June 8, 2015
FOCUS: FAMILY BUSINESS AWARDS
2015 Central Mass Family Business Awards - Worcester Fitness
PHOTO/MATT VOLPINI
From left: Timothy MacDonald, Lincoln MacDonald and Andrea Shilapa.
The sizes of their sneakers have changed, but Andrea Shliapa and Timothy MacDonald have put their footsteps all over Worcester Fitness. The business has been a big part of their lives since grade school.
“We think of it as our home,” Andrea, 38, says of her family's signature property at 440 Grove St. She and her brother now own the facility along with their father, Lincoln MacDonald.
Worcester Fitness — which opened a second site in the city's downtown in 2000, in the window-filled top floor of Saint Vincent's Hospital — didn't start out as a family business. Lincoln, then a laid-off public school teacher, bought 440 Grove St. in 1983 with fellow racquetball enthusiast Dennis Doyle.
It was Doyle's idea, telling his friend in the business' sports lounge as they relaxed after a workout: “We've got to find you something to do.”
A few years later, the two men also purchased Plymouth Fitness in Plymouth, which is still going strong.
Meanwhile, Tim and Andrea spent many hours at 440 Grove St. working out, hanging out or helping out, and witnessed running a fitness business firsthand. Tim, in 1999, and then Andrea, in 2004, took jobs with the company, Worcester Athletic Club Inc. Then in 2010, the two signed on as partners with their father — Tim as general manager of the two Worcester gyms and Andrea as company controller — after Doyle left for other pursuits.
Andrea said her father “never pushed us” to go into business with him. Tim, 39, said it was only in the back of his mind growing up. Both tried their hands at other jobs after graduating from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but found themselves drawn “home” to the business.
The three get along so well, and enjoy the work so much, that it all fit. “We wanted to prove to ourselves and to the other people who work here — and to our father — that we could do this,” Andrea said.
During an interview, the three laughed frequently, kicked around ideas for the future, were thoughtful and deferential, and otherwise gently demonstrated the power of family ownership. Mutual history, fondness and goals are ties that can trump the corporate titles and sometimes petty battles of 9-to-5-type alliances.
“I would say I have given over 90 percent of the decisions to them,” Lincoln said, leaning back and regarding his kids proudly.
“Day to day, I know — they don't need me; they don't want me,” he ribbed, to bursts of laughter from Tim and Andrea, and assurances to the contrary.
“I still love it, though. I still love coming in,” Lincoln said.
He's 71, and has seen the fitness business change in ways that have surprised him, such as the rising popularity of personal trainers. And he's a customer. These days, “ninety-nine out of a hundred times I wouldn't go down to the weight machines if I didn't have a 4 o'clock appointment” with a personal trainer, he said.
The business has stayed flexible according to users' interests, such as by reducing the number of racquetball courts and offering child care. As children, Tim and Andrea learned from their father and looked up to associates and staff. They sometimes helped him juggle the gym's demands by doing simple chores for pay. They said they saw how to listen to customers, their preferences and their health goals, and make sure they got what they wanted: a clean, comfortable, uncrowded and up-to-date place to work out and feel good.
While seen by many as a place to retreat for an hour or two, the family's fitness facilities are workplaces with endless tasks to take care of. But they fit a class in, or court time or a swim when they can, and “we do sometimes appreciate the social aspects of the sports lounge” after a long day, Tim said with a smile.
There's no doubt Lincoln is boss, Andrea and Tim said. But he's also dad. “We can talk to him and get him to say yes,” Andrea said.
For their success, the three emphatically credited people they've hired, partnered with and learned from over the years. And they said they wished Worcester could attract more big businesses, for the good of both the business and the community. For its part, Worcester Fitness is involved in the community in a variety of ways, including the Planting the Seed Foundation and Special Olympics.
Whether the pull of the family business, especially “the club” — as they call it — at 440 Grove St., will last to the next generation is much too soon to say. Tim and his wife have a 4-year-old daughter, Haley; while Andrea and her husband have a 2-year-old son, Mac.
There was, though, a sign from Haley when she was only about a year and a half. Happening to pass the Worcester Fitness Center in the car, Haley suddenly piped up: “Look! There's the club!”
Maybe the third-generation's interest has already been ignited.
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2015 Central Mass Family Business Awards - Worcester Fitness
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