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An Active Office

Standing desks are standard at many local companies.

Since COVID-19 swept across the globe, many industries have shifted to fully remote or hybrid working. During the pandemic, 70% of the workforce was working from home, and since then, 62% of companies have planned to incorporate remote work, be it fully remote or hybrid.

With more and more people working from the comfort of their own home, concerns have arisen that this model may be associated with more sedentary lifestyles and, in turn, increased risk of obesity. Most of our calories throughout the day are burned through non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which includes walking and other basic activities. When working from home, sometimes those activities can be even more limited.

Here are a few ideas from online fitness resource Total Shape to stay fit even while working from home.

Standing Desk ($150-$600)

Standing desks have gained popularity over the last few years and have been proven to provide many positive health benefits. Simply put, standing burns more calories than sitting, even if you simply stand still. Research has also shown that 66% of workers felt more productive, and 87% felt more energized, using standing desks. Standing activates the muscles in your legs and core while stimulating circulation, which can help you to burn extra calories (typically 60 to 90 per hour) and build your strength. Standing desks come in a range of styles and cater to many different budgets, meaning this is an accessible option for all.

Desk Treadmill ($200-$800)

Although it is a more expensive option, this is one of the most effective ways to stay fit while working at home. It essentially takes the standing desk a step further by adding the walking element. Studies have shown that walking between 1 and 2.5 mph can lead to an extra 170 to 240 calories burned per hour. Not only have people encountered the physical benefits of getting more exercise, but walking helps oxygenate the brain by stimulating blood circulation. In other words, we think better and more efficiently when we walk. With most people having busy schedules outside of work, it can be difficult to get the recommended amount of physical exercise, which makes this a great way to stay fit while working from home.

Under-desk Bike ($50-$200)

A very similar concept to the desk treadmill, an under-desk bike features a small set of pedals that can slide under your desk so that you can pedal while sitting. The small machines can be altered to have more resistance, which makes it harder or easier to pedal. This type of aerobic exercise is good for staying fit and can help strengthen your legs and joints. Studies estimate that pedaling while seated can burn up to 10 calories per minute, depending on the intensity, which means you could burn up to 600 calories per hour. However, the average gentle pedaling will most likely burn 100 to 300 calories per hour.

Resistance Bands ($15-$40)

Resistance bands are an affordable option to help train your body and get fitter, by helping you build muscle and burn calories (180 to 250 per hour) while seated at your desk. You can perform plenty of passive resistance-band workouts even when you’re doing something at your desk, and in between typing and during brainstorming sessions, your body can keep active alongside your mind. Exercises could include bicep curls, overhead tricep extensions, and shoulder raises. However, there are many variations and other exercises that can be done with resistance bands. A study published in 2022 showed that resistance-band training lowers body fat in people who are overweight better than other forms of training, including free weights and body-weight exercises.

Seven-minute Workout

Searching ‘seven-minute workout’ on an app store will reveal an app that will guide you through various workouts you can do in your own home, which take just seven minutes at a time. The best thing about the seven-minute workout app is that its programs are designed especially for people who are doing the workouts at home, and who have no special equipment. The brief nature of these workouts allows people with busy schedules to fit in exercise and can help break up your workday, which can increase productivity while burning 20 to 50 calories per session. While there are some in-app purchases available, you can use the app completely free, so there’s nothing stopping you from getting started.

Diet

Exercise and living an active lifestyle are obviously important in staying fit and healthy; however, diet is a key contributor to overall health and fitness. People with few distractions at home may find they are more aware of hunger than they would be at the workplace, which can lead to more snacking and possibly an unhealthier diet. By focusing on eating healthy foods and healthy snacks, people who work from home can ensure they are staying fit and keeping their bodies healthy. Studies show that both the overall composition of the human diet and specific dietary components have been shown to have an impact on brain function, which means diet isn’t only going to keep you fit, but it’s going to improve cognitive function, and thus the quality of work produced.

Why It’s Important

A spokesperson from Total Shape noted that “roughly two in three people in the U.S. are overweight, and with many aspects of life becoming more sedentary, it’s important that people try to find new ways to keep fit and healthy. Life has become busy and more expensive, meaning that it’s harder to find the time and money to attend gyms or activities that help us to remain fit. This guide provides a plethora of choices for people on various budgets and with specific preferences to ensure we are keeping ourselves healthy.”

Total Shape is a fitness resource site providing information about workouts, supplements, and fitness to help people reach your goals. Total Shape does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Economic Outlook

Fitness

For a year and a half after F45 Training Hampshire Meadows opened in Hadley, owner Danny Deane knew what members wanted — to get fit, sure, but also to cultivate a sense of family and community with their fellow goal-setters.

“We were sharing equipment, people were shoulder to shoulder, giving sweaty high fives,” he said, noting that none of that has been possible since the pandemic began.

Danny and Jessye Deane, owners of two local F45 Training franchises.

Danny and Jessye Deane, owners of two local F45 Training franchises.

In fact, the fitness center, like all others in this industry, closed its doors for almost four months, a casualty of Gov. Charlie Baker’s sweeping lockdowns in March, following by a slow, gradual, phased approach to reopening — during which time F45 launched online programs and later ran outdoor boot camps before getting the all-clear to invite members back inside.

These days, the Hadley facility — and a second F45 location Deane and his wife, Jessye, opened in West Springfield over the summer — have implemented a series of strict safety protocols, from reducing session sizes and mandating masks to requiring everyone to sanitize, pass a temperature check upon entry, and even change shoes; from reformatting space for physical distancing and barring shared equipment to sanitizing all surfaces, floors, and equipment every 45 minutes. Both studios — and their HVAC systems — have been fitted with the hospital-grade PermaSAFE disinfectant and antimicrobial system and are electrostatically fogged weekly.

The result? Out of 20,027 member visits since July, the two studios have been responsible for exactly zero transmissions of COVID-19.

“Making health everyone’s priority is really why we opened this,” Danny said, which is why he and Jessye considered CDC and state safety recommendations and not only met, but exceeded them, at both locations.

It’s certainly a bold move to expand during a pandemic, especially in an industry as hard-hit as this one by COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns and restrictions.

“The industry is hurting, significantly,” Danny said. “We say failure is never an option for us, but for the majority of fitness in the United States, it is certainly an option.”

Indeed, while most fitness centers say they’re hanging on, many have shut their doors permanently. The most recent capacity rollback in Massachusetts, to 25%, isn’t helping matters for an industry whose leaders have consistently maintained they’re not the problem when it comes to spreading COVID-19.

“These setbacks are crushing,” said Frank Nash, president of Massachusetts Independent Fitness Operators, noting that the industry’s rigid safety measures have resulted in a less than .000034% positivity rate in more than 1.3 million check-ins. “Our industry has collectively spent hundreds of thousands of dollars outfitting studios with ventilation equipment, social-distancing measures, employing robust cleaning procedures, and instituting contact tracing, and it’s working.”

Jessye Deane agreed. “The data shows gyms are not breeding grounds for transmission, and we’ve certainly seen that,” she said, adding that industry stresses go beyond government mandates; some people simply don’t want to return yet, while others, due to economic strain, have had to cut certain things out of their household budgets, fitness memberships among them.

Yet, many gyms and fitness centers are taking lessons from the pandemic and plan to expand upon innovations introduced this year, such as virtual classes.

“We thought COVID-19 was a catastrophic event for our industry, but — although challenging — it has turned into a transformative event,” said Kevin Mannion, vice president of Marketing at Glofox, a consulting firm for the international fitness industry. “Less than a week after most countries went into lockdown, we noticed that gyms everywhere were organically starting to run online classes through Zoom, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Some larger operators were able to offer classes free on their social-media channels, while at the same time developing a paid online service that could reach people the world over.”

For gyms that are moving forward with in-person activity, the safety measures are critical, Danny Deane said. At a time when Baker is rolling back indoor capacity limits and tightening safety mandates due to the recent viral spike, “we’ve had all this set in stone from the get-go, so we don’t have to all of a sudden introduce masks or reduce capacity. We’ve been on point the whole time.”

Added Jessye, “there’s no reason for us not to be as safe as possible. We have members who have compromised immune systems. We have members who have elderly parents. It’s really important to us that we’re protecting all our members — our F45 family, and all their families.

“This is hard,” she said, gesturing at a safely distanced group workout going on behind her. “It’s even harder with a mask. But people have adapted, and it’s been really impressive to see the way our members have been committed to us and stuck by us — because we would not be able to get through this without them.”

Not only has the business survived, but, as noted, it expanded. When the Deanes decided last year to open a second location in West Springfield, called F45 Training Riverdale, the pandemic was months away from anyone’s radar.

When COVID-19 did appear, “did we ever think about turning the other way?” Danny said. “No, absolutely not. It was full steam ahead, always.”

Jessye called it a “burn the boats” move. “We will always adapt, and we’re committed to the people we serve because we’ve seen how it changes lives,” she said. “Every worry has been worth it. We’re giving people years on their lives. We’re not here so people can have abs. Abs are great, don’t get me wrong, but we really want people to live longer and move better. So there was no way we were going to turn our back on that.”

Of course, the planned April opening on Riverdale Street wasn’t going to happen, but they did go ahead with a grand-opening event of sorts: a virtual workout fundraiser to support local healthcare heroes, with all proceeds donated to Baystate Health. The new facility opened its doors to members four months later, in August.

The fitness centers that survive 2020 will have to make their own decisions about how much programming to offer in-person and virtually going forward. As Mannion noted, “COVID-19 accelerated a trend of at-home workouts, and businesses have been forced to respond … The fitness businesses of the future realize they need to be adaptable and offer both in-person and virtual workouts in order to prevent shocks and to cater to the evolving needs of the consumer.”

Still, Jessye Deane said she’s looking to the days when they can once again pack in members at their two physical locations.

“This isn’t the business model we signed up for,” she said of the much-less-crowded studios these days. “I don’t think it’s the business model anyone signed up for. But we wouldn’t be operational at all if we weren’t positive we could offer a safe environment.”

However, they’re both optimistic about what will happen in 2021, as mandates fade and people realize they miss working out together.

“We have done a significant job growing through this, but there’s still a significant pool to tap into once the restrictions are lifted,” Danny said. “I’m really excited to see both facilities back at full capacity.”

 

—Joseph Bednar

Sports & Leisure

The Shape of Things

Anna Dichner and Steve Tryon

Anna Dichner and Steve Tryon are currently the only two trainers at Body Fit Warehouse, teaching about 40 classes a week, focusing on body-weight exercises.

When a person thinks of ‘working out,’ what typically comes to mind first are the grueling physical challenges the body goes through.

However, Steve Tryon says many personal trainers at gyms today are missing a key piece of the puzzle: the mental and spiritual side of training.

This is what he and co-owner Anna Dichner try to bring to Body Fit Warehouse, a holistic lifestyle and fitness gym in Southwick.

When Tryon first started working at the gym years ago, he had no idea he would one day be buying and co-owning the facility with Dichner, his girlfriend he met seven years ago. The two have since completely transformed their own values, which they remember every day in order to give members the best training possible.

“We rebuilt the whole foundation from scratch to show people that it’s not about how you look, it’s not about how strong you are… it’s about everything else you’re able to do in the rest of your life,” said Tryon, adding that, when the couple bought the gym in February 2018, there were a lot of things that needed to be changed. “The trainers and other practitioners that were here, they weren’t looking at things from a holistic standpoint.”

He’s talking about the importance of addressing what is going on inside people’s minds before the body gets to work.

Dichner added that a key element to how successful they have been with the business so far is how they approach identifying what may be going on in a person’s life outside of the gym, and how they can help fix the problem.

“I always ask every one of my clients, ‘how was your day?’ or ‘how are you feeling?’ because that will dictate the workout and the type of session we’re going to have,” she said.

Tryon and Dichner are the only two trainers in the gym, with 130 regular members paying a monthly fee and 40 to 50 people going through classes each week. Even with this high volume, the two manage to spend one-on-one time with a significant number of their members, while still keeping their focus on supporting a holistic lifestyle for each individual who walks through the door.

More Than Muscle Power

Using an individual approach like the one Tryon and Dichner describe sounds like it might break the bank, but the gym gives members and visitors plenty of options when it comes to finding the right fit for them.

“When we came in, we established right off the bat that we’re going to bring a loving atmosphere to the place to show people that we’re about growth,” said Tryon, adding that he will custom-match anyone who comes through the door. “If you have $5, I’ll train you for $5. We don’t care about how much money you pay, we don’t care about how much you’re capable of or this or that. We just want to show you that we want to grow with you, not just train you and make money from you.”

The 24/7 facility offers a no-contract membership, which means people can pay on a month-to-month basis for a rate of $24.95. The gym also allows drop-ins for $10 a class, and $5 simply to use the facility. The two run about 20 group training sessions a week, and these are not your average gym classes.

Dichner says how many people show up and what kind of energy they give off during the warm-up dictates the type of movements they will do for the day, adding that it is very difficult to plan workouts in advance when she doesn’t know how members will be feeling when they walk through the door.

“We don’t stick to any strict guidelines,” she said. “The holistic practice is, we have to take everything into consideration. If one thing is off, everything is off.”

This “structureless” system, as Tryon calls it, allows the trainers to assess how someone is feeling right off the bat, giving them the ability to create the best training session as possible.

And he says the results are astounding.

The two explained that they have completely different training styles, giving members more options when it comes to choosing how they want to approach a workout.

Both Dichner and Tryon are certified personal trainers, but they credit their ability to get results not to their certifications, but to the experiences they’ve gained throughout their lives. In fact, Dichner says she hardly remembers anything from her certification.

“Once I started training myself and going through trial and error, that’s when I learned the most,” she said. “There’s so much that you learn through hands-on experience.”

Attribute Adjustment

This experience has led to a facility with a completely different mindset about fitness, and Dichner and Tryon have big plans for the future.

“We want to bring it to its full potential,” said Dichner, adding that she hopes they can one day open a much bigger facility with fields and other elements. “The vision keeps changing.”

For now, the couple say helping people grow is the best part of their business. The excitement of not knowing what’s going to happen next helps them stick to their values and continue to give people the best training possible.

“I love seeing people’s attitudes and mindsets change through the training and me helping them,” said Dichner.

“We’re really just enjoying the ride, without a doubt,” added Tryon. “We took it from a gym to a garden.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Features

Focused on Fiscal Fitness

Last fall, while Dexter Johnson was making up his mind to take the job being offered him — president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Springfield — a few friends and relatives had a simple five-word question for him: ‘Are you sure about this?”

He was — and is.

But he acknowledged then and now that those asking the question had every right to do so.

That’s because this YMCA, though steeped in history and tradition (it is the fourth oldest Y in the world, after all), like a number of other Ys across the country, has been struggling financially as it adjusts to a host of changes impacting the traditional Y business model, if you will.

These struggles are nothing new — they’ve been going on … well, for as long as most can remember. And a path to more-solid footing seems as elusive as ever.

But Johnson, who has been working for this YMCA for several years now and within the organization for more than two decades — and is therefore known as a ‘Y guy’ — decided that this was a challenge to embrace, not run away from.

And he’s never had any second thoughts.

But Johnson understands that the Springfield Y’s path to fiscal fitness will be challenging and, undoubtedly, lengthy. In short, some progress has been made, but there is still considerable work to do.

“This Y has operated with an operating deficit for a number of years now, “ he noted, adding that the organization has refinanced debt, tapped into its endowment, and taken other steps to cope with the red ink. “And we have to look at what our opportunities are to turn that around; our focus right now has been to get operations to a point where they’re approaching break-even status or creating a surplus. We’re doing better this year than we were last year, but we have a ways to go.”

The Springfield Y, like many others, has generally struggled in recent years due to a variety of factors, including changing demographics in urban centers and a proliferation of competition — there is seemingly a gym or two on every corner now.

But the difficult times have been exacerbated by some missteps, especially the opening of a branch in a strip mall in the center of Agawam. Attempting to duplicate the success of the Y’s Scantic Valley operation on Boston Road in Wilbraham, and armed with some data that said the venture could work (although there were some numbers that indicated otherwise) the center was opened in 2015.

“This Y has operated with an operating deficit for a number of years now. And we have to look at what our opportunities are to turn that around; our focus right now has been to get operations to a point where they’re approaching break-even status or creating a surplus. We’re doing better this year than we were last year, but we have a ways to go.”

But the ‘Y’ sign would come down only 18 months or so later, as the expected memberships never materialized.

“Looking back, that was just a mistake in judgment,” Johnson said. “After a year and a half of trying and making those efforts, we were losing significantly there to serve a really small population, so we decided to take the loss, which was painful, and move on.”

Moving forward, the Y will seek to avoid such mistakes and be more calculated in its attempts to be both entrepreneurial and fiscally prudent, said Johnson.

The key, he told BusinessWest, is to firmly identify the role this Y can play and must play in the years and decades to come. Not all YMCAs play the same role, he went on, especially given the demographic and societal changes taking place.

At the Springfield Y, for example, 60% of all revenues come from child care, with the health and wellness components contributing only 30%.

All this is explained, sort of, in new wording on the front of Johnson’s business card and in other marketing material used by the organization. Specifically, there are three new lines under the huge ‘Y’:

• For Youth Development

• For Healthy Living

• For Social Responsibility

Individual YMCAs can focus on one, two, or all three, he went on, but mostly, they have to mold themselves into what the region being served requires and what will ultimately work fiscally.

“The Y becomes what that community needs,” said Johnson. “If the community needs childcare and doesn’t need health and wellness, then we’re glad to provide that; or it could be health and wellness that goes well beyond treadmills.”

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Johnson about this process of becoming what the community needs while also putting the Y on more solid financial footing.

Sign of the Times

On the day he spoke with BusinessWest, work crews were busy taking the old ‘Y’ logo off the side of the YMCA building on Chestnut St., a move undertaken in accordance with a national initiative to rebrand the institution and bring more consistency to the letter ‘Y’ used by individual YMCAs. A new sign will be going up “soon,” said Johnson.

Dexter Johnson is the latest of several leaders of the YMCA of Greater Springfield

Dexter Johnson is the latest of several leaders of the YMCA of Greater Springfield to grapple with the question of what to do with the aging facility on Chestnut Street.

“They give us color options, but there is a change in the logo,” he explained, noting that the new ‘Y’ (as in the letter on the letterhead) is more rounded in its look. “All the Ys throughout the country had kind of gone out on their own and come up with all kinds of different logos, and back in 2010 the national office said ‘enough’s enough, and we need to get back to being nationally identifiable.’”

There was more than a little symbolism attached to the exercise of taking the old ‘Y’ off the building. For starters, the Springfield Y missed the seven-year deadline to rebrand set by the national organization by a wide margin, an obvious symptom of its fiscal struggles. There’s also the poetic juxtaposition of giving the letter ‘Y’ a new look, while the staff and board and of the Springfield institution have been attempting to reinvigorate the local YMCA brand on a much broader scale.

And then, there’s the physical act of taking the letter off that building. Indeed, there are a number of questions about just how much longer the more-than-half-century-old structure will continue to serve in that capacity, and in what shape and form (much more on all that later).

Like we said, quite a bit of symbolism, and sorting it all out goes a long way toward explaining the challenges Johnson faces, but also the determination and passion he brings to his work.

And with that, we need to trace the steps that brought him to Springfield and his current assignment.

Our story starts in Tampa, Fla. That’s where Johnson attended a satellite campus of Springfield College, renowned for producing future YMCA leaders, and where he began amassing experience in virtually every facet of a YMCA operation, a diverse resume he believes is serving him well at this critical stage of his career. It’s also where he worked with Kirk Smith (he actually was Smith’s supervisor), who would eventually become director of the Springfield Y and convince Johnson to join him there.

“The Y becomes what that community needs. If the community needs childcare and doesn’t need health and wellness, then we’re glad to provide that; or it could be health and wellness that goes well beyond treadmills.”

“I was going to school to be a teacher and just went to the Y to work with some kids and get some experience, and 26 years later, I’m still here,” he said, noting that he started as director of the Child Care Services/Outreach program at the Tampa Metropolitan Area YMCA. He would later go on to direct the Youth Opportunity Movement program there and then become executive director.

After then serving as a district executive in Tampa and as a regional training manager at YMCA of the USA in Chicago, he joined Smith in Springfield as senior vice president and chief operating officer.

“I was ready to get back into the operational side of the Y and decided Springfield was the move,” he told BusinessWest.

When Smith left for another opportunity in Florida, Johnson was named interim president and CEO, but the permanent job eventually went to Scott Berg, then associate vice president of Development at Springfield College and a key player in the opening of the Scantic Valley YMCA.

When Berg left less than two years later to become vice president of Philanthropy at Baystate Health, Johnson was quickly named his successor.

He takes over a Y that, as noted, is steeped in tradition (it dates back to 1852). But recent history has been marked by fiscal struggles and hard work to adapt to a changing landscape. And as Johnson addresses the many challenges facing him and the team he’s assembled, he plans to call on the many forms of experience he amassed.

“I definitely learned some valuable lessons during that time when I was interim president,” he noted. “But now that I’m in the permanent job, I’m definitely calling on all resources. During my time with Y USA I had the chance to make some great connections, and I have a number of CEOs and other leaders at Ys to give me counsel and help me through some of the challenges we have here.

“Nothing’s new when it comes to problems — they’ve all happened somewhere at some time before,” he went on. “So we’ll try to gain some advantage by learning from those experiences.”

Building Momentum

And an advantage will be helpful, because righting the fiscal ship has been an ongoing challenge, not just for this Y, but for facilities across the country, especially urban Ys; one in Pittsburgh recently filed for bankruptcy, said Johnson.

Specifically, the age-old challenge is generating revenues to meet and hopefully exceed expenses. In Springfield, the problem has been exacerbated by the downtown branch, an aging building that is expensive to maintain, and a facility that has seen its health and wellness membership numbers fall 40% over the past decade.

Creating the Scantic Valley Y has helped the Y cope with the rising costs and falling revenues downtown, and the Agawam facility was conceived with similar ambitions; however it need did not match expectations.

Moving forward, the Y has to implement a long-term strategic plan for its downtown branch, and the operation as a whole, with the goal of making it become what the community needs.

Such a plan was drafted during Berg’s tenure, Johnson said, and, not surprisingly, its main focus was the downtown location — meaning both the building and the various programs housed there — and on devising actions plans for both.

As for the property itself, the Y sold the 40,000-square-foot residential component of it (the tower that faces Chestnut Street) to Home City Development, and still owns what’s left in what amounts to a condominium-like arrangement. But that portion it still owns is large, old, in many cases under-utilized, and in all cases expensive to operate and maintain.

Talk of a ‘new Y’ has been ongoing for years, said Johnson, noting that several of his predecessors have grappled with the issue and its myriad complexities, especially the cost of a new building.

Rumors have persisted, and one very preliminary proposal — to move to a closed car dealership site on Boston Road — made its way into the newspapers. “There’s still people that ask me … what happened to the Boston Road thing?” said Johnson.

Nothing happened with it, and nothing has really happened with any of the other rumored options, he went on, adding quickly, however, that the issue is real and a solution must eventually be found — and inevitably much closer to downtown than Boston Road.

At present — and on an ongoing basis — a variety of options are being looked at, he told BusinessWest, including leasing space instead of owning it (the new owners of Tower Square have reached out, for example), extensively renovating the existing quarters, or eventually moving into much smaller, more efficient quarters.

“We probably have about 70,000 square feet, and we don’t need all that space quite frankly,” he said. “We have a whole racquet ball floor, and no one goes up there, really; if we decide to renovate and use this space, we would make it a smaller environment; 50,000 square would probably be more the right size to support the membership we have here.”

Building a new Y building is the long-term strategy, he said, adding that such a step would require significant fund-raising efforts and other steps. Shorter term, renting space might become an option, he went on, adding that there are pros and cons to any new location, temporary or permanent.

As for growing the Y, in terms of everything from its revenues to its presence within the community to its overall relevance, Johnson said the key, as it has always been, lies in partnerships with other groups and agencies across the city and the region.

“I’m looking to be a partner and be a part of any partnership that fits our mission, and that effectively serves this community,” he told BusinessWest. “We’ve had some great partnerships with the Springfield Public Schools, the United Way, the Martin Luther King Family Center, and right now, we’re doing a multi-agency youth basketball league that is going gangbusters.

“We probably have about 70,000 square feet, and we don’t need all that space quite frankly,.We have a whole racquet ball floor, and no one goes up there, really; if we decide to renovate and use this space, we would make it a smaller environment; 50,000 square would probably be more the right size to support the membership we have here.”

“To me, no agency can do it all,” he went on. “It has to be a collaborative effort, and I want to make sure that our Y is established as a strong community partner, whether that’s leading a collaboration or being a functional part of the collaboration.”

The Bottom Line

Not long after taking over as president and CEO on a permanent basis, Johnson reached out to Steve Clay, who filled that same role two decades ago.

And faced pretty much the same fiscal challenges two decades ago.

Indeed, Johnson’s talk with Clay helped put some things in perspective and provide him still more resolve to become the leader to put this venerable institution on something approaching solid financial footing.

As noted, some might have asked him if he was sure about this career, but deep down, there was no question in his mind.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]