The Ambassadors Group

• Mission Statement

The Ambassadors Group is a faith based company that specializes in helping young athletes manage their career path, with an emphasis on leadership development and college placement. The foundation of the program is built on the core belief that God has a perfect plan for each of our lives and that “we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philipians 4:13). We believe that our client’s personal development is just as important as the result of a college scholarship. For this reason we focus on FIVE  major areas of development; physical, mental, spiritual, educational and social. The end result of our program is the blossoming of a young man or woman. They are both confident and well prepared to achieve high levels of success, both on and off the field, and well beyond that.

Learn More About Our Founder

Mark Helsel was born and raised in Altoona, PA. He is a 1985 graduate of Mercer University in Macon, GA where he earned his degree in Interpersonal Communications. While at Mercer, and under the tutelage of the late, great Head Coach, Barry Myers, Mark was a 4 year starter as an infielder for the Division 1 Bears.

Following college Mark moved to Atlanta, GA where he began his professional career as an outside sales rep. He quickly became the number one sales rep in the country for German based, Goldwell International Hair Care products. He then was hired by Allstate Insurance company, where he became one of the top producing agents in the southeast region, as well as one of the youngest.

At age 25 he started his first business and has been self employed ever since. Throughout his career, Mark has started and sold numerous successful businesses. One of Mark's companies was a network marketing distributorship in Germany that he grew from 1 person (himself) to over 10,000 distributors in a three year period. At one point, he was ranked the #3 producer in all of Europe. During that time, he lived in Germany and learned to speak fluent German. He eventually sold his distributorship and moved back to the US where he got married to Dotty and began his family.

Today, Mark lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Dotty, who is an educator in the public school system. They have been married since 1991. They have a son, Christian (PSU Grad), a daughter, Lexi (PSU Grad) and a son, Zack (UCF Grad)

Mark founded the US Elite Baseball organization in 2006 with a simple goal of giving a small group of above average 13U players from Pennsylvania a chance to develop as athletes, baseball players and young men. Over the next 17 years US Elite became one of the country's top travel baseball programs growing to 75 teams at one point. Over the 17 year period Mark was personally involved in well over 1,000 success stories of players moving on to college and professional baseball.

In 2022 Mark moved on from US Elite and started The Ambassadors Group where he currently serves as the National Director.