Taking The Plunge
Story by Barbara Elliott
Photos by Mary Baldwin
It started out as class project for pre-engineering students at Greenbrier East High School. It is now a spectacular new aquatic center for the Greenbrier Valley. How it all came about is nothing short of a miracle.
In May 2018, TAG Galyean decided to take the plunge. The high school students with whom he had worked to develop plans for an aquatic center had just presented the project to an audience of community members at Greenbrier Valley Theatre, and it was clear from the reaction that people wanted it to become a reality. So Galyean decided to go for it. He established a nonprofit organization, spearheaded a fundraising campaign, completed the design and oversaw the construction. On May 1, 2022, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for the Greenbrier Valley Aquatic Center, or as Galyean calls it, his “miracle project.”
To back up a bit, there had been talk of a public indoor swimming facility for the Greenbrier Valley area for at least two decades. After a false start at establishing a YMCA in 2006 and lots of talk about using hotel/motel tax money to build a pool thatcnever came to fruition, the idea seemed to be doomed.
Enter Galyean, a renowned architect who has designed pools and spas at some of the country’s most luxurious resorts,cincluding The Greenbrier and the Broadmoor. The Lewisburg resident was volunteering to help Kevin Warfield’s pre-engineering class develop real-world projects to enhance their skills. “One of the things that interests me is working with teenage kids. I believe that in the years between 15 and 18 they should be learning a lot. It was an attempt to motivate and provide experience for receptive kids,” he explains.
He pitched the idea of designing an aquatic center, even though most of the class did not know what the term meant. Why an aquatic center? Galyean pointed to several reasons why the project resonated with him. The first is safety. He noted that in America, and West Virginia, 45 percent of people could not save themselves if they fell into water over their head. He would like to see swimming classes become part of the elementary school physical education requirement, and passing a swimming test be a middle school requirement. “Parents who swim will teach their children to swim. In one generation, we could achieve this,” he says.
The other “whys” were health, sport and play. He noted that many people with physical disabilities can only exercise in water. With a competition pool, there is a possibility of a club swim team. “Play is obvious,” he notes. “It is all ages every day. It is remarkable that it is for all ages. No other physical recreation does that.”
The A Team
The challenge for the students was to research and design a facility that addressed all those needs. Out of the pre-engineering class, five very special seniors rose to the challenge: Sarah Leslie, Erin Leslie, Josh McClung, Ethan Meadows and BenRobinson, collectively known as the” A Team.” With support from Warfield and then-Greenbrier East principal Jeff Bryant, they arranged an extended period including lunch to work with Galyean on the project two days a week starting in late 2015. Galyean brought pizza, and the students took a deep dive into everything there is to know about an aquatic center.
The A Team determined that three pools were ideal—competition, recreation and therapy. They also recommended an outdoor spray pad for kids. In addition to the pools, their design included an activity/party room, a room where seniors could socialize and volunteer, a cardio-exercise room and a classroom for teaching water certification classes. The facility also would need locker rooms and a concession area for the summer months.
To develop the specifications, the students did extensive research, including visiting YMCAs in the area. They determined the depth of water required to allow scuba training for emergency responders. They learned the requirements for a competition pool in terms of length, depth and water temperature. They made a rough virtual model using Revit software. “Tag drew up a fictional topo map. He just drew some contours. It was a great teaching tool for cross-section. They even designed a parking lot,” Warfield remembers. “It really was lightening in a bottle. The kids got along so well and all worked so hard. It was a special time in my class.”
They researched each piece of the puzzle and developed a preliminary plan. Then they graduated. The following school year, Warfield received a highly competitive grant from MIT for his students to undertake a new project, so the aquatic center was shelved for more than a year. In the fall of 2017, it was revived with a new A Team made up Amber Harper, Joe Londeree and Kara Vaughan. At this stage of the project, the students were tasked with figuring out how much it would cost to build and maintain the facility. Vaughan was a business student whose role was to help formulate a business plan based on estimates of how many memberships at different levels would be needed to make it a viable operation.
Worthy and Doable
“My test for projects is are they worthy and are they doable,” Galyean says. “I established early on that this project was worthy. I also knew it was doable as a useful project for students, but I didn’t know if it was doable in the real world.” He then began to test the waters to see if the plan might become more than a classroom exercise. The first step was to have the student present their plan to the board of the State Fair of West Virginia in February of 2018. Impressed, the board committed to donating land if funding could be found to build the center.
The next step was the community presentation at GVT in 2018. The students prepared a very professional PowerPoint presentation with an overview of the proposed facility and the projected cost to build it—a mere $6 million. They also made presentations at the Lewisburg Rotary Club and the Shepherd’s Center. “People were saying ‘wow, we really need to do this,’ so that’s when I decided to step up to turn it into a real effort,” Galyean explains.
On June 12, 2018 he and his wife, Annabelle, opened a bank account with $5,000, applied to the IRS for tax-exempt status for a non-profit entity called the Greenbrier Valley Aquatic Center and started soliciting donations through Facebook. Since it took nearly a year to get tax-exempt status, the Lewisburg Foundation served as the fiscal agent to accept donations in the interim. The new entity had three board members, the Galyeans and Tom Greenstreet.
Galyean stated clear rules for his participation. No government entity would be involved in the ownership, building or operation of the center, and there would be no bank debt. They would raise the money or not. Of course raising money was going to be tricky since there was no guarantee of success. Even so, people started to send money. To reassure prospects, the board decided that if they did not succeed in building the aquatic center, donors would be allowed to vote on another local nonprofit to receive the money. “That’s how we skinned that cat,” Galyean says.
The first phase of fundraising, the Founders Campaign, had generated around $2 million in gifts and pledges by January of 2019. At that point they decided the project was real enough to hire someone fulltime to do the fundraising. They were fortunate to hire Jamie Hamilton as Director of Community and Donor Engagement. With a degree in recreation management from Penn State, his experience as a former high school swimmer and a fierce work ethic, he was the perfect choice. The campaign was upgraded with a more polished logo and marketing materials, the board was expanded and a second community meeting was held.
By November of 2019 the Founders program had raised $2.5 million, but was losing steam. “One thing we were hearing from people was that they didn’t want to give money if it was not going to happen,”Galyean explains. “That’s when we started the Closer program to ‘seal the deal.’ We asked people to pledge to pay in 2020 and 2021, but only if the project was under construction. Also at that point we made it clear we weren’t going to run the campaign past March 2020. The message was if you want it, pledge now.”
Hamilton did a tremendous amount of outreach, and people began to believe it was possible. By February of 2020, $4 million had been raised. In all there were 396 individual donations, with several critical leadership gifts from local foundations. In the meantime, Galyean had contacted Eric Hall, who called his dad, Mike Hall, about possible state support for the project. Michael Graney with the West Virginia Economic Development Office could see that the center would give people another incentive for living in or visiting the area. He also saw the potential for the project to serve as a model for other communities to fund two-thirds of a project on their own initiative before seeking government funding.
A Miracle at Every Turn
In late February, 2020, the organization was presented a check for $2 million from Governor Jim Justice. At that point, they were where they needed to be to start construction. Within weeks they committed to purchase the steel, build the pools and signed with Lynch Construction to do the earth moving. Even before the government funding was assured, they engaged Tom Crabtree and hired architects and engineers with a commitment to start construction in 2020. “Some people said we were foolish to start, but no one gave because they wanted us to save the money,” Galyean comments. It turned out to be a great decision because by starting to buy materials in the spring of 2020, Galyean estimates they saved a couple of million dollars in additional costs that would have been incurred due to price increases driven by the Covid-19 pandemic. Even so, cost increases meant that another $800,000 was needed for furnishings, landscaping and other final touches. A final Enhancer campaign was successful in putting the project over the top.
“It really was a miracle project. At every turn, the odds were it wasn’t going to happen,” he says. Even Covid-19 was part of the miracle. The facility was originally scheduled to open in October of 2021, but due to a delay in delivery of the exterior doors, the opening was postponed for five months. “If we had opened as planned in October, there would have been a whole different situation with Covid than in April. It gave the staff, who worked here at my office, time to really be ready. I’ve designed a lot of beautiful resort projects for 30 years. In that world, you have a team of construction and operation experts. You release the plan to them, and they make it work. In this case, we had none of that. So we were inventing the culture and finding the team to do it. The delay was part of the magic. Part of the timing miracle is also that this was a window in my life when I had the energy, time and money to do this. I couldn’t have done it five years ago, and probably not five years from now.”
In the 2021-22 academic year, Kevin Warfield received a second MIT grant, this time for his students to design a cave rescue system which they hope to patent. But the accomplishments of the A Teams remain a highlight of his teaching career. He marvels that a project that started in his classroom now stands practically within sight of the school.
A Really Nice Place to Hang Out
Although Galyean has designed many pools, they have been in luxury environments where no expense was spared. “Here we had to save money to spend it elsewhere. The priority was items like water, air and light quality. Those are as good as you will find anywhere,” he says. “We also have this feature that a lot of people don’t understand yet. All the glass on the recreation pool side opens up, as does the skylight. There is an outdoor terrace and spray pad. In the summer, on the recreation side, the effect will be that you are outdoors, but under roof. No food will be allowed inside, but there will be drinks and food available on the terrace. It will be a really nice place to hang out.”
The center has a professional, seasoned management team made up of General Manager Darcie McCraw, Facilities Manager Keith Brookman and Operations Manager Delphine Houssin, who will develop future collaborations with the schools, individual instructors and the Shepherd’s Center. After a month-long soft opening, the center began regular operations in May. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. The very first water aerobics class drew 43 people. Additional classes and programs are being added as new instructors are hired. Galyean would like to see the center sponsor a swim team with members from both Greenbrier East and Greenbrier West High Schools.
“Now that we are operating, our idea is that this is a beautifully maintained hospitality environment,” Galyean says. “We are non-elitist. We have a fund supported by Greenbrier Sporting Club members’ golf tournament to provide scholarships for individuals and families so that everyone swims. Our overarching rules are simple. Be kind. Be safe.”
For information on membership, visit gvaquaticcenter.com
