Episode #580: Building Bozeman's Fitness Mecca-Steve Roderick's Journey with The Ridge Athletic Club

0:02 This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks nyc. I have the pleasure of bringing straight from Bozeman, Montana, Demand the myth, the legend in the industry. Steve Roderick Ridge, Athletic. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Pete. It's my pleasure. Awesome. Well, you've been doing this now since 2002 by building what I would say the mecca of fitness in Bozeman. So give us your background, how you got involved in the industry. You've been, you know, involved from day one in this sector and also a varsity athlete, which I'm hoping to become one day in college. So give us your, give us your personal background and then why you've dedicated your life to this Halo sector. Well, starting with the varsity athlete, you know, I, Rudy comes to mind. But I was a, I was blessed to have a experience with, you know, a lot of athletics, which in life can bring a lot of different values. And I was, I was very fortunate to meet a lot of great people and have good experiences, as you mentioned, you know, and I thought about the genesis of my athletic club experience. Ironically started like 35 years ago. You know, before that I was and always had been participant in fitness facilities, from Nautilus facilities to, you know, Golds to multiple. So as a member, I knew what it was about

1:33 or I felt I knew what it was about. And like I said, ironically, I was, I was in a bar and this was about 1991, and I was in the sporting good industry at the time and living in Wyoming. I knew these three brothers that had a big oil field construction company. This was in Gillette, Wyoming. We're sitting around commiserating on the day, having fun, and one brother says, hey, Steve, you ought to take over that club. He says, that SOB is three months behind on rent. He says, you love that place. And, you know, I'm pretty sure we're just, you know, shooting the breeze. I say, I do that and not paying attention.

2:22 And he gets up and I think he's just going to the bathroom or something. He comes back at about 20 minutes because it was a big strip mall and buildings that this company also owned as well as their construction company. And he comes back, the water keys, drops him in the middle of the table. He says, you take over tomorrow and you meet your employees at 7am that's fun. And I was awestruck. And you know, they say, don't write a check with your mouth that your body can't cash. And it was a 30,000 square foot facility. And that was my, my start. And I, I knew little in regards to running a Fitness facility. But that's where it all started.

3:09 Well, so how did you get back from Wyoming in the oil fields to Bozeman, Montana? Well, I got involved and I made some calls as life is made up of a bunch of relationships and trying to find out what I could about the fitness industry, knowing I was taken over the next day. One call or one piece of information I checked that made me apprehensive. It was. I checked the Better Business Bureau. And at that time, the fitness industry was ranked number two at the bottom, just. Just above used car salesmen. And I was going. It didn't make sense to me because I felt that it brought. It could bring a lot of value to people with that. It was a facility in Gillette, Wyoming, as I mentioned, and just took over and was all in to figure it out and spent some time there, but coming to the understanding that, God, all the things I'd like to make and change, I would like to be able to do a facility from the ground up.

4:17 And that started the dream, the vision, the goal, and was fortunate enough, through a couple different moves, to build this facility in Wyoming up a bit. I sold it. And that ended up being the first time I was worth anything. And it wasn't a lot, but it was enough to get to get the ball rolling in Bozeman, Montana, as I moved back, moved my family back to Bozeman and started the planning, which was about a four and a half year process of chasing money and putting the deal together. And that's where it started. Got it. So when you built this location in 2002, you know, as you and I toured the market several months ago, you really kind of in the outskirts of town, I would say, from where Bozeman has kind of evolved into. So, you know, talk about having a vision or basically just saying, hey, I just need a piece of land and I'll go as far as I think people will drive.

5:23 And then over time, that kind of becomes, you know, the central part of Bozeman. You know, part of that you can say is vision. Part of it's like, hey, it's going to evolve at some point. And now you're kind of like in the epicenter of where you want to be. So talk about either that vision or. Or there just the way things work in the world. Well, it was a process. You know, the vision started off with trying to learn about the industry and took some time to travel across the country to multiple facilities that I was learning were the. The best of the best. And so I started doing that as well as posturing to find, you know, a location. In the process, that seed money I had, we bought. I bought out a facility in Bozeman and also partnered or worked with the gentleman that had a downtown facility was. And he was actually a developer, not an operator. And he had the land and the vision, you know, to build out here. And it was, it was way out of town at that point. And I looked at it and ultimately we. We put a deal together to, to buy this piece of land. And the commitment was we would buy his business downtown, which was a smaller downtown fitness facility, and buy the land. And he was going to give us

6:56 one price if we got it open by, you know, a certain date. And that was all tied to. We wanted to have this development get kicked off. And two and a half years later, about three different banks saying no, and, you know, everything else from selling pre, selling executive memberships to come up with the final piece of cash to close the deal, it got done. This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault. And what they do is they give. Out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do zero down and one month free or giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What you want to do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value and that doesn't discount your own products and services.

7:49 So here's the deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer questions, you are going to get those answers. You're going to be able to target those members, and you're going to reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault, your answer, trust me, this is real. You know, you kept the downtown location, which is now kind of more of like a satellite or, you know, a hub and spoke type of model. You know, how important was it for you to maintain that downtown presence and given things that are going on in town, kind of to build the brand equity of the Ridge, to say, hey, look, here's your kind of boutique. You can do strength and cardio here. And I'm going to feed you into the. To the main club because it seems to have worked very effectively for you in Bozeman. Yeah, the, you know, the equity, brand equity, but also the synergy with downtown being as it is the middle of the, the business district. It was good to build the relationships, maintain the relationships down there, while also pushing the new project because that was going to be the, you know, the, the

9:19 bread and butter of the business model of it. The, the actual viability of downtown. As I was learning how to go through the books on a fitness business, it was thin. But with the onset of the development of the new and bigger and you know, know, more expanded Ridge vision on the west end of town also brought downtown to life. And over, over the years it, together we're better. It just, it just makes for a, a more solid, comprehensive presence in the market. You know, when you take a look at your architecting a 50, 72,000 plus square foot facility, there are certain things that you could have done that you didn't do. There are certain things that you have right now that you're repurposing space and square footage to do, you know, talk about what you knew about the demographics of town and saying, hey, I'm not in the market to set up a racket. Sports, like, that's just not what this market needs. I think you have somewhere between probably 15, 20% of like the entire population belongs to Ridge, you know, in Bozeman. So how did you kind of make those trade offs as you went around and saw what some other people were doing, you definitely could have said, hey, I'm gonna put some tennis courts in here. Hey, I'm gonna do some outdoor, you know, areas, or I'm gonna, you know, over time, you know, pickleball and things like that. But how did you kind of say this is what the expression of what the Ridge

10:51 is and how confident you feel like it serves the demographic that you have today? Well, that's an interesting question or thought process. You know, the. We originally drew it up at 75,000 square feet and based on financing and, and getting the project to the table, we pared it down to 50. And, and over the years we've expanded with the additional facilitation and programs and to, to get back to about where we, where I thought it would be a good fit tied to trying to find all the different facilitation programmings that we felt would hit the market. Both, both currently at that time, as well as have the ability to grow.

11:37 Tennis was being taken care of. We're in a university town and the Montana State University had a big, and still does have a big tennis facility. And program that facilitates both to the university and to the community. So that was one of the thoughts going into that where we start and stop with programs and facilities. The growth aspect. Thinking back the day we did, they call it soft opening, invited as many people as possible and put it all together. I was excited about an hour before it came to my mind. As you know, ultimately it could be that nobody showed up but you know. The entrepreneurs anxiety, right?

12:24 Yeah. And lucky as it was fortunate we had a great honeymoon and from that point we continued to grow organically because people talk and that's important. You need to be effective at marketing and promoting. But ultimately if somebody likes something, you can't keep them quiet. And if they don't like something, they talk even more. So we've been, you know, it's 20. Well at this point it's almost 25 years, 30 years since we started the project. And we've been able to incrementally grow year over year both by the organic aspect, members telling members or friends and family, but also our community's grown, which has been fortunate. As you mentioned, we were in a part of town that did not feel like it was the best location at that point. But ultimately it became closer to the middle of town. And then when you take a look at, you know, saying that you went from 50,000 then went to 72,5.

13:33 You also have some land adjacent to the large location that is is co owned that that could potentially be developed in the future. Is that correct? Yes, we have a condominium association and we built that out actually bought one piece of land and bought a second one. Then ultimately a third piece that is the encompass of this block of blad and we sold off some of the pads and we wanted to have some businesses that were brought residual value to the, to the campus while also maintaining area for you know, projected growth and expansion. We have now spaces that are common area and what you can change for cash and lieu, you know, of open space.

14:27 And so we have opportunity for a couple more expansion, expanded areas for future growth. You know, I'd say to ask you because a number of companies in the category right now that have similar type of locations, you know, use this term campus and they use it, you know, for, for community but also for the, the amount of square footage and what you can and can't do on there. When did you start referring to this as a campus and what are the, what do the members feel when they come onto, you know, the ridge property? Well, it was probably five years into the project that we Started looking at it as a, as a campus. We, you know, as your, as any project, you know, it takes some horsepower, AKA money to get things done. We sold to an optometrist was which was a building pad to allow us to get some more revenue to buy another chunk of land. But it also was another business that had great synergy.

15:33 Not a parking hog, but brought a lot of different types of customers to their building. Then over the years, the next one, as we were referring to campus, we had an opportunity to buy the last piece of land that's basically encompassed by three roads. And that was basically the journey. And then as you take a look at the growth that you've experienced in Bozeman, you know, as a resident, as a business owner, you've got the school that that's continuing to grow. You've got people that have moved out there probably during COVID because they could work remotely and be in a much better and a cleaner errand and you know, know, atmosphere. What are some of the other either big companies that are there or some of the growth that you see either from the recreational side, people being, you know, focused on outdoors, you know, cost of living, you know, think things of that nature that are, that are a big poll right now to Bozeman. Well, we've been, you know, the recipient of some very positive things. You know, part of it is, you know, it's your location and then the, the different industries that drive growth.

16:49 One of the aspects is, you know, having an interstate and having Yellowstone national park drive people here. I think back, you know, at that time when I came to school here, we stood, when we went to the airport to go to a football game, we stood next to the bus waiting for the plane to come in, then got on because the, the airport only had one small building. Now it's an international, fully developed airport. As such drivers the photonic industries very big and it's been growing exponentially in the market. The whole aspect of tourism drives people in and it's a big driver. But the accessibility to your point, Pete, as you know, whether it be covet or a vacation, people can get here. Yeah. And once they're here, then you have an opportunity to share what possibly living and making a life in Bozeman would be.

17:54 And as a consequence, that's what's been driving the growth. Yeah. So as you built out the culture and the employees and the personnel, we've had some time to spend with Rob and you know, she's one of your right hand team members here. Talk a little Bit about the tenure and the work environment that you've cultivated. You know, part of that might be from that original, you know, dropping the keys on you and saying, hey, I got to make some, make it go with my first club. But you know, when you, when you walk around your location, you definitely feel that people are taken care of, that they're respected. The place is really clean. You know, you got a sense that, hey, this is a well run operation. But what are some of the, the tenets that you kind of live by and that you've managed by? Well, you know, to start with, I, I look at myself as a very average guy with, you know, above average work ethic and very above average friends and colleagues.

18:56 And the wise person told me one time, if you're gonna, if you're gonna run a business, he says, the thing you need to do is, is hire people smarter than you. And I said, well, that's gonna be easy. And I've been, I've been fortunate to, to have worked in the past and currently with amazing people. You know, you mentioned Robin, but there's, there's a lot to think about also, you know, the growth aspect. You know, we start off, we could have had our company party in a phone booth and you know, now it's, you know, well over a couple hundred people and the good begets good. You know, if you, if you're working with good people, other good people look to be part of a team.

19:43 My, you know, I think about my, you know, driver would be always share your vision, your dream and goals with people and if they aspire to be part of something like that, they're going to be a good candidate. This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called higher dose higherdose.com they are the leader in workout recovery products. Infrared technology, LED light masks, neck enhancers and other products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train yet, your time and your stop is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end up saturating your market.

20:39 Having your members walk out of the club and going into of their locations for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If we are already an authority in workouts, higher dose, check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look forward to helping you augment your products and services to meet the demands of your members, and hey, let's get people happy, healthy and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout. You know, how much of you running your business today and looking at the results, not just the financial results, but, you know, the emotional and the member and the employee results, do you think harkens back to being an athlete and be like, hey, I want to win. I want to put the best team on the field. I want to have somebody, you know, wear my jersey as if it's like they're. They're an athlete.

21:36 How much do you think that's kind of infused in how you roll? I think. I think it's huge. Pete, with that. As we all know, the fitness industry has a lot of different aspects and ways to approach it. Mine started off with, you know, I looked at it, I said, God, I'd like to have a place that my buddies would want to come to and work out. I'd like to have a place that my parents would love to come to, and I'd like to have a place where the people that aren't athletes or in fitness interest, you know, and so that's, that's been what's really been the catalyst behind what we want to have for facility, what we want to have for programs, and the type of people we want to have on a team. Because if we're all one. One type of person or interest group, you tend to, you know, attract that type of interest group. If you can stay, you know, you know, tied to the type of people you want to attract, then you'd have to do a better job of. Of, you know, achieving that goal.

22:40 And then the last question I have is you've got a significant, you know, thousands and thousands of members, and you've definitely catered yourself towards all the different, you know, modalities that people are looking for. And, and you focus a lot on strength and cardio, like regular clubs, also big swim program, you know, as you take a look at catering to families. How is that, you know, been. Been a thrust of what you're doing, and how do you think about the age range that you serve? The age range that we've been fortunate enough to serve is relatively broad. Yeah. And, you know, we've done in the past gatherings and take our demographics, you know, like, getting old ain't for sissies party. And, And I'm going, well, how many people could that be?

23:28 You know, we identified them as, at that point, when I was younger, 65 seemed old, you know, so we, we said 65 and older and we, we do, you know, we go through our data and we go, God, we got, we got well over, you know, 1500 of people 65 and older and great turnout. And those things matter. The demographics. You mentioned the family. Programming wise, the most important thing to almost all of us ends up being children. And so that's knowing that if you're going to offer something for kids, you want it to be viable, you want it to be reputable. And we started off with, you know, a great kids program and area and been proud to have that always be a big part of what we've had. I think that's the driver for moms and for dads for sure.

24:24 The other, the other thing is being there for adolescents, you know, because it's, it's a, it's a demographic that's too young to be old, too old to be young, but they're, they are your next customer. And if it's a place where they can feel, you know, welcomed and comfortable, you know, it's going to spawn more interest later in their lives. Awesome. And then, and then the last note is, you know, you've, you've spent a fair amount of time with Rex Roundtable and I know some of your good friends in the industry also are part of these mastermind groups. You want to just give a little plug to the entrepreneurs that are out there that may be, you know, running their own business and don't have the network to kind of bounce ideas off of how Rex has kind of helped you, you know, become who you are and the success you've had.

25:16 Yeah, it's, it's insurmountable and it's, it's in line with Rex, but it's also in line with. To your point, Pete, if you're not always trying to get better, if you're not trying to learn from somebody else that, you know is doing it in a different way or has good information, you're going to lose your, your zest, let alone your edge. It's been, it's been something, you know, Eddie talk with Rex. He was asked me in the past to give a plug. And my thought and reflection on that is if I would have ever done anything like that, which I had, I would do it sooner because it's of huge value, not only on the information share and the inspiration aspect, but you build relationships with people that you can respect and that's it. You know, being around people smarter than you helps you become your better version, as well as, you know, being a ambassador of an industry where you're more than just a business that's trying to be viable. You're someplace that hopefully somebody else aspires to. Yeah. Well, Steve, thanks for coming on the show. This has been great for everybody listening.

26:30 Long live the large sports complex that has defined communities like Bozeman. Thank you for your contributions to the industry and look forward to checking in with you and seeing how 2026 goes. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks, your captain speaking. I am the founder and manager, managing partner at Integrity Square. We've been around now for 15 and 1/2 years. We have been helping people like yourselves get capital, do mergers and acquisitions, consulting, strategic advice in the health, active lifestyle and outdoor Halo sector, trying to help as many entrepreneurs as possible get to the next level, take that inflection point and be the force behind your growth.

27:25 We are helping companies that have at least $3 million of EBITDA, around $10 million of revenue, and we are positioned to help you get institutional growth capital or to negotiate deals with strategic partners. If you go to integritysq.com isq you can see our capabilities. Deck Happy to set up a consultation at any time that is free of charge and we look forward to helping solve obesity, loneliness and diabetes. And go Halo.

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