About Greg Lawlor
My first career was Phys Ed teacher, from kindergarten to junior college. For 8 years in the in the Montreal area, I enjoyed coaching and teaching immensely. My experiences at this time are still treasured 30 years later. I think of privilege it was to connect with so many young students and athletes. The lessons I learned propelled me to a fulfilling career that always revolved around physical movement.
However, I became increasingly frustrated with the cutbacks in structured PE time (gym time) for kids. Professionally, this was troubling. Personally it led to a lot of financial instability for a young professional trying to build a family life.
Having worked my way through university in the fitness clubs in the 1980’s, I gravitated back to the fitness business when the school system did not share my passion on the importance of fitness and active living.
That led me, in 1995, to commercial fitness equipment supply and business 101!
After a formal education at McGill University getting my B.Ed., and Master’s degree, I was ready for the street education of commission sales – or so I thought!!
Knowing only 1 way to go, I used one of my summers off from teaching to dive in full force into the business of connecting equipment to organizations that offered fitness. I learned quickly that my skills of teaching could be applied here, and focused on understanding the needs of fitness organizations and how I could fill them with equipment and support.
Long story short, the learning curve was steep, but traction started to occur and progress made. I had found a new career and left teaching school later that summer of 1995. I actually, I never left teaching, but my classroom changed!
Note: for all you parents out there, it only really hit me when I became a parent that that confidence my parents instilled in me allowed me to make such changes. I am very lucky indeed to have been raised in such an environment. A valuable lesson on the importance of instilling self-esteem into our kids!
Moving Forward:
Since that time, I have had the good fortune of working across Canada with thousands of organizations in building their fitness projects.
I have learned a ton, met a number of great people and had some great success stories in assisting others increase their fitness offering to the community they serve.
In May 2010, I joined STAK Fitness Int’l Inc. as a partner, and put all my energy into developing the most progressive and success oriented fitness supply and education organization in Canada.
In 2014, our success was documented in Fitness Business Canada.
Pdf of Fitness business Canada article here
In 2015, our work got the attention of Johnson Health Tech (JHT), one of the largest suppliers of fitness equipment in the world, headquartered in Taiwan. JHT approached us with the request of considering selling our business to them, coming on board and running their 24th subsidiary, in Canada. It was a good time to do so as a number of factors were challenging what we had built.
I accepted the offer to join JHT and have had another learning experience with a large global manufacturer in the position of VP Sales and Marketing.
As of 2020, Johnson Health Tech now have 35 subsidiaries globally.
This humble teacher from Lasalle/Lachine, Quebec now had a business education through the school of hands on experience, built up a business, worked closely with thousands of customers and people across North America, gone through the process of selling a business and was now onto a new adventure, a global one!
Quite the journey, steep learning curve indeed!
Needless to say, a lot of lessons have been learned along the way, and not just professionally. Managing a professional life, family life, and one’s personal health can be very challenging.
One thing I learned early on, is that the more you help people with their business, the more in demand you will become. With that came requests for increased responsibility, projects of larger and larger size, management of people, travel, administration,logistics, supplier relations, and technical support, while developing and managing all these skills required for growth.
Helping others and following my passion re-invigorated my love of coaching young athletes. Shepherding my son through youth baseball led to opportunities in helping other young athletes prepare for competition. As my son heads to college, I still coach young athletes.
In 2020, this website has been refreshed to offer help in areas that might be of service to you – not just as an organization but also personally with your own health, and that of your children. I created Athleticover40 in 2018 to bring my learnings around athletic preparation and performance to those like me , who want to stay strong, move well and be athletic as we get older.
It is ironic that in the business of fitness, it is very easy to lose track of one’s own health and wellness. Thankfully, I have never lost my passion for feeling and moving well.
I have had to adapt my lifestyle and activities to suit a body that is aging, a busy schedule of family and professional obligations, while accommodating multiple priorities including travel, and demands of throwing thousands of baseballs for batting practice as a coach.
In 2020, the great pause around COVID-19 provided me cause to launch The Physical Movement. TPM is a newsletter and forum for sharing, learning and getting better in the promotion and development of strong movement skills through sport and regular physical activity.
Look forward to connecting.
Greg
