1. Where did you grow up? Ann: Born and raised in Springdale, AR Graduate of Springdale High School and University of Arkansas
2. If not from NWA - what brought you here? Ann: 8 generations of my family are from either Benton or Washington Counties.
3. Marital status, spouse’s name and children's names? Ann: Married 26 years to Marty Gallaher. Two children Bannon - 21 yo Jr. at University of Arkansas College of Education; Jessie 16 yo Jr at Har-Ber High School and Tennis Star!
4. What do you do for recreation/relaxation/hobbies? Ann: Anything outdoors (hiking, biking, camping, fishing, swimming, kayaking, canoeing, and playing with my 3 dogs, cat and rabbit)
5. Do you play tennis? Ann: Not very well, but love to watch my daughter. She has taken lessons from Taylor for 3 years.
6. If you were a FAC Member before taking the job as FAC General Manager, what attracted you to being a member? Ann: yes, I joined in 2009.
7. Generally what is your duties and responsibilities as FAC General Manager? Ann: Primarily budgets, capital improvement projects, and personnel matters.
8. What do you like most about your current job? Ann: the people are the best. I love to see their growth and development over time. What do you dislike? mean people
9. What is your favorite NWA restaurant and why? Ann: Greenhouse Grill everything is fresh and delicious!
10. If you could have dinner with a famous person - dead or alive - who would it be and why? Ann: Jesus Christ for obvious reasons
11. What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you? Ann: I drive a 10 year old Jeep with manual windows and locks
12. When I was 10, I wanted to be…Ann: a nurse
13. Favorite movie …. Ann: To Kill a Mocking Bird
14. The person I most admire is: Ann: my Mother and Grandmother because of the way they have overcome adversity in their lives
15. The last book I read was I can't remember. Ann: I don't have time for pleasure reading… ugh!
16. The guests at my fantasy dinner party would be … Ann: my entire family from generations past to present
17. I ‘ve been fortunate to live a..... "charmed" life.
(Format below is now narrative vice quotes by Ann as found above)
18. Who are the new owners of FAC? The owners are a conglomerate investor group who bought a bundle of notes and FAC was in that bundle.
19. How do you see the investors involvement in FAC? The investors have taken a supportive role rather than taking a direct involvement or hands on role in the management and operation of FAC. The investors are very supportive financially and are willing to give us the tools and resources to make FAC better. The investors have hired a 30 year veteran of fitness club management as a consultant who is directly involved with Ann and her management team. Club members can rest assured the club is in capable hands. The owners have already supported FAC with capital improvement money that will fund a number of large improvement projects throughout FAC. We just bought $750,000 new equipment that will replace almost all the workout equipment on the 2nd floor of the gym area. The Tennis Center is getting an entirely new roof to fix the leaking that has plagued the Tennis Center for years. Also the Tennis center will get new tiles / flooring. Ann wishes she had a way to expand the tennis center to provide more room but there is no room to expand with the current structure. The only option is to take over old Camille’s – which is not out of the question. Ann is currently working with a realtor to find the right tenant for Camille’s– but no takers yet. Ann realizes the need is to get the right ternate which will have the right menu options and similar hours as the tennis center. If a tenant cannot be found for the Camille’s area, one of many options is to make it FAC’s own special events catering kitchen. Ann realizes that her team has their work cut out for them since normal maintenance has been deferred for a number of years. Ann and her team has a number of big maintenance items scheduled and if the our members can be patient, Ann’s goal is to make the Tennis Center nice again. She doesn’t want to just get caught up on maintenance, she wants to get ahead of the maintenance cycle – and it will take time.
20. Tell us about your FAC Management Team: Ann’s management team consists of 8 members: William Prince who is Assistant GM (former football star at Mississippi State who Ann asks if all members can help teach him how to call the Hogs!). Monika Wiederkehr is Child Care Director, Stephanie Liles is Office Manager/hr Director, Mica Mitchell is Group Fitness Director, Virginia Kelsey is Personal Fitness Director, Taylor Dodds is Head Tennis Pro, Rob Clark is Maintenance Director and the Aquatics Director is open.
21. How should a tennis member submit a suggestion, compliant or recommendation to FAC Management? Ann said there are ‘comment cards’ which are probably the best, easiest and most effective way to forward a complaint, comment or suggestion to her. Ann reads all comment card personally and takes the comments seriously. Ann made a note to ensure these ‘comment cards’ are also placed in the tennis center.
22. Where does the Tennis Center fit into the whole FAC enterprise? The Tennis Center is a huge component of FAC, like a spoke in the wheel, each of FAC’s Centers makes up the whole. There is not one center more important than another. And Ann would like to ensure that the Tennis members, though the tennis center is remote in terms of distance from the club – Tennis is critical to success of FAC as a whole and she wants to make sure tennis members are happy.
23. What do you see as the issues and opportunities facing the Tennis Center? Ann said she is a ‘block and tackle’ girl – first taking on the fundamentals of the business which are the structures. Some fundamental type things which are primary for her are: repairing tennis center roof, tennis center flooring, putting up the bubble and ensuring minimum interruption of service to the members, etc – these are the type of operational concerns she knows they have to do properly. Ann mentioned the many other non structural items such as: when she walks out of the tennis center going toward the pool on a rainy day there is a large puddle of water because the side walk is too low – those are the types of things she see’s and wants to fix after the primary items are addressed.
24. What are the opportunities facing the Tennis Center? “Wow – when I think of the tennis center, I just think about the great people at the tennis center. I have never been over there when there wasn’t a real positive energy – what an upbeat group of members”. Tennis Center members have put up less than the best for so long without complaint - and that stupid broken couch. The things that the folks at the tennis center endure and put up with and haven’t even complained about. Those stupid tennis carts that the pro’s use which has only 3 wheels – can’t we do better than that old beat up couch and 3 wheel carts? Some current big opportunities for the tennis center: we have two new pro’s coming on board; Chris Cash who will be working with the Junior Tennis Development, Keith Heinz, another tennis pro, coming in from Tulsa in the middle of October. We have a huge opportunity developing our Junior Tennis Program so our kids have the same tennis skill development opportunities earlier as other have like in Ft. Smith, Bentonville, Little Rock, etc. We have to start kids in tennis at an earlier age so they are better positioned to develop a life long love of tennis, become better fit and for those youth who pursue tennis competitively – we want them able to compete for sports scholarships. FAC as a whole faces the same opportunity – to help get kids healthier at a younger age. We are hiring trainers now to develop these kind of programs for that age group, age 13 to 18, which often is being overlooked by fitness clubs. We have a number of initiatives being rolled out that will focus on getting that young age group more involved in fitness.
25. Taylor and Bobby just returned from a USPTA (US Professional Tennis Association) World Conference at Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa – was this a FAC management imitative? This was a mutual initiative by FAC, Taylor and Bobby. FAC paid for the whole trip and was part of FAC’s continuing education program required of our Pro’s by FAC. As we do with every training conference, we expect the participants to write a recap report which summarizes what they learned and what we can apply to FAC and the other centers. We will be using their written recap to help all our centers and learn from the best practices discussed at this conference.
26. Is there an ideal or ‘break even’ number of tennis memberships and is there a target court utilization %? I am sure there probably is, I don’t know if we ever had it, and I don’t know what it is right now. I know at some point, if we have too many members and if the courts become unavailable available to our tennis members – that would be a problem which we would have to address.
27. We asked out FAC Tennis Network Facebook members what questions they’d like to ask you during this interview:
28. There is no room to change in the Tennis Center or try on clothes: Not only is there not changing room but we don’t have lockers and Ann sees it is an inconvenience for tennis players to walk over to the gym to use the lockers. Again, the issue is the limited available space in the current tennis center building. Ann will continue taking any tennis member input on this an all issues and will continue trying to find solutions.
29. Why can’t FAC have court side tennis benches with shade: Ann has, instead of the simple court benches, she has bench cabana’s (like WLFC) earmarked for our capital improvements for 2012.
30. Early Morning Cardio for those that work: Ann welcomed the idea and recommendation and briefly asked about what would be an ideal time or number of days per week and asks that we continue this dialog about early morning cardio and determine possible days of the week, ideal times and who would be interested in participating.
31. Many Tennis Members question why they have to play a full FAC gym membership plus the tennis add-on fee when they never use the gym or pool. Why couldn’t there be a Tennis Only membership? Ann was very open to investigate this option. We discussed various challenges such as ‘how do you execute a tennis only membership without being a policeman’ without having gates, scanning devices at every entry; into tennis, from tennis to pool, from tennis to gym and adding personnel to enforce. ‘At the moment our current scanning system does not give us the option of separating gym only, gym and pool, tennis and gym, tennis and pool, tennis only, etc. Ann was eager to discuss this issue and was all ears in thinking through how it effects our members and any effective solution. Ann also doesn’t want to make it ‘laborious for members with multiple check in /scans for gym, then pool, then tennis and visa versa. Ann also saw the concern of those tennis players who year after year pay the FAC gym fee plus the tennis add on fee and never set foot in the main facility.
32. Shouldn't FAC have a Student Tennis Membership like other tennis clubs in the area?: Ann was eager to learn about this ‘student membership discount’ that other tennis clubs offered. We discussed the members FAC loses because of this student membership discount and that it would seem with our close proximity to UofA to be an attractive option for UofA students to become tennis/club members. Ann was curious how student memberships worked with other clubs; is it full time, part time, 1 course, local colleges and universities only, on-line, all colleges and universities, etc. She will investigate.
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