GREENFIELD — After 50 years working with the YMCA, Bob Sunderland will retire. He’s been a swimming instructor, a lifeguard, an executive and a leader, transforming the Greenfield YMCA he took over as director in 1987 into what it is today.
Sunderland, 66, announced his retirement this week — which will take effect in June of 2019 — and reflected on the organization he joined as a volunteer “junior leader” when he was 13 years old.
“I’ve been thinking about retirement for a while,” Sunderland said. “January of 2019 will be the 50th year of receiving payment from the Y, and, after 50 years of Y work, it’s time.”
Sunderland became a YMCA member at age 9, in Grand Forks, N.D., and physical fitness became a passion of his. He volunteered at his hometown Y where he grew up, teaching younger children how to swim — and lifeguarding for 90 cents an hour.
As he gained experience in teaching and leadership, Sunderland was promoted several times. He became the aquatics director in 1973, and then physical director in 1978 at the Grand Forks YMCA. In 1983, he became an associate executive director at the new YMCA in Camarillo, Calif., where he turned a private racquetball club into a full-fledged YMCA with programs for all ages.
But it’s his work in Greenfield that Sunderland says will be his legacy.
“When I started at the YMCA in Greenfield in August (1987), the Y was in a difficult financial situation and the building was in rough shape,” Sunderland said. “The Y was three years behind in national Y dues, it hadn’t paid any principal payments on a 1970 building loan, and had borrowed money from its endowment fund, reducing annual interest. The Y basically had run a deficit most years for 20 years.”
The first thing Sunderland did was close down the Greenfield YMCA for a week — perhaps a counterintuitive tactic, but it allowed him and his team to start an overhaul.
“We cleaned it from top to bottom, and when we opened in the fall of ‘87, it was the cleanest that building had ever been,” Sunderland said. “That was the beginning of it. We were a new building, a new Y.”
The Greenfield YMCA had what Sunderland calls a “slow climb up” out of its financial hole, but he put his focus into program development, membership growth and refreshing the building to make things right.
In 1997, the Greenfield YMCA began its largest-ever fundraiser, one many thought would be impossible.
“It was a $2.3 million fund drive to our west side addition,” Sunderland said. “A lot of people said we can’t raise $2.3 million in Greenfield. We said we’d do it and we did it.”
Today, the west side of the YMCA is a 15,000-square-foot, three-story building with a family and gymnastics center, a social room, an elevator, two exercise rooms, a special needs locker room, a youth game room and a “Kid Fit” center.
Sunderland said that addition, as well as a 6,000-square-foot east side addition, have helped the Greenfield YMCA retain its stable footing.
“Today, the YMCA is debt-free,” Sunderland said. “And for the past 30 years, we have ended our fiscal year in the black, sometimes by just $1,000 during the recession years.”
Sunderland plans on staying in Greenfield during retirement, while traveling to see his three daughters in Alabama, California and Florida.
He also said he’d like to join “local boards and nonprofits” to lend his experience in management and program development, though he has no specific nonprofits in mind.
“I’m just throwing my net out there,” Sunderland said. “I’d really like to get involved (in Greenfield).”
Sunderland hopes the national YMCA, with input from the Greenfield YMCA’s board of directors, will have someone in place to be the next executive director by July 1, 2019.
Wendy Blanchard, president of the Greenfield YMCA board, said she is thankful Sunderland is giving a 12-month notice of his retirement so they can find a replacement, but that Sunderland will be missed as someone who “contributed to our YMCA’s success over the years.”
“I know that I speak for the entire YMCA in Greenfield community when I extend to Bob my sincerest gratitude, appreciation and best wishes,” Blanchard said.
Sunderland said the Greenfield YMCA will continue its focus on three areas: youth development, healthy living and social responsibility projects.
Whoever steps into Sunderland’s shoes next, he is confident “the Y’s core values will stay the same: developing spirit, mind and body. The Y is a great place to exercise, but you can come to have a community, too.”
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.