GWA: A History Part 1
Written by Jon Bula, GWA Owner and Cofounder
Where it all began… in the Olympic lifting area of the Kits Community Center. At that time, I was a first-year graduate student at UBC, pursuing a Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology, while also working part-time as a gym attendant at the center. I was training my good friend Troy Dalton for his upcoming hockey season. He was off to play professionally in Germany, and we were both committed to training hard six days a week. Those were the days—early twenties, brimming with energy, incredible recovery abilities from intense workouts, and little else on our plates besides training, partying, and playing slow pitch during the summer.
Troy and I had been friends since high school and were both student-athletes at UBC—Troy studying business while I focused on Kinesiology. That summer, Troy was impressed with his progress; we managed to pack nearly 15 pounds of muscle onto his lean frame, making us both stronger and more powerful than ever before. I vividly remember when he said, “I can sell this stuff you do! We should go into business together.” That moment in the Kits gym marked the birth of GWA. It was pivotal for me because, at the time, I thought my future lay in becoming a strength and conditioning coach for a pro sports team, having never considered starting my own business. Little did we know, those workouts together would serve as the foundation for what we were about to create. Our teamwork, work ethic, determination, and resilience were the cornerstones of our training—qualities that would seamlessly translate to our business ambitions.
When Troy returned that spring after his final season of professional hockey, we jumped straight into our plans. This was where Troy truly thrived. While I often dive headfirst into ideas, trusting my intuition to guide me, Troy was all about planning. He insisted we sit down to outline a business plan—an entirely foreign concept to me at the time. One of the parts I really cherished was naming our business. While Troy excelled at organizing and planning, I thrived on ideas and abstract thinking. Some of our early attempts at names didn’t quite hit the mark. For a month, we settled on the acronym B.A.D. Training (Bula and Dalton Training), thinking it sounded edgy and cool. However, several close friends had the courage to tell us the truth: the name sucked! It wasn’t something that our business could grow or evolve with. While Troy found inspiration in reading the thesaurus, I preferred to ‘sleep’ on ideas and let my subconscious do the work. To this day, we still argue about who came up with the name Groundwork Athletics. What we both agreed on, however, was that laying the foundation—or “groundwork”—is essential for future success. We also believed (and still do) that athleticism is important for everyone, regardless of who they are or what stage of life they’re in. These beliefs have always been guiding principles for Groundwork Athletics.
Our Business Plan (as I remember it):
2002:
- Troy to obtain personal training certification
- Jon to continue working at Kits while starting independent personal training
- Jon to get a summer job with leading hockey strength and conditioning business, Twist Conditioning
- Troy to secure his first industry personal training job
2003:
- Jon and Troy become independent trainers
2004:
- Open the first facility
This outlined our first business plan, and wouldn’t you know it, we achieved it almost exactly as intended. Our first facility was located in a neighborhood of Vancouver called Railtown. We were incredibly fortunate to have a client who was the CEO of Westbeach at the time. His company needed to expand to a new office/warehouse space, so he graciously took on extra square footage for Troy and me to sublease and open Groundwork Athletics. I adored that little 1,200 square foot studio with its cedar beams and red brick. We were young, working 6 AM to 7 PM most days. There was plenty of time for fun and our fitness, but we also spent countless hours training clients in that space. We began offering athlete training programs, including summer off-season hockey strength and conditioning, and hired our first two employees there. By late 2005, we quickly found ourselves needing to expand.
In 2006, we opened Groundwork Athletics downtown on Granville Street, which is still our location today.
Stay tuned for next week’s instalment: GWA: A History Part 2.