We caught up with the brilliant and insightful GABRIELLA COLLARD a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi GABRIELLA, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
Embarking in a family business has been an adventure. Having and amazing relationship as a couple, a solid 30+ years marriage anchored us in our believes that we can do this, despite all the challenges that presented themselves during the initial phases of the project. 3 years of supervising the building of the facility, forgo other work opportunities, dig deep in our savings, COVID and its consequences: lack of customers and members for a few months after opening. But we believed in the challenge, and we are on the path path of expansion, and better things to come!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I was born in the same country (Romania), as the first gymnast who ever got a ’10’ (Nadia Comaneci). It was a no brainer for my parents to sign me up for classes, hoping that one day they could cheer me doing cartwheels on a mat. The quick and honest evaluation and feedback of the coach, who was a friend of my parents, allowed my parents to redirect me towards a more ‘appropriate’ sport for my athletic capabilities. Since my grandparents lived close to tennis courts, they signed me up for a clinic, and the rest is history. Tennis gave me my freedom, my family, and ultimately the business that my husband and I are the majority owners of.
As a young, 19 years old idealistic teenager I wanted more than communisms and consequences of a 20+ years dictatorship could give me, therefore, without really thinking it through thoroughly, I’ve decided to fled from my country of origin, and try my luck as an immigrant. After a short existence as an ‘apatride’ in Hungary, I’ve followed my quest in establishing myself, and start building a more promising future. I started playing tennis tournaments in Belgium, where I met my future husband. One day, while sitting behind a court, waiting for my match, i noticed that a large crowd was supporting one of the players involved in the match. At one point, he turned around, pointed to me, and said: “I will do whatever it takes to win this match, and if i do, it will be because of you” Well, just as he said, he did win…and got the girl! 3 months later we were married, and been married for the past 31 years. We have a ‘blended’ family, since after having a biological son, who’s now 30 years old, we have also raised (since he’s 11 years old), and became legal guardians of another ‘son’, who’s also 30 years old. Anthony and Kay are best friends, and live in Philadelphia.
After living and working (first as translator, then in professional soccer) for 15 years, we, as a family decided to immigrate to the US in 2014. After a short passage in Saddlebrook, which at that time was one of the biggest tennis academies in the US, we moved to Philadelphia, where my husband got the prestigious Tennis Director of one of the oldest country clubs in the country, The Merion Cricket Club. My focus at that time was to allow our children a smooth transition into a new lifestyle, learning a new language, and succeeding in their studies, while also supporting my husband’s career. After 10 successful years on the Main Line, we have decided to make one last change and achieve our ultimate goal owning our own tennis academy. We’ve been building in for years in our minds…now the time has come to truly roll up our sleeves and get to work.
After a such bidding process, we have become the winners of this public-private multimillion dollar project, initiated by the city of Zephyrhills, Florida. After being in the tennis industry for more than 25 years, and 3 harrowing years of construction, we’ve finally became the owners of The Sarah Vande Berg Tennis and Wellness Center. Our center is a boutique style, state-of-the-art facility that offers racquet-sports players (tennis, pickleball, padel and beach-tennis) the opportunity to also enjoy the benefits of our wellness offerings (fitness, massage, cryo-, salt- and IV therapies, physical therapy), as well healthy food options in our restaurant and cafe.
We opened our doors in October 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, and sleepless nights, worrying about the future, were paired with greatly satisfactory events like signing our 50th full time academy player, after less than 1 year existence. When it came to titles, I have humbly named myself the CEO…well not in the thru meaning of the word…rather a Chief Everything Officer, doing everything from reading contracts, to designing and furnishing the entire facility, to conduct meetings about employee’s safety, to swiping the floors or replacing toilet paper, when needed. I am not afraid doing whatever it takes to keep our center a place where people love to gather, where the community celebrates birthdays, bridal showers, where kids come back to play their sports with a smile on their faces, where members are greeted by their names, where our employees love to return to work every day! When, occasionally it becomes overwhelming, I remind myself that we are responsible for more than 30 employees. I look at my husband, Pascal, and his always reassuring, comforting attitude makes me want to do more, and succeed.
Our partners, Andy and Linda, are pillars of the company, and their contribution to the facility’s success is undeniable.
With the city’s support, after only 18 months of operation, we are planning on extending by adding 4 additional tennis courts (getting us to a total of 15, including a center-court with seating capacity up to 3,000), an indoor tennis/multisport facility (only the 3rd one of its kind in 150 radius), as well as a 92 bed, brand new, student living building, helping our ever-growing sports programs (tennis and golf) to reach new heights.
While our minds are filled with projects, from creating the first Padel academy in the US (fastest growing sport in Europe) to hosting the first ever 10 and under ‘World Championship” for tennis. We’ve been named “USTA’s 2021 Outstanding Tennis Facility”, we will be hosting the Florida Senior Games in 2022, 2023 and 2024 for tennis, padel and pickleball, our focus remains on serving the local community by offering them an amazing opportunity to enjoy healthy living at its best, and all a at a very reasonable cost. Our retention rate, our fast-growing demand (we always said we will have a waiting list, and we are close to getting to that point) proves that we are on the right path. We have a young, dedicated, educated Team of employees, who’s willingness to always bring the best out in themselves,
What my husband and I are most proud of is that we’ve created the first ‘family oriented’ sports academy, at a small scale (our direct competitors are banking on number of athletes, while we are offering small, personalized and tailored program to each individual player), where parents our best ambassadors, when it comes to expressing their opinions about their experience. We’d like our legacy to be not the center, but our hard, dedicated, honest work that was required to make this a nationally, internationally recognized success. A project of this magnitude required loads of sacrifices, but we feel that we finally have arrived, and Zephyrhills will be our last professional station in a long tennis career.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
As I mentioned on the previous page, I believe our best source of new clients is our existing pool of customers. we are a complex entity, with several moving pieces, sports academy, wellness, restaurant. Our members and academy parents are our best ambassadors; when they go out to tournaments, they ‘sell’ our facility as something anyone should visit if they are interested in tennis or golf. Our professional approach, the excellent reputation and quality of our coaching team, our reputable customer service not only makes our retention rates high, but thanks to referrals from exiting members, we earn new leads.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Well, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t pivot ;-). I lived in three different regimes: communisms, socialism, and now capitalism. I had to learn three languages, and had 4 different citizenships (including being apatried). When followed my husband across the world, I have to reinvent myself to stay relevant. Life threw me a few curveballs, but I always was able to adapt, learn, and thanks to my tenacity and work ethic compete as equal with other candidates when needed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thesvbacademy.com
- Instagram: thesvbacademy
- Facebook: Sarah Vande Berg Tennis and Wellness Center
Image Credits
Anthony, Pascal and Kay Sammy and Luna…4 legged family members