Susan Hunt: Yes, good morning Sue Nelson with Total Aquatic Programming. We are here in Loveland, Colorado, at Thera Swim Aquatics. And we are talking with Susan Hunt who attended the 2021 National Build a pool conference and we're gonna be asking her some questions on how she got her facility up and going so here we go, Susan nice to have you at your facility, and it is lovely, we really like the way that you have arranged it. And we're just gonna go through and let you introduce yourself, How you got here and we'll go forward. Sure, yeah, so I'm a physical therapist and so um I initially started being interested in aquatic therapy, just working as a staff therapist and when I relocated, wanted to continue doing that and ended up starting a Program primarily renting out pool space at other facilities and um over time the business grew and we had quite a few staff therapists and adaptive swimming instructors and it just became clear that having our own facility would really benefit our staff and also our patients and swimmers and so that's kind of what got us interested in attending the Build a pool conference. OK, so the Build a pool conference was in 2021 August. And, who encouraged you or recommended that you attend? Yeah, yeah, so we have used Swim Angelfish, the swim whispers program to train our adaptive swimming instructors and they're totally treatment program for our therapists and so I know Cindy and Eileen from that we've also had them out to do a few continuing education courses with us and they were connected with, , Mick and Sue Nelson and recommended, attending the course. Yes, and Swim Angelfish is actually what we call our dream team provider and so that was really good that you've hooked up with them and then we all connected so. The Build a pool, how did it help shaping your business? And the correct name for your business is Theraswim Pediatric Therapy and Aquatic Services. That's correct. OK, so attending the Build a pool conference, , really helped us. We were just kind of in the initial phases of considering like what might this look like? Is this possible for us? And so we got. Some really good information like actual numbers we're able to talk to people who actually build natatoriums and pools and so it really helped get our brains going, , also thinking about um programming, how to fill up, a pool in an efficient way that's gonna make it feasible to actually run. So,yeah, we really valued the information that we got at the conference. Did you have like an open house when you opened up or you just sort of opened and contacted your patients? Yeah, so we did intend to have an open house, but it was very hectic getting everything started, because we always have a big push in the summer and we opened, really in June and so, because we had been using remote. Sites that we were renting from we had just communicated and educated all of our families that we were working with that we had built a new facility and that we were gonna be relocating all of our services to the new facility so we did that over the summer just to orient everyone to our new facility and yeah so we were hopping right off the bat so yeah. So what was one of the most difficult things once you got all the the contracts signed and everything? What was one of the most things that you're just like really concerned about during your construction phase? You know, we for our facility we had to use two separate contractors, one contractor for the actual like office clinic build out and then one. Director for the pools trying to coordinate everyone together was challenging and we just wanted to make sure that it was all flowing that there were no misunderstandings of whose responsibilities were whose things like that. I think that was a challenge and then just the initial like pool design and all of that, it felt intimidating to me just because you know you have all these ideas in your head of what you would like, but. , you have financial restrictions and, and it feels like a long term investment, so you want it to work really well for like the long term and so, all of that, you know, it felt really challenging in the moment, but it's been so rewarding to have been through the process and to be there so it it was worth it but you know, so you actually took on the role of the project manager, so I would, I know yeah, I, I don't know if I would call myself that. It was kind of teamwork. Between my husband and I, he took a a large role in helping facilitate a lot of those things even though the business itself is mine, he was very involved in the process, which was really helpful, because I was still actively running the business while we were doing this whole process, so it was it was quite the endeavor, but, yeah, but I, you know, I definitely was the spokesperson especially for the aquatic piece and like what the vision was and what we wanted everything to look like, so yeah, would you highly recommend. A young student, let's say right out of college, really going down this road trying to find that path. Do you think this is a type of business that you could really promote for others to do? as far as aquatic therapy, I think aquatic therapy is the most fun, most wonderful, type of therapy that there is, especially I work with children with special needs and pain and, severe illness kind of things like that. And for kids who have spent a lot of time in clinical environments, Getting to do therapy in a fun place like the water, it's a natural environment, it doesn't feel like you're going to therapy. It feels like you get to go play in the pool and there's so much you can accomplish and so much mobility that kids can gain um, in the water, that they can't have sometimes outside of the water and things like that. It's, it's a life saving service as well, so, yeah. I might be a little biased, but I think it's the best. So well, I happen to agree with you. This is one of our passions for sure and if we had more facilities throughout the country. we would have, I think our population for special needs would really improve the quality of their life. Absolutely, yeah, the need is great. I had no idea before I got into this. Yeah, how great of a need there was it. All right, so we obviously wanted to interview Susan because she went through the whole process. She attended to build a pool. She was successful in doing that and now we're getting ready for our 20th Build a pool conference, 20 years of hosting the Build a Pool conference, and that will be in 2025 February 1st and 2nd in Saint Pete Beach at the in conjunction with the AOAP and Association of Aquatic Professionals and National Drowning Prevention Alliance, conference, and that's what we will be promoting and we hope we have a lot of curious therapists trying to find out what the aquatic business is all about. So thank you for attending the build pool and we love that you are successful in getting that done.
