- PNC is proud to support "Business Forward" where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.

(bright music) - Welcome to "Business Forward".

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Andy Thornton.

Andy is the president and CEO of the Greater Peoria YMCA.

Welcome, Andy.

- Thank you, Matt.

It's great to be here.

- Yeah.

You know, I love talking community, obviously.

And you're just one of those guys that I've always loved talking to because you understand, you have a pulse, so to speak, of the community.

But let's start off with you.

You have a great family.

You have a very athletic family.

It runs through your blood.

But tell me about your family and are you originally from here?

- I am actually from, well, from the Peoria area as I like to describe it.

I went to school at Illini Bluffs High School.

So just west of Peoria.

My wife's from Bartonville, went to Limestone High School.

But yeah, a blessed father, a blessed husband.

Been married for almost 26 years and four kids.

My oldest is 25 and he's a productive citizen now.

School teacher.

School teacher and basketball coach.

You mentioned the athletic genes run through our family extensively and just blessed, got three boys and my youngest is 14 year old, junior high daughter.

It's been a great life so far.

But yeah.

From the Peoria area.

- But you actually left here for your job and then came back here.

And we're glad you came back.

It's fun to have great people in this community.

- Well, I was happy to do that and yeah, you're right.

So I started, I've been in the YMCA now for 25 years.

As long as I've been married and met my wife at the Greater Peoria family YMCA.

- [Matt] Are you kidding me?

- An old downtown facility on Hamilton Boulevard, now known as the Dream Center.

I started there as an intern, then the program director running afterschool program, summer day camps.

My wife was an employee of mine working in the program, and we got together.

- That's awesome.

I did not know that.

- And then, you know, 20 years later, the opportunity came about where the CEO position was open for the Y, I was doing that same job up in Sterling, Illinois, and was provided the opportunity to come back home and lead the YMCA that started my career.

So I think it's a pretty cool story, and we've done some pretty good work I think over the last five years, but we've got some more work to do.

- I've always wondered, so YMCA is a national brand.

And when you look at Ys across the United States,, do they still have, like, if you belong to one, you can go into another, reciprocal I guess?

- Yep, reciprocal membership.

- And do you get national funding from the brand, so to speak?

- Well, I shouldn't say no.

Yes.

Depending on grants and things like that that the national Y pulls in corporate dollars nationally and then distributes funding out to the movement based on a grant process.

So yeah, there is money that we'll get for school-aged programs or afterschool programs or feeding programs or things like that that we will do.

But it is a national, it's a worldwide organization, but the YMCA of the USA is the American YMCA, we'll call it, there's 800 and roughly 50 YMCA associations.

Each one of those associations is independently operated.

So we are what we call a federated movement.

We have a chartered membership to the national Y, which gives us the ability to put our logo on the building and call ourselves a YMCA.

There's certain things we have to do.

And then we pay dues into our national office so that they can provide support and resources back out to the movement.

There's over 2,500 YMCA facilities and just over 800 associations across the country.

- I grew up in Danville, Illinois.

- [Andy] Yep, YMCA there.

- And if I didn't have the YMCA there, I mean, some of my best memories as a kid was YBA basketball.

They had a great indoor pool at the Danville Y and we would go play bumper pool and it was just a place, it was a club.

And it kept everybody out of trouble.

And there still is a piece of that that's key.

- Absolutely.

We like to think of it as a community center.

And it's a place for everyone, and the other thing we like to say in our movement, we call it, the YMCA movement, is we serve needs of people from cradle to grave.

Most people think of the Y as a place to go work out, to go swim, play some ball like you described.

But there's some really deep worthwhile programs that are being delivered through our business model for seniors, for families, for youth.

A big part of our work is youth development, serving kids.

- My kids went to youth camps there and ran outside and ran the lap.

But let's talk about, I didn't even have this to talk about, but let's talk about the seniors programs for a minute, because I think those were very important.

Whenever I would go to the Y you'd see a group of, I don't like to call them seniors, but anybody over the age of 55, let's say.

- Mature?

- Mature.

And it was also a landing spot to talk and be friends, and that social piece, and that social piece is key to all of these programs.

- And moreso today than ever.

The social interaction is so huge.

That's something that was really exasperated through COVID, a lot of isolation, we found a lot of seniors lonely, depression spikes.

And so we connect seniors through the element of fitness.

We provide fitness programs that are designed for seniors, and it brings people together.

But there's so much more to the benefit of bringing those people together than the exercise, the physical exercise, it's the mental capacity that gets strengthened through that.

It's the social interaction.

For many people that come in our doors, that's their family.

Those other people that are in those classes, are their closest friends, it's really their family.

They'll finish a class at the Y, they'll sit down in our lobby, have a cup of coffee, and then they go to lunch someplace in the community.

So there are lifelong friendships that are developed.

- And I love senior programs.

I think they're very, very important.

And I don't ever think there's enough in a community.

I think the focus a lot of times when I was in the business is children.

But the senior programs are very much needed.

And they're dwindling, so to speak.

It's kind of scary.

- There's a lack of resources for seniors.

We've had that conversation in other contexts.

And we try to fill that gap.

And I'll tell you our current membership model is very heavily senior focused.

We have large populations of seniors that utilize our facilities.

- And part of that too is like when you go into your Y, I can't speak for every Y but when you go to any place to work out, you want cleanliness, this was even pre COVID.

I would sit there, I'm a germ freak, so I want to go into where it's clean.

That's one plus of your Y.

- Well, thank you for that.

We work really hard at that.

- I know you do.

So we've talked about collaboration before, but I want to talk about that word.

Because I can talk about it in a negative sense, because I could say that I could argue with people that that's not even the true definition of collaboration, or in a positive sense.

And so what does the word collaboration mean to you as a CEO?

- Well, I agree with you.

I think a lot of times we like to call things collaborative because we're working together on something.

And I guess on a a limited scale, it is.

But for me, when I try to work and develop collaborations here in this community, the thing that I really try to focus on is to take my own selfish needs out of it.

Because everybody wants to win, right?

We're all competitive, whether we're playing basketball or football or baseball, or we're working, we want to win.

We have goals for our business.

We need revenue.

And I think you have to be able to set that aside.

And you have to understand that sometimes , in order to be successful in a collaboration, you might have to give up.

You have to sacrifice, you may have to give up the win for yourself in order for the larger community to benefit at the greatest level.

And that's really how I try to approach it.

And I'm not perfect in that.

I mean, we all fail and fall short all the time.

But that's really the motivation for me.

And when I look for collaborations for the Y, it's about how does it make the community better regardless of what respect or responsibility the Y has in this particular situation.

- Former Unity Point CEO Debbie Simon said to me once about collaboration.

She said the first thing that has to happen is you and I need to keep our egos and check them at the door.

- Absolutely.

- Always love that line.

- And those are the best ones, because otherwise it becomes competitive.

Somebody wants to win, wants to get a bigger piece of the pie.

And that doesn't benefit the people you're trying to serve.

- I think that's where I was getting at.

Because what happens is if you and I do something together, as an example, and I'm doing 80% of the work, in my mind I'm doing 80% of the work, I'm sitting here going, why do I even need him?

It just ticks me off or something to that effect.

- No, I get it.

- So let's talk about a few collaborations that you've worked with, OSF.

- OSF is a great one for us.

So OSF provides cardiac and cardiopulmonary rehab services at the YMCA, much like they do at the RiverPlex, which they've been doing for more than 20 years through that partnership with the RiverPlex, and because of another partnership that we have with the park district and the RiverPlex, it opened the door for us to engage with OSF in this way.

So four days a week for five, five and a half hours a day, OSF has staff in our facility, and they are providing cardiopulmonary therapeutic services, rehab for patients of the hospital on our campus.

- I did not know that.

- And for them, I don't wanna speak for them, but they're able to provide a service in a community center, in a non-traditional, non-medical facility, which is intimidating for people, right?

So they can come to the Y or they can go to the RiverPlex in that partnership, get those services they need from a medical professional up to a point, and then they can transition into becoming a member of the Y or a member of the RiverPlex and continue their journey of physical health.

- I like that because I knew somebody and they had a heart attack.

And they were asked to go back to the hospital and get on the treadmill.

And you're thinking to yourself, my trauma in my head, not just my heart, was here at this hospital.

- [Andy] Nobody wants to go to the doctor.

- I don't wanna go work out there.

And so I guess that makes sense.

And you know what, I like how you say the collaboration with the park district, because everybody's a competitor in one way.

But you almost took the approach to where it's almost equivalent to not just a collaboration, but almost a merger in a sense to where you're sitting there going "we have to give up this to be this and you have to do this".

And that's hard to do.

- Yeah, it is.

And and I can tell you in that relationship, it's because Emily Cahill, the leader of the park district, we have a very like-minded mindset when it comes to collaboration.

And we understood, prior to our partnership, we were competitors.

We treated each others as competitors perspective of the RiverPlex and the YMCA from a membership perspective.

So we joined forces and we've made our membership equal, and we're selling it as one to the community.

You buy a membership, you're getting a membership to the Y and the RiverPlex, and you get access.

And then we split the revenue, we share in that.

- That's brilliant.

And if you think about it too, two good CEOs, you and Emily, put the ego at the door.

This is community.

- How do we get more people access?

- Well, I wasn't even gonna bring this up, but if you think about transportation.

So if someone's in East Peoria or Morton or wherever, and to go to the YMCA in Peoria, it's a haul.

- Especially if they have to use public transportation.

It's an hour.

- It's an hour.

But if you now can use the RiverPlex, you're both winning.

- We've talked earlier about coming back home.

When I came back home to Peoria, one of the goals that I had and that the board had in that decision to hire me was is we need to be more present in the downtown community in the south and in Peoria.

Because we unfortunately left that when we left the facility on Hamilton Boulevard.

And we have to kind of step back in and provide service.

And this is a way for us to do that without building a new facility, right?

We can have a partnership, start to engage with the community in ways that we used to do that, Build some trust and relationship, but who knows where that leads us.

- And it could open other doors.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And Easterseals is another group that you work with.

They're another agency who's providing services in our building, much like OSF, they're able to do it in an inclusive environment.

So if you think about the kids who are involved in Easterseals, they are challenged physically, a lot of them are cognitively and they're getting services.

And if they all have to go to Easterseals they're doing that in an environment where everybody's kind of the same.

And now they can do that in an inclusive environment or at the Y and they'll take their clients up and down the main stairwell in the Y to climb stairs, or they'll go into the fitness center and access those things.

Or if they need some private space, we've got private space for them to go serve that.

Just gives them another opportunity to serve in a unique way.

- I love that.

So you talk to a lot of people and you coach and lead younger leaders too.

So when you talk about collaboration with younger leaders, what examples do you give to them?

What advice do you give to somebody that, let's say maybe that you've hired on, and I know you have, I can picture a couple of the people right now, and you kind of put your arm around them and say "listen, this is the way, this is our culture here.

This is what needs to be done for our community".

What are you tell them?

- I look at this through the sphere of the nonprofit sector, because that's where I'm engaged.

And we're stronger as a nonprofit sector when we look to collaborate.

And we look to, first of all, we have to understand what are the needs in the community.

We think we might know what the needs are in the community, and we all have our own ideas of that.

But we need to ask the community, what do you need?

- [Matt] And you have to feel it.

- And so that's where we start.

We gotta know the needs, and then we gotta know and believe that we have the ability to serve those needs because we can't serve everybody's needs or all the needs in the community.

We don't have the capacity to do that.

So we gotta make sure that we're doing things that we're capable of doing, and then we gotta go seek like-minded partners and try to find ways to collaborate and share resources in order to do that.

And that's really the way that we approach it and how I try to coach my staff in thinking about that.

And we have those conversations all the time.

- It's interesting, you talk about your team and I know you love your team, but I think you hear it in every business right now, whether it's non-profit or for-profit.

But one of the big issues right now is getting people to work open positions.

It's tough.

One of the things now that I'm in the next chapter of my life and one of the things I keep talking about is I'm gonna keep beating the drum that we need to teach younger people.

And I'm talking third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, keep dreaming, number one.

And know that you can help people by being a nurse, a firefighter, work at the Y, work at the children's home, whatever it may be.

And I think we've lost some of that over the years.

- That's one of our biggest challenges is filling vacancies and reducing turnover so that we can build some continuity and some momentum and service.

I mean, right now I've got two full-time vacancies, and we're not a huge organization.

I've got 12 full-time staff and then 100 or so part-time.

- [Matt] Wow.

I didn't know that.

- And I've got two full-time vacancies right now that have been that way for almost a year.

So there's gaps in services right there, because we don't have the capacity just to do things in a normal way, and that spreads everybody out a little bit thinner, and we're not as effective or as efficient.

So that's a real big challenge of finding quality staff who are, I guess we'll say certified for the role that we need to do or have the right experience coming into that role.

- And that crave the position.

Because you don't want just a body.

And I think that's what we come across right now sometimes.

And so what are some of the other challenges that you have looking into this next strategic cycle?

- Besides the personnel thing, which is everybody's dealing with that.

That's not just at the YMCA, but right now our big focus is rebuilding our membership.

We were hit pretty hard by COVID, so we lost about 35, 40% of our membership when COVID hit, understandably so, all the restrictions, we had to shut down for a period of time where people couldn't even come in and access the facility.

And then some people were more reluctant to come back, but that's changing.

And that's really what drove us to this collaboration with the RiverPlex is to become more available.

December of 2022 was the first month since March of 20 when COVID hit that our membership was equal to or more than the December before COVID.

So we've rebuilt, we've got to 100% capacity, but now we gotta need to continue to push forward.

But just in the Y nationally, the average recovery right now is between 70 and 80%.

So we're fortunate here locally that way.

- I mean, you could argue that's leadership and a lot of other things, but that's pretty impressive.

- Yeah.

We're pretty proud of that.

- So let's talk programming for a minute.

So when you think of the Y, I think a lot of times people think of the pool or working out.

And I know we touched on it earlier, but I go back to camps and things for the kids, and I know that you work with rural areas when you can, and those are all important.

So what are some of the things when you think of, if you had a two minute spiel of this is the Y, outside of the pool and working out, what does it look like?

- I always go back to that phrase I shared earlier.

We're a community center.

We are a place for all right.

And we do not turn anybody away from a needed program or service.

We provide scholarships to people in the community.

If you can't afford it, we'll discount it.

We've got people that support our organization financially through fundraisers and things that we do to help us to provide programs and services.

And that's everything that we do, Matt, membership, after school programs, swim lessons, anything that has a price on it, we will discount that price or scholarship.

- You'll figure a way.

- We will figure a way.

And sometimes it's free.

If you can't afford to pay it, it's free.

Now that's pretty limited, but we will go that far if we need to to get somebody in.

But we really focus on meeting people where they are.

We want to know why did you come in the door today, Matt?

Why did you join to be a member?

What is it that you're looking for?

And then try to connect you to the right program or service, or maybe it's just a fitness class.

And when you get in that fitness class and you get in that cycling class or whatever it is you want to do, there's a community of people in that room that are gonna support you, encourage you, and help you achieve your goals.

And that's how we really try to boil it down is we gotta understand every individual need.

- I look at it too, healthy kids.

And we need to do more.

Whenever I hear things in the community, like we're having limited PE at school, I'm thinking to myself, what are you talking about?

I mean, that's the one thing that we... You should be doing Double.

And you talk about not having healthy kids, what's that look like on our healthcare system 15 years from now?

- We're experiencing it right now.

- Exactly.

And so I think that's one of the positives that is not really talked about enough when you're talking about the Y.

But you need to brag about that.

- It's one of the things we take pride in.

Our after school programs, we have a lot of physical activity, we wanna go outside and when, you know, our campus in Peoria, we have 60 acres of property, lots of timber, lots of trails, lots of exploration.

- Lots of wildlife.

- A lot of deer on our property.

And we pride ourselves.

We take the kids outside.

Just get outside and enjoy nature and be creative that way.

- Lastly, mentors, do you have a mentor?

- Or do you mentor people, let's say?

- Yeah, sure, specially staff.

I really try to focus and be that person.

And I do have mentors, right?

Pastor at my church, close friend of mine and mentor of mine.

My parents are mentors of mine.

I'm fortunate enough to have both my parents in my life and they're close friends of mine.

And I rely on them a lot for counsel and advice.

I would consider you a mentor of mine.

I mean, we're pretty good friends.

- [Matt] I think the same way.

- And we talk a lot and are able to share experiences and that's important.

And I have a network of YMCA colleagues that I've kind of grown up with in the movement that I connect with almost daily that way.

But yeah, that is so important.

- Where I give you credit for one thing too, is you've jumped into the nonprofit space and you're very seen in the community when it comes to also helping others.

You attend events.

It's big.

So it's pretty big.

It's funny, you bring up your parents, my dad is 76 now, and he's my biggest mentor ever.

And you sit there and you think how lucky, it's why I was talking about these senior's programs because I was just telling my dad, you have to start getting back onto a bike or you have to start doing some things.

So anyway, well, I just want to tell you thank you for coming on.

- Thanks for having me.

It's been great.

- Yeah.

We love having you back into this community.

I know you've been here for a few years, but keep doing some great things, Andy.

- We're gonna keep trying.

Thank you, Matt.

- Well, I appreciate it.

Thanks for coming on.

I'm Matt George, and this is another episode of "Business Forward".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - Thank you for tuning in to "Business Forward", brought to you by PNC.