Get to Know Our Staff: Nate Elder of Runde PreDriven

Nate Elder:  Manager of the Runde Reconditioning Department

Some people collect photographs to remember specific moments in their lives.

Nate Elder, reconditioning manager at Runde PreDriven, collects shoes. He has about 25 boxes of unopened shoes in his closet at home right now – some have been there for years.

“Each one has a story and a memory attached to it,” Nate said. “I have a pair that I bought in 2003, that’s one of my older pairs.”

He recently opened a pair of DC Pure XEs because he had worn out the DC Mikey Moes he had been wearing.

Working in the PreDriven washrack area means his shoes get dirty and wet – so he is very aware of that when choosing shoes.

“I went through the collection probably a half-dozen times to decide what I could wear for work,” he said.

The collection started when he was helping a friend move years ago who had stacks of Sketchers boxes full of shoes.

“He explained that he would buy back-up pairs of shoes so that when he wore them out, he had new ones,” Nate said. “That made a lot of sense to me.”

So Nate now does the same. He typically won’t wear a pair unless he has a back-up pair.

“It makes it easier for me to wear them, knowing I still have a pair that’s perfect,” he said.

Most of his collection is made up of DCs, Adidas, and Vans. He also has a pair of Ferrari Pumas with a story behind them.

“I’ve only worn those one time when I went to Las Vegas with my dad,” he said. “I got to drive a Ferrari 9 laps around the track.”

Nate says his friends and family sometimes give him a hard time about his passion for shoes, but he enjoys when he has a pair no one else does anymore.

“One time I had a pair of Dave Mirra Signature shoes and I walked into Reality Check and the guy behind the counter looked over and said ‘Are those Dave Mirras? They look brand new!’ I had just taken them out of the box. It validated this for me.”

When he is buying a pair of shoes, Nate said he is partial to blue, but he just decides based on what stands out to him.

“I could go two years without buying any shoes, or I could buy 1/2 dozen or more in one year,” he said. “It just depends on the styles that came out that year.”

Nate said he doesn’t purchase shoes to save and sell later.

“I plan on wearing them all eventually,” he said. “At this point, I might be 70 putting on a brand new pair of DCs.”