Today (Friday September 11th) is Courtney’s last official day working at TCSC.
It’s pretty difficult to summarize what Courtney has meant to this business over the years. She’s been part of TCSC for eight years and, since January 1st, 2022, has worked alongside me full-time through easily the biggest period of growth and change we’ve ever had.
Other than Carlee, she’s probably the person I’ve communicated with and spent the most time around over those five years. She’s been far more than an administrator. She’s been a teammate, coach, sounding board, problem-solver, and someone who cared about this place enough to treat it like she had ownership in it.
Now Courtney and Keegan—better known around here as “Yao Ming”—are moving to Victoria. Their son Reid has been accepted into a lacrosse academy there, and with him being their last kid at home, they decided it was an opportunity worth making the move for.
After everything their family has been through over the past year, it also seems like a pretty well-earned fresh start.
We’re obviously sad to see them go, but I’m also genuinely excited for them.
Back on February 6, 2020, Courtney and I had a random conversation after class. I mentioned that someday I hoped TCSC and Movement Mechanics would grow enough that we’d need more people helping run things.
Courtney casually said, “If you ever get to that point... I’d work here.”
I have a pretty good memory, and I never forgot it.
A little later she sent me a message:
“Hey. Sorry if I seemed a little caught off guard with the conversation today. Not sure how serious or far along you are in this process, but if you do end up looking to move forward and could use someone, please keep me in mind as I would be open to new experiences.”
Fast forward to November 2021.
I had recently stopped coaching competitive swimming after a few years of balancing a full-time coaching commitment on top of getting TCSC going. I assumed that once swimming was off my plate, I’d finally have enough time to keep up with everything happening at the gym.
I was wrong. TCSC was becoming a monster.
Within a few months, I realized I desperately needed—and was finally ready for—a full-time administrator. Courtney was my first call.
Unfortunately, she happened to be trapped in the Lower Mainland at the time because the historic flooding had washed away the highways. So I had to wait more than a week while continuing to drown in work.
As soon as she got back to Kamloops, I offered her the job. She handed in her notice two days later and officially started January 1st, 2022.
It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made with TCSC.
When Courtney started full-time, our membership roster was approximately 170 people.
Today, when you include memberships, punch passes, staff, youth programs and everything else, our roster is over 500.
When she started, we had one workout space. Today we have two training spaces, an expanded clinic, more staff, more services, more classes, more programs and a much larger community.
Obviously, Courtney didn’t single-handedly create all of that. A lot of great people have contributed to TCSC’s growth over those years. But there’s no question that she played a major role in making it possible.
There’s also a lot of her impact that you can’t measure with membership numbers.
She knew our members. She knew what was going on in their lives. She handled countless problems before most people even knew there was a problem. She cared about our staff, our facility, our classes, our systems and the experience people had when they walked through the doors.
Most importantly to me, she cared about TCSC beyond simply treating it as a job.
I’ve always been particular about saying that people work with me rather than for me. Obviously, I own the business, but I want the people on our team to feel like teammates rather than employees who are just completing tasks for an owner.
Courtney embodied that better than anyone. She treated TCSC like she had skin in the game, and I trusted her accordingly.
It would also be impossible to talk about Courtney’s time here without mentioning what the last year looked like.
When she was diagnosed with cancer, gym stuff obviously became pretty insignificant. While she was away going through treatment, Carlee and I thought about her constantly.
What I deliberately didn’t tell Courtney at the time was how much I was struggling trying to run TCSC without her. I didn’t want someone fighting cancer worrying about whether Kent was keeping up with his emails.
Her absence did, however, make it extremely obvious just how much she had been doing and how important she had become to the day-to-day operation of this place.
Thankfully, this story ends very differently than it could have.
She fought through treatment, came back to work, got back into the gym, and now we’re saying goodbye because her family has an opportunity to start a new chapter together on Vancouver Island.
That’s a goodbye we’re pretty fortunate to get to have.
One of the things I’m most proud of with TCSC is that it has become a place where people can build legitimate careers doing something they care about.
Years ago, having full-time employees at the gym was just an idea I hoped we might eventually grow into. Courtney was the first person who really showed me what that could look like.
She also helped build a lot of the systems, standards and little details that have become normal around here. There will probably be things happening at TCSC years from now that members—and maybe even future staff—won’t realize have Courtney’s fingerprints on them.
I’ll know.
My hope is that once Courtney and her family get settled on the Island, she keeps following along with what we’re doing. I hope she gets to watch TCSC continue to grow, improve and become a recognizable force for good things in little corner of BC and Western Canada.
And when it does, I hope she knows she helped build a pretty significant part of the foundation underneath it.
So that brings us to today.
Courtney will still be around Kamloops for another few weeks, which means this thankfully isn’t the last time most of us will see her. But it is the end of her official time working at TCSC and the end of a pretty significant chapter for our business.
Eight years around TCSC. Nearly five years working alongside me full-time. A cancer diagnosis and comeback. A facility expansion. Hundreds of new members. A much bigger staff. A lot of changes, challenges, good days, stressful days and plenty of laughs mixed in along the way.
Courtney, thank you for caring about this place as much as you did. Thank you for everything you did for our members, our staff, Carlee and me, and for helping TCSC become what it is today.
We’re going to miss having you here.
Good luck in Victoria. Whatever gym you join, please make sure you and Yao Ming gets at least 12 classes per month in!
Kent & Carlee
