DAYTON, OH — Business cards distributed by Derek Whitmore, 34, a project manager at Cornerstone HVAC Distribution and purple belt at Riverside Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, identify him as a “BJJ Competitor” beneath his name and corporate title, which colleagues say has prompted several follow-up questions, most of which he has been glad to answer.
The cards, which Whitmore ordered in a batch of 250 through Vistaprint in March and expensed as “professional development collateral,” read:
Derek Whitmore, PMP Project Manager | BJJ Competitor Cornerstone HVAC Distribution | Riverside BJJ
“I feel like a lot of people compartmentalize,” Whitmore told ThePorra. “Like, this is my professional self, and this is who I am as an athlete. But I don’t see those as separate. My competitive mindset is something I bring to every meeting, every client call. I just think it’s honest.”
His competitive record, compiled from publicly available tournament brackets, consists of two appearances: a first-round walkover at the 2023 Buckeye State Open (his scheduled opponent, listed in the bracket as C. Yancey of Team Nexus, did not check in) and a submission loss by rear naked choke at the 2025 Ohio Valley Invitational, where Whitmore was finished at 1:12 of the first round in the Masters 2, under-85kg division by a 52-year-old HVAC technician from Chillicothe named Dale.
Whitmore described the loss as “formative.”
“That match was exactly what I needed,” he said. “You can drill all day. You can flow roll. But until you step on that competition mat, you don’t know who you are. That experience changed me. That’s what competing does.”
His LinkedIn profile, updated the same week the business cards arrived, now lists him as: HVAC Logistics Professional | BJJ Competitor | Father | Lifelong Learner. He has received three endorsements for “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.” Two were from training partners at Riverside who said they clicked accept without reading what they were endorsing.
“He sent a pretty detailed request,” said Josh Felton, 28, a blue belt at Riverside who trains Tuesday and Thursday nights. “There were like three paragraphs about why the endorsement mattered to him. I just clicked it. I didn’t want to get into it.”
Whitmore’s email signature, updated in February, now reads:
Derek Whitmore, PMP | BJJ Competitor “The mat doesn’t lie.” — Renato ‘The Cobra’ Saldanha (probably)
Three clients at Cornerstone HVAC have responded to the signature with questions. One asked if he was a UFC fighter. Whitmore clarified that UFC fighters were “a specific subset of combat sports competitor” and that he competed in submission grappling, which he then spent four minutes explaining. The client thanked him and redirected the conversation to a pending invoicing dispute.
His professor, Marcus Velez, described the gym’s response to Whitmore’s competitor identity as “supportive.”
“He trains. He shows up. He works hard,” said Velez, who awarded Whitmore his purple belt in October 2021 after four years of consistent attendance. “I think competition is important. He’s competed. I don’t have strong opinions about business cards.”
Asked whether two tournament appearances constituted a competitive career worth listing on a business card, Velez nodded slowly and said he appreciated that Whitmore was “enthusiastic about the sport.”
Whitmore is currently registered for the 2026 Great Lakes Regional Open in Akron, scheduled for June. He has been registered since April 2025. His original weight-cut plan targeted 79kg from a walking weight of 88kg. He has since revised that to 82kg and is “strongly considering” the under-94kg division to “give myself room to be more competitive.”
He acknowledges having registered for the same tournament the previous year and withdrawn due to a scheduling conflict with a company team-building retreat in Columbus.
“That’s part of it,” Whitmore said. “A competitor doesn’t stop being a competitor because life happens. I’m still the same person. I’m still showing up to train. A competitor is someone who commits. I’ve committed.”
He estimated he would be ready to compete “within the next calendar year.”
His girlfriend of four years, reached by phone, declined to comment, then paused and added: “He’s got the business cards. I’m aware of the business cards.”
At a school open house last Wednesday, Whitmore handed a card to his daughter’s first-grade teacher, Leann Pruitt, who scanned it and mentioned that her brother-in-law had done karate in the nineties. Whitmore thanked her and briefly explained the distinction between striking arts and submission grappling, noting that he himself competed at the local and regional level.
“He seemed very proud of it,” Pruitt told ThePorra. “He’s a nice man. He brought cupcakes.”
Of the original 250 business cards, 213 remain.