Headwater Athletics is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Boulder, Colorado.
We're small, and every dollar matters. Your support goes toward our coaches, small lane ratios, and the research and testing of executive functioning activities that work.
We encourage games, laughing, and having fun while building swimming skills.
We don't just want to find what works. We want to share it, because change starts small but always ripples outward.
My personal goal has always been to leave a positive mark on the world. I did that for years through
Business-Smart Solutions. Now I'm bringing that same drive to children.
If Headwater Athletics' mission speaks to you, we're building our Board, always on the lookout for great coaches, and looking for a few sponsors aligned with our mission and values.
We also welcome your support.
No amount is too small.
HEADWATER ATHLETICS TODAY
You don't need a diagnosis to belong here. Just a kid who could use a coach who sees them.
Every program is grounded in research, including Harvard's Dr. John Ratey's work on how movement sharpens focus and mood. Heart-led coaching matters just as much.
Five kids to a lane. Always. Our focus is on your child.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
WHY I BUILT IT THIS WAY
I spent more than 20 years producing national business conferences and programs, designing programs, and securing speakers for organizations like Inc. and Fast Company magazines, Cisco Systems, Dell, NetApp, Aruba Networks, Fidelity, CU-Boulder, Notre Dame, and Renaissance Learning, among others. My work with Cisco's Leadership Channel earned a Bersin & Associates Award for Innovation.
Headwater Athletics is the first time I've built something for my own family — and for every family living some version of our story.
I didn't set out to start a nonprofit. I set out to help my own kid. On the heels of the pandemic, my daughter was struggling, like a lot of kids. We'd just moved from a small mountain town to the center of a city, into an international school with kids from all over the world.
In the mountains, life had been a breeze — skiing, sledding, mountain biking, the pool, with school not running every day because of the pandemic.
My daughter’s always been creative and bright, but reading was hard for her. At first I chalked it up to the move, the pandemic, our play-based preschool. It took a while to realize something else was going on. We had her evaluated and found out she was dyslexic.
I'd been looking right at it and telling myself a different story. The frustration built fast for her. Friendships didn't come easy at a school where everyone had known each other since kindergarten. Her mind moved fast, her body wanted to move, and she spent most of her days sitting at a desk inside, with nowhere to put any of it.
Then she started swimming with a coach who led with patience, understanding, and empathy, who met her exactly where she was. Something shifted. She got calmer, more confident, made friends, slept better. I watched it happen in the water, and then I watched it follow her out of the pool and into the rest of her life.
That's the moment Headwater Athletics was born.
Not from a business plan — from watching one kid transform.
THE ORIGIN STORY
One kid. One coach.
One shift that changed everything.
Back in my racing days in Moab