A little background

Hard to believe it has been 6 months since I assumed the great role as LAC President. Time has flown by and I've learned quite a lot about the business side of a USA Swim team and about the personalities of the parents. The biggest source of my education comes from the simple conversations with parents at the club, at meets, quick emails, or walking to our cars in the parking lot.

I came to this role with +17yrs in the technology industry. I've held a variety of jobs ranging from working as a software developer in health care to managing technology at Sun Microsystems (now Oracle). The biggest difference is one group of people are paid through payroll (salary), while the other group of people are purely volunteers and motivated in other ways. The similarity being, we all have choices.

Personally, I chose to take on this role for many reasons - because I believe on Coach Alex's program, I believe that LAC families all share a common vision for their children and we make sacrifices every day for our children, and I believe I can advance the business side of LAC to the next level. This is a group of people I want to be a part of!

I spent a lot of time writing about our recent accomplishments with fund raising and events in my previous blog. You as parents have stepped up to exceed our fund raising goals and provided the board with tremendous support. For this I, and the board thank you!

We have great plans for LAC's future as we build our legacy. There are few areas where we will chose to focus on as we move the business side forward. Many of these, we have spoke about in the previous blog and parent meetings. And I'll expand on new areas in future blogs.

As we build our future together, I've been working with some mentors along the way. I often reach out to other swim team leaders to learn from them what works and doesn't work. I truly believe in learning from the successes and failures of others; with the best of intent, of course. I also meet once a month with a well respected director in the USA Swimming organization, Tom Avischious. Tom teaches USA business development and currently a Director of Field Services for USA Swimming. Tom's a great source of experience and knowledge about running the business side of an A-class team.  I look to coach Alex for all the wisdom he has with the swim program. I rely on my board to set the pace and keep us on the right track. And I look to the parents to give me real time input and open and honest input about the program.

Stay tuned for details from lat week's board meeting.

See you at the club,

Tom