Business Pulse
Volume 29 • Number 1
January 2002

 

Cathy Buckley Keeps Bellingham Athletic Club on Cutting Edge

by Dyas A. Lawson

Call her the Proselytizer for Push-ups. The Evangelist for Exercise. Cathy Buckley smiles at the comparison, knowing that while the metaphor may be a bit outré, a true passion for fitness fuels it.

Buckley, owner of the Bellingham Athletic Club since 1997, has a whole different vision for BAC from the hard-body, iron-pumping stereotypes we so often see on television and in print-media ads. She sees fitness as functional, as integral to a healthy, balanced life, as just plain fun, and she wants the ordinary Joes and Janes in Bellingham and Whatcom County — people like you and me — to get into the game.

Toward that end, Buckley’s emphasis in the business is in cultivating a sense of family. Not only do the staff members greet you by name, not only do you get to know your teachers and trainers and assistants, but the fitness programs themselves are set up to accommodate families. Preschool programs, the Fit Kids and Sport Excel programs, classes and programs for adults and more aim to teach cradle-to-elder fitness as part of a healthy lifestyle.

“We want to capture the energy of our children and build a lifelong commitment to fitness,” says Buckley. “And we want to continue to provide a range of different things to do for all ages.

“We have at least four generations here,” she continues. “We have 35 or 40 members over 80 as well as programs for kids. People have literally grown up here, in this building. We always encourage families to do fitness activities together. If they come here together, they may do separate activities, but they come here together and interact before and afterwards.

“Our emphasis is on fitness. We’re not interested in the stereotype of iron-pumping. We’re about functional fitness: We want people to be able to move into the next stage of life and stay functional and active.” She points out that simply the facts of extended modern life almost require this; with people retiring at 65 or sooner and living to 90, they can’t spend 25 years sitting in a recliner watching TV.

All ages participate

As she talks, several moms bring in children and drop them off in the kids’ area before going to their own fitness class. Several elders, some with racquet in hand, duck into the dressing rooms. BAC’s membership, at 2,100 now, bears out Buckley’s description of demographics. And the membership increase, up from 1,300 when Buckley bought the business from Trillium Corp., testifies to the effectiveness of her vision. She says revenues have grown apace with membership, too.

Before purchasing the business, Buckley worked at BAC for Trillium for six years, four of those as operations manager. Employees at the club’s two locations now number 80.

Buckley came to the fitness field through swimming, her first love, and teaching, which followed closely. She learned to swim at 2. At 11, she recalls teaching to swim a neighbor whom she babysat. That may not sound like such a feat until you learn that the child had Down’s syndrome.

“It was the teaching aspect that brought me into this field,” Buckley confirms. She still swims, plays racquetball and soccer and stays in shape to ski.

“My impetus for working out is to keep water- and snow-skiing,” Buckley says. And she wants to help others maintain their own most-loved activities for as long as possible.

Another aspect of BAC’s success is its intermeshing with the medical community. With physical therapists and massage therapists on hand to help direct physician-prescribed therapy programs, Buckley’s aim is to keep those patients as active members once therapy is over.

Once insurance-paid sessions have expired and customers accomplished the goals their physician and therapist have set for them, she explains, they often leave the system because they have no guidance in what to do next to maintain and improve their physical status.

“We provide an easy transition from (physical therapy) to continuing fitness,” Buckley points out. People are already familiar and comfortable with the facility and the staff, they’re not intimidated by the idea of a “fitness club” and it’s easier for them to make the decision to keep up their membership.

Stay on the cutting edge

In that role, filling in the cracks for a seamless fitness experience, BAC strives to stay on the cutting edge. “We’re about five years ahead of the curve as regards functional fitness,” Buckley says, citing such things as the club’s balance classes for seniors. “Balance gets to be such an issue when we’re older because we never walk on anything but straight, even ground,” she points out. “When you’re little, you bounce from rock to log to whatever and don’t think anything of it. That’s because you’ve trained your balance. If you don’t use it, you lose that. It’s good to retrain yourself to have that balance. It helps prevent falls, which can be really dangerous for older people.”

In addition, Buckley and the staff keep up with medical developments. The club owns a portable defibrillator, purchased for $3,000. Buckley’s background in teaching CPR and first aid made that purchase decision a no-brainer; she knew that immediate care after a heart attack was critical.

“We do have a high-risk population in the club and the traffic on the Guide can be heavy. It’s important for a person in cardiac arrest to have CPR and shock therapy as soon as possible,” she avers.

On Dec. 20, 2000, the purchase proved itself. A gentleman had a cardiac arrest and, because the defibrillator unit was there and BAC personnel knew what to do, he lived to tell about it.

“It was terrific,” Buckley enthuses. “The EMTs and the doctors said he wouldn’t have lived if we hadn’t had (the defibrillator) here. That felt good; it was a good investment.”

She and the staff are aware, though, that fitness can be hard. You have to make the commitment to challenge your body on a regular basis. You have to actually go to the club and do your fitness program. It’s easy, as we all know, to give up, to give in to the “I don’t feel like its,” and a few of these can devastate your program.

Buckley’s solution is typical of her love for people and passion for what she does.

“We try to create an atmosphere that will make you feel good about coming in even on the days you don’t want to work out,” she says. “We’ve learned that there are some danger points — six weeks, four months, nine months — where people quit more easily. We don’t know why that happens; it may be physiological, it may not. But we try to give people additional encouragement and little ‘check-ups’ at those times to help them get over that spot. If we have you for a year, we’ve got you,” she adds with a smile.

Six-week wonders

The club sees a lot of the six-week dropouts in February. Buckley agrees that January, with its ever-hopeful New Year’s resolutions, is a big month in the fitness field. BAC usually sees about 20 percent more new members than usual. But half of those are gone by mid-February.

Retention is a big issue. That sense of family, comfort with the facility, and the encouragement and incremental challenge that Bellingham Athletic Club can offer are tailor-made to maximize retention.

In her tenure, Buckley has seen many fitness clubs come and go in Bellingham. Many BAC members were absorbed when those other clubs went out of business. It’s a highly competitive market, and Buckley says a big challenge is to change perceptions that a fitness-club membership is worth only $12-$19 a month.

“You can’t make it on that,” she remarks. “The clubs that emphasize that are the ones that go out of business. It’s been a challenge to get people to understand the real worth of a membership.

“The lower-priced clubs tend to be more sales driven; we really want people to use our facility,” Buckley continues. “We don’t have a contract, so you’re not locked in.”

Other ways BAC has branched out include working with the city and county parks departments to provide classes and facilities, working within the community and adopting such projects as Toys for Tots and the Arthritis Foundation as BAC “family” charities. It has an advisory board, a clearinghouse for exchanging ideas among members and staff. BAC works with Western Washington University on various studies and other items, also, as well as filling in the cracks between physical therapy and real life. A couple of staff members write fitness columns, too.

None of this is accidental. Buckley appears to be quite good at discerning the strengths of her business and playing to them.

“We stay with the things we’re really good at and don’t get spread too thin,” she says.

“Too thin” may have another meaning for BAC soon. Buckley says the facility is about full; she’s at a crossroads and must decide how to expand. Whether that will mean a new building, an expansion to the existing Cordata building, a third facility or something else, no one yet knows. But Buckley is certain of some things.

“We will continue to establish ourselves as the hometown club, emphasize our expertise and friendliness and availability,” she says. “We’ll continue to stay on the cutting edge with fitness developments such as functional fitness and balance. And we’ll continue to emphasize fitness for everyone, without the stereotype of pumping iron.”