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To Ashland Rowing Club President James Adams, the club’s decision to create its first paid position was not determined merely by its capacity to do so. Instead, it came down to a philosophical question. “I think in any organization, especially volunteer, you can only do so much before you come to a time when you look at the environment and say, ‘Do we stay as we are or do we grow?,’” he said. “And then you ask the question, ‘Why are we here?’” In the end, Adams and his fellow Ashland Rowing Club leaders decided that the organization that’s been completely volunteer-run since launching its first boat 15 years ago is here to serve the community, and that the best way to do that is to hire somebody who knows how to maximize a club’s full potential. The Ashland Rowing Club has taken a major step toward what it hopes will be a major expansion by luring Three Rivers Rowing Club executive director and U.S. Junior National team men’s assistant coach Rick Brown to Ashland to be ARC’s first paid executive director and coach beginning July 1. Brown, 37, led clubs that have three times received the prestigious U.S. Rowing Club of the Year award — once with Marin Rowing Association in California and twice with Three Rivers Rowing in Pittsburgh — and currently heads up a club that’s roughly 10 times larger than ARC. Raised in Portland, Brown said Ashland Rowing Club’s commitment level and well-thought-out approach to expansion made his decision to leave a well-established program easier to make. (The name of the person named in this paragraph has been corrected.) “I’ll be honest, throughout the process and the decision-making there was a level of risk that my wife and I definitely talked through,” he said. “But again, we came to the conclusion that the club here has really done it the right way, and we like what they’ve established and really saw an opportunity. We weren’t going to just jump on anything. …This is really a unique opportunity to take a club to the next level.” After a member survey confirmed that the club was ready to make a hire, it posted the job opening and received a strong response. According to Barbara Faurot, who was part of ARC’s four-member search committee, resumes flooded in from Argentina, Japan, Slovakia and Canada. “We were blown away because we weren’t sure what to expect,” Faurot said. “But it’s a really attractive area for someone to come to and a lot of experienced coaches applied because they were attracted to the opportunity to build something beyond what’s already here.” The search committee whittled the applicants down to 15 finalists who were then subjected to a detailed screening process. Brown quickly rose to the top of the list. The club invited Brown, who learned of the opening from a friend in Portland, and another finalist to Ashland for face-to-face interviews in mid-December and offered Brown the job about a month later. “I had done some asking around before we brought him out and he has a stellar reputation in the rowing community, both as a coach and as a man,” Adams said. “It was clear that he was the best candidate. We ended up interviewing two people and he was far and away the best of the two, to be honest. He is tremendously well-qualified and he’s coming to us because, I think, he sees the opportunity here to create a world-class rowing club, not just for masters but especially for juniors in the Rogue Valley, and that’s important, obviously.” Brown remembers visiting Ashland with his family as a youngster to check out the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and is excited about moving back to the northwest with his wife, Robin, and three young children. But he said he wouldn’t have committed to the move if he wasn’t confident in ARC’s potential. The club’s leadership, he added, quickly snuffed out any concerns he may have had. “They’ve gone through an in-depth strategic planning process to figure out what’s next for the club and it’s pretty impressive what they’ve done in the 15 years that they’ve been in existence with really little resources or professional help,” Brown said. “So through that process they came to the conclusion that they needed a coach to bring some professional experience to the club and I think that’s what, when the posting came across my desk, initially appealed to me. It’s not just a club that’s like, ‘Hey, it’d be neat to try this.’ It was definitely something that they’d been researching and thinking through. “That was really appealing to me, as somebody who’s very comfortable in his current position, to see a club go out of its way to take its next step. It’s pretty unique to see in the rowing world.” In sort of an extended meet and greet, Brown spent Friday through Wednesday in Ashland. Part of that time was spent on the water at Emigrant Lake, giving some pointers to rowers. ARC has a 3,000-square-foot boathouse at Emigrant, about 50 boats of varying sizes, dozens of ergometers and weight machines. Faurot said Brown’s technical expertise has already proven valuable to the rowers who were able to go out with him. “The feedback from the rowers has been fantastic,” Faurot said. “The rowing stroke has many pieces and parts to it — it’s very complex, so even an Olympic rower would say they’ve never had a perfect stroke. And what Rick does really well that we’ve observed the past few days is he’s really able to see what is the most important thing to focus on first to improve the most. A lot of coaches will point out the 10 things that you’re doing wrong, but Rick is able to assess the level of the rower and really hone in on the simple things that make the biggest difference for that rower and deliver that in a constructive way.” Currently, Ashland Rowing Club has about 100 men and women masters rowers and 30 juniors. Adams believes the club can increase those numbers significantly in the coming years, possibly to 150 masters rowers or more. He also believes Ashland could host three major regattas a year. “That is what Rick will help us create,” Adams said. “It is a major step in the development of the rowing club and I am absolutely convinced that we’ll look back at this moment five years from now and say what a wonderful thing that we did to make Ashland Rowing Club the very best it can be, and I am truly overjoyed that Rick has agreed to come.” Joe Zavala can be reached at 541-821-0829 or [email protected].