EMERGING BRANDS
Davis Tarwater: From Olympic Gold Medal Winner To Multi Unit Franchisee by Rick Morgin, Consultant, The Franchise Consulting Company
DAVIS TARWATER is a franchisee of Streamline Brands, who franchise a variety of swim schools including SafeSplash + Swim Labs swim schools. Davis is a multi-unit owner of Swim Labs Swim Schools. WHEN DID YOU EXPERIENCE A NEED TO DEVELOP YOUR SWIM EDUCATION BUSINESS? I had a background in the sport of from a very young age. Swimming has always been a significant passion in my life. As a college athlete at the University of Michigan, I was elected team captain my senior year and was a three24
time national champion. After spending most of my twenties as a pro- athlete, my career culminated by winning a gold medal in the 4x200 freestyle relay at the London Olympics. After a brief-stint working in an asset management firm, I did a great deal of research in the markets in which I am located and found that swim lessons that were both convenient in terms of location, easy to schedule and could be conducted over an extended duration of time (rather than seasonal session-based options), were in short supply. So, after further examination, I felt that the fastest way to scale was to partner with an existing franchise organization to put a large-scale development plan in place. To that end, I have been extremely happy with the decision to go the franchise route with my partners at Streamline Brands and to offer industry leading expertise as the company has grown. HOW LONG HAS SOUTHEASTERN SWIM SCHOOLS BEEN IN BUSINESS? Our company, Southeastern Swim Schools, which has area rights to develop, SafeSplash + Swim Labs Swim Schools,
JANUARY 2025 | WWW.FRANCHISEJOURNAL.COM
has been in business since 2019. In fact, we initially began teaching out of a hotel pool. However, in January of 2020, we opened our first brick and mortar location in Knoxville, TN, followed shortly by 2 more in the Nashville area. There were significant challenges during the COVID timeframe in terms of both construction and operations. However, we were able to weather that storm and are embarking on a new wave of development. HOW MANY LOCATIONS DO YOU HAVE OPERATING AND IN WHICH AREA OF THE COUNTRY? We have 3 locations currently open: Knoxville, TN, Franklin, TN and Nashville, TN. We are on track to open our fourth location in Simpsonville, SC this coming January. HOW DO ADULT AND CHILD STUDENTS FIND YOU? We employ a variety of different marketing strategies to drive traffic to our website. Through a combination of digital advertising, local partnerships and traditional local, grassroots efforts, we