Portland Parks & Recreation - Winter 2016
Interview with Personal Trainer, John Cunningham Interviewed by Katie Schalk, Fitness Department, SWCC What motivates you to live a healthy, active life? The desire to enjoy life to its fullest for as long as possible! Tell us a little about your background: Where you grew up, past work experience, how you became interested in becoming a fitness professional, etc. I grew up in California. My family moved around a lot but we spent most of our time in Livermore. In 1982, at the age of 17, I enlisted in the U.S Army and spent the next 3 years stationed in Washington DC. I worked as a communications specialist with the Old Guard, the ceremonial unit and escort to the President. When my enlistment ended I returned to California only to find that my family had moved to Oregon, so in 1985 I headed north and came to rest in Albany. Over the next 5 years I became the father of 3 amazing children; Amber, Kaytie and Nick and moved to Dallas, OR where I began working as a logger. During my 10 years working in the woods I sustained a back injury that put me out of work for 6 months. I only bring this up because this injury would follow me for years and continued to be an issue well into my 40’s until I began exercising on a regular basis. Since then, I have not had to deal with the pain I had convinced myself was just a part of my life. There is a message there!! Stepping back just a bit, after spending 10 years working in the woods, and another 6 working as a heavy equipment operator, I moved to Portland and began working for Oregon State Parks. I spent the better part of the next 10 years sitting in a cubicle. It was during this time I became very sedentary and soon tipped the scales at close to 250 pounds. After my father died due to complications associated with obesity, I realized I needed to make some changes in my lifestyle and I purchased a gym membership. Over the course of the next few years, I began dropping weight and became interested in running and competing in obstacle races.
8 Westside Parks
503-823-PLAY
Entering those races was how I kept myself motivated in the beginning and through them I began to meet people with amazing life changing stories of their own. It wasn’t long before I realized I wanted to be part of those changes by helping motivate, train and encourage anyone willing to take steps to improve their health. It was this newfound desire which led me to enroll in the Fitness Technology (Fit Tech) program at Portland Community College, where I earned my associates’ degree in exercise science, and received my personal trainer certification with the American College of Sports Medicine. How did you become interested in working at Southwest Community Center? While attending Portland Community College the students of the Fit Tech program are introduced to fitness professionals from many clubs in the Portland Metro area. SWCC is very supportive of the program and was represented by a former employee, Holly Howard. I was immediately taken with Holly’s professionalism and asked for an interview for an internship. Many of you may already know the rest of this story, but for those who don’t, Holly offered me a position shortly after I began my internship. I gave it some long hard consideration and within a minute I accepted! The members and staff are amazing and it was a no brainer that I wanted to be part of the fitness team at SWCC. Tell me a little bit about the rest of the SWCC Fitness Team. I absolutely love working with the fitness team at SWCC. We don’t get a lot of time together, but when we do, we share ideas about training, brainstorm about improving the fitness program and generally offer each other any support we may need. I think I have it best because everyone here has been working in fitness much longer than me, which means I have more to learn from them then they can from me. (Bonus of being the new guy!) All kidding aside, it feels like family and I love being part of this team.