Meet the Team

Dieter Thellman

Hello and welcome to our Quik Hands website!

I’m Dieter Thellmann, CEO and founder of Quik Hands LLC. Our company is based in Columbus, Ohio where my family and I also reside.  Soccer has been my passion my entire life and I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t playing or coaching the game.  I was part of the first Youth Soccer Team in Columbus in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1991, I began coaching the boy’s varsity soccer team at Watkins Memorial High School in Pataskala, Ohio and led that program to it’s first ever state championship in 2004.  In the 1990’s, I also had the pleasure of coaching soccer at The Ohio State University under then head coach Gary Avedikian.  Since 2004, I have been coaching goalkeepers at various Central Ohio programs, including Capital University, Mt. Vernon Nazarene College, Columbus DeSales High School, and Pickerington North High School.

Our first product, the Quik Hands weighted soccer goalkeeper glove, began as an idea I had while coaching soccer at the high school and college levels.  As a former goalkeeper myself, I was always looking for a way to improve my reaction time to the ball, my hand speed as well as my hand and eye coordination. I began focusing on resistance training as a possible way to improve my skills. My first experiment with a weighted glove was by using ankle weights around my wrists!  Way too heavy!  I then began to confer with local doctors about an appropriate weight level for a resistance training glove that would help build up and tone my skills and not damage muscle tissue and thus, the Quik Hands 3-weight packet amounts of 4 oz., 5.5 oz and 7 oz. were born.

Putting the weight packets on the back of the hand and making them removable became the next steps and the most important ones of our patented glove.  Now a goalkeeper could train and play with one pair of Quik Hands gloves by simply adding or removing a Quik Hands weight packet.

Currently there are 3 Quik Hands soccer goalkeeper gloves that are being sold in the US and Europe - the Super Pro Rollfinger, the Panther Finger Protection with removable spines and the Talon, our newest, lightweight goalkeeper glove.  All of our soccer gloves are manufactured in Europe and reflect the new streamlined, lighter-weight and more flexible design that has been successful in Europe.

The new Quik Hands Weighted Fitness Glove is actually our second-generation soccer glove intended as a fingerless, weighted training glove for soccer field players. However, it soon became apparent that it could be used in many other areas such as walking, running, aerobics, golf, tennis, etc. Even members of the medical field are testing it as a devise to help patients begin an exercise program.

We appreciate you visiting our website and purchasing our products!  I am sure you will love your “Quik Hands” as much as we do. I look forward to hearing how you use our glove and what they do for you!

Best regards,

Dieter Thellmann

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Margit Thellmann

Hi! I’m Margit Thellmann, President of Quik Hands LLC. Thank you for your interest in our Quik Hands products and family.  My husband Dieter and I reside in Gahanna, OH with our three daughters and grandson. Quik Hands is a family-run business and we are all involved in some way.

I grew up on the Hilltop in Columbus and graduated from Columbus West High School. I got my Bachelor’s Degree in Education from The Ohio State University and Master’s from Dayton University. I have taught German for the past 23 years at Watkins Memorial High School and 10 years at Reynoldsburg High School.  My passion for the last 33 years has been teaching German, but I am happy to say that about 7 years ago, after being the soccer coach’s wife as well as a soccer mom for many years, I became involved with the Quik Hands Weighted goalkeeper Glove products, my husband’s patented glove . It has been a journey of many successes and trials, from a concept to a marketable product.  What began as an “idea” in my husband’s mind of how to improve a goalkeeper’s game has now become a series of weighted gloves that are being sold in the US and abroad.

I love our new line of weighted gloves, The Quik Hands Weighted Fitness Glove. I use them everyday while I am walking on the treadmill and I love the “quiker” cardio workout I get with them. I also slip on the gloves when I’m walking our dog Buddy. The gloves leave my hands free and I really feel the burn in my arms as they are toning and firming.  That’s always a plus, ladies!

I know you will love our products as much as our whole family does.  We appreciate your business.

Thanks and best regards,
Margit Thellmann

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Jeff Horch

Jeff Horch lives with his wife and two sons in New Albany, OH. They all enjoy the outdoors – hiking, walking, boating, swimming, golfing – and they always wear their Quik Hands Weighted Fitness Glove while CrossFit training. Jeff grew up on the Hilltop area of Columbus, OH, and played football, basketball, baseball, and golf.

Jeff has expertise in technologies for the hospitality market, and web-based travel and e-commerce technology solutions. He has also worked in sales and account management for more than 20 years, and focused on generating new revenue streams from non-traditional sources. He has worked for the NCR Corp, Red Roof Inns, the Cendant Corp, Travelport, and Optimer Brands.

Jeff earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the Ohio State University.

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Harold Sass

With a career devoted to cultivating relationships, Harold combines broad thinking with focused execution. The most successful teams in business combine the very best of creative, analytical and technical skills, and Harold is passionate about bringing these together. With the experience gained from senior leadership roles at Century Graphics, and 30 years of owning Anchor Press printing company, Harold’s background is a balance of technical, project management and marketing expertise that spans forty years.

Quick with observations and an ever-present sense of humor, he brings an innate curiosity and passion for sports and sports training. An energetic family man Harold has coached many sports teams from baseball to basketball and has built such a great relationship with his team members that he is still in contact with many of those athletes today.

A zealous fan needs an active life and Harold stays fit by training at his son’s sports training facility, SpeedDoctorz in Hilliard (OH). He also enjoys fishing, golf and speed-walking with his wife - while wearing their Quik Hands gloves, of course!

Harold is an Alumni of Columbus (OH) College of Art and Design.

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Jeff Duback
Sales/Marketing Athletics
Quik Hands

Jeff Duback has re-united with Quik Hands to head-up its Athletic sales and marketing division with a focus on growing revenue and profits in the soccer market.  Jeff comes to Quik Hands with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the sporting goods manufacturing and wholesale sector as well as assisting with company founder Dieter Thellmann in the development of the Quik Hands weighted keeper glove.

Jeff graduated from Yale University with a BA in Economics.  After his professional playing career in soccer, Jeff joined Umbro USA as the Product Manager, hard goods/accessories and helped that company increase revenue and profitability in that category including introducing the brands first complete GK glove range.  Since then, Jeff has specialized in the product development, sourcing, marketing and promotion and sales of various soccer products and brands including “now” well known brands as Select Soccer balls (introduced to USA by Jeff in 1998) and Sells GK Products (Introduced to USA by Jeff in 2004).  Jeff now has nearly 20 years experience running soccer companies and introducing products to the US and European sport market.

As an athlete, Jeff Duback earned a spot on the US Youth National Soccer Team in 1982 as the starting goalkeeper and played in FIFA’s Youth World Cup in Mexico – 1983. He then immediately jumped to the US National Team as one of only 3 players to make the move from the youth program to the senior program.  With the US National Team Jeff had a solid run of 7 years playing around the world with highlights including the 1988 US Olympic Soccer Team in Seoul, Korea and US World Cup Team 1990.  Jeff played 4 years at Yale University earning multiple collegiate awards including 2 time All American, Ivy League player of the year, Adidas GK of the Year and the coveted William McNealy award given to the Yale Athlete who is found to be the leader in sport, academics and community.  In 1990 Jeff was voted goalkeeper of the Decade 1980’s by the soccer coaches of America.

Jeff currently lives in Boston, MA and has been happily married for 21 years, with three kids.

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Brenda C. Buffington, M.S.
Exercise Physiologist
Quik Hands Advisory Board

Brenda is currently a "professional adjunct professor" for two local colleges, and a personal trainer while pursuing her doctorate.  The subjects she teaches range from Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Kinesiology, Exercise Physiology, Evaluation and Measurement of Human Performance to Organization Management For Health Fitness Promotion.  She attended the University of Pittsburgh where she competed in Cross Country and Indoor and Outdoor Track while earning her B.S. in Education. She taught and coached for two years and earned her Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology from West Virginia University.  She then got married, had two great boys, Luke and John (18 and 17 respectively), and taught and coached again for fifteen years in the high school setting.

On the personal side, Brenda loves spending time with her sons and a great "gentleman friend", running, water skiing, tubing, cycling, etc. Her favorite movie used to be Casablanca, then she updated a bit to The Jewel of the Nile. She has competed in three marathons (doesn't plan on ever doing another one), and numerous 5K road races.

Brenda has a passion for helping overweight and obese people loss weight and get healthy. She has conducted several retreats where she has worked out hard and learned a lot about bodies, and had massages to learn how to relax as well. She has seen the sad side of obesity with many adults. She is very driven to understand the effect that an educational component may have on the success of a weight loss program.

Brenda's goal is to be a full time faculty member in a college or university within the next two years. She has enjoyed the challenges and rigors of Argosy University's doctoral program thus far, and she has taught undergraduate students in a course titled Evaluation and Measurement of Human Performance. She looks forward to learning how to improve as a researcher and as a teacher.

Brenda was asked by Dieter to do research for Quik Hands. This has been important for her since her dissertation topic concerns studying the effect of an educational component in a weight loss program. She has the institution, the testing equipment, the participants, and the trainers! She is hopeful that all of these efforts will help her gain full-time employment as a faculty member at Otterbein College or some higher educational institution.