By John Halbrooks
Shoulders
new platforms allow clubs to deliver value to their mem- bers even when those members aren’t in the club. “We know what it takes to get members excited about programs and how to roll them out,” she says. “We know how to put a spotlight on them. We know how to connect with members and address their needs.” They know because they used to own a club. They know how clubs work. The business is in their blood.
WHAT ENTREPRENEURS DO Katherine grew up in Little Rock. After earning her
master’s degree in health fitness management, she returned home to help her family with the conversion of a tennis club into a large multisport center. With the assistance of the late Bill Grantham, the general man- ager of the Cooper Aerobic Centers in Dallas, the family opened its first facility, the Little Rock Athletic Club (LRAC), in 1988. Today, Katherine’s brother, Pat Riley, Jr., owns four clubs in the city.
In 1988, Katherine, who was then a personal trainer and fitness instructor, married Bob, who had recently left the securities industry and joined her family’s business to help it open LRAC. With their fitness backgrounds, the young couple dreamed of moving to northwest Arkansas to own and operate their own health club. In 1995, Bob began drafting a business plan that, in 1996, resulted in their purchasing the Fayetteville Athletic Club (FAC).
“Raising the capital and borrowing money to buy the FAC,” Bob recalls, “was the hardest work I’d ever done.” The Shoulders had apparently chosen well. FAC was originally a 60,000-square-foot fitness facility, situated in a single two-story building, with 1,200 members. It was located in the bustling northwest corner of the state, which was home to the University of Arkansas and three Fortune 500 company headquarters—Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt Transport.
Over six years, the Shoulders expanded the club with new pools, leased space for a physical-therapy firm, and other improvements, but, by 2003, they were feeling the pressure to expand further: After all, that’s what entrepreneurs do. That’s what business is all about. If a business doesn’t grow, it stagnates. If it doesn’t expand and offer customers what they want, they’ll find clubs that will.
A MASTER PLAN
The Shoulders’ master plan called for the construction of a new tennis center, restaurant, and a new kids’ center. The tennis component would include six courts, three on each side of a new two-story building, which would feature an 1,800-square-foot restaurant and a 1,200-square- foot pro shop on the first floor, plus a 3,000-square-foot observation deck upstairs. There, members and guests could hold parties and watch tennis matches below.
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ihrsa.org | NOVEMBER 2011 | Club Business Internat ional 43
Katherine and Bob Shoulders
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