the path for not only the Kingdom brand, but the greater indoor pickleball industry itself. The creation of “Pickleball Paddle Battle,” a competition reality show is one such example of Ace’s leading-edge thinking.  

Originally from Hawaii, Ace has been married to Tracy for over 30 years and they have 2 children and 2 grandchildren. Ace and Tracy love sports, movies, and eating out. 

What motivates him? “I’m the most blessed man on the planet. So, my drive is to create Kings and Queens of Kingdoms, which are our franchisees, first throughout America, then throughout the world.”