Still focused on fitness

It has been 10 years since Patriot Fitness opened its doors to the community and the business has no plans of slowing down.

In December 2007, Patriot Fitness opened as a 24-hour all-access gym for the community. Sean Roberts and Emily Goodrich started the facility to “help keep Jay County strong.”

Five years after opening Roberts and Goodrich decided to sell the business, and that was when Tyler Newell stepped in as the owner.

He had discovered his interest in fitness training while pursuing a degree in therapeutic massage at Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana.

While attending school, he took a college credit class in fitness training. Newell didn’t know at the time that the class would become the foundation for his career.

“My goal was to get into the massage field somewhere,” said Newell. “At that time, what I really wanted to do was kind of travel and work with musicians.”

After graduating, he took a job at Heads Up, a hair salon in Portland at the time, as a massage therapist. He was working there when he found out that Patriot Fitness was opening. 

Newell, who graduated with Roberts, decided to discuss a job opportunity with him at the gym.

Newell started out shadowing Roberts and he soon realized that there was a strong need for personal training in the area. He joined the staff as a personal trainer, and stayed on after Roberts left to pursue a career in the chiropractic field.

Shortly after that, Goodrich decided to put her focus on Patriot Sportswear, which she owned at that time. She and Roberts decided it was time to sell the business.

“It is one of those deals where if somebody else bought the business, you are never really sure what is going to happen with it and where you will fit into their plan or if you fit into it at all,” said Newell. “So, at that point, I decided to buy the business myself.”

Newell has been running the gym ever since and now has two other personal trainers, Gene Hummel and Donna Minnich, and nearly 400 members.

In the past decade, Patriot Fitness has set a goal of promoting the importance of health and wellness in the area.

“We opened up at the right time,” said Newell. “In the last decade the trend has been toward fitness and health and wellness. As that’s taken off, people have become more interested.”

Over the years, the business has started a “corporate plan” through which it offers discounts to employees at area industries and has been able to get involved with the Jay County Hospital, Jay Schools and various community initiatives.

Newell also credits the success of the business to community support.

“You see, especially in the fitness world, fads come and go and to see a place open up and be for-profit and privately owned and be able to stick around for 10 years is hard,” said Newell. “I think it’s more a credit to the support of the community than anything we have done.”

Newell also believes that having a place like Patriot Fitness in a small city like Portland is important to the well being of the community.

With health problems rising in the area, he wants the gym to offer people a way to stay active and encourage them to be their healthiest selves.

The gym offers its members a wide range of classes, from yoga to cross training, and seeks to accommodate many different levels of fitness. Newell wants the gym to have a welcoming environment to everyone, no matter their skill set.

“You have people who have always been athletic and then those who are just starting out but it doesn’t matter,” said Newell.

Rosi Clamme has been going to Patriot Fitness for nearly nine years. Before joining, she had only been to two gyms, which were unstaffed and left her feeling like she didn’t know what she was doing.

When she joined Patriot Fitness, she signed up to have Newell train her for two to three weeks so she would learn how to use the equipment, but after nearly a decade, she comes every week to see him.

“Tyler has made it so fun,” said Clamme. “Some days I get just as psychologically pumped up as I do physically because we laugh and have a good time while working out.”

Marcie Vormohr has also been training with Newell for almost nine years. All of her children have attended the gym, and while she was constantly dropping and picking them up, she decided to join.

Just like Clamme, she only felt she needed Newell as a personal trainer for a few weeks to learn how to use equipment but she too hasn’t stopped training with him.

“He makes it just as hard as it is fun,” said Vormohr.

In the future, Newell eventually wants to see the gym move into a bigger space while adding more members. 

He has a goal of adding 100 new members every week but with the facility’s size, he does not have the space to do that now. Until more space is available, Newell wants to add more personal trainers and continue to offer more classes to members. 

“I would rather serve the members we have well, than have a whole bunch of members we serve poorly,” said Newell.

Newell also wants to touch on markets he hasn’t already reached out to. He feels there are always more people and places he hasn’t reached out to and whether they are interested in the gym or not, he wants them to know that the opportunity it there.

Although he wants to accomplish more, Newell knows that the distance the gym has come in the last 10 years has been made possible by the community support.

“I just really appreciate the support we have had and people going to bat for us,” said Newell, “from co-signing the loans for me to buy the business to people recruiting their church group to come.

“I feel like we got to be doing something right or we wouldn’t have been doing it for 10 years.”