Bryan Chambers, Head Lifeguard
Resides: Brattleboro, VT. Moved from just outside NYC 7 years ago.
Age: 39
Likes: Horror and sci-fi movies, his dog Greta, and swimming!
Bryan turned a major passion in his life into a job here at the Keene Family YMCA.
Since he was 6 years old, he’s been swimming competitively, and has been a swimmer his whole life. Being in the water, more the pool than the beach, has been a major part of his life, and he gets to enjoy that passion every day at the Y.
“It was funny being a competitive swimmer and then people would have birthday parties [growing up] and it would be at the pool,” he said.
When Bryan isn’t doing laps in the pool, he takes his dog, Greta, on the walking trails.
Greta, a 4-year-old American bulldog/Spitz mix, had an interesting meeting with Bryan.
“It was kind of interesting because when we got her and we looked at her in the pictures, we thought she was like a chocolate color, like chocolate colored fur, but after we gave her two or three baths, we realized her fur was black,” he said.
Another interesting thing about a “very sweet and very gentle” Greta is that she doesn’t look like the breeds she’s mixed with, according to Bryan.
“She looks like a black Labrador retriever but low to the ground, and she’s very solid. She’s 55 pounds,” he said.
In his free time, Bryan likes to pop on a horror or sci-fi movie, his favorite genre.
“I really like watching anything as long as I really like it, but I would have to say horror [is my favorite] by far,” he said. “One of my favorite horror movies, it’s a sci-fi horror movie, is called Event Horizon.”
Bryan has been around the pool for so long that when he was 15 years old, he got certified to be a lifeguard. He’s been lifeguarding periodically ever since.
He started lifeguarding a lot more when he started working at the Keene Family YMCA in 2018. Before that, he lifeguarded at the New Rochelle YMCA in New York in 2005.
Swimming has also brought him to the team he currently coaches called the Windam Waves, a Special Olympics swim team based in Brattleboro. They recently had their annual meet in Burlington, VT, the first since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
“[The team] is pretty amazing… It’s always an awesome experience, it’s always fun and rewarding and it’s a great time. My team loves it because we go up…, we do a team dinner, and they love the whole staying-in-a-hotel experience,” he said.
Being Head Lifeguard means a lot of pool time and pool area maintenance comes with the job, but Bryan said that the most important part of his job is making sure the other lifeguards and members are all safe and having a good time.
“I have to mention the main thing, the number one thing, is making sure everybody is safe. [Making sure] the members are safe and everybody’s happy,” Bryan said.
“You know, I’ve been around the pool my entire life, and doing instructions for a long time, and as head guard… more of the safety aspect of how lessons are conducted. The whole base of lessons is safety first, but then once I became head guard [I got] more insight about what’s going on, and it’s more working with the instructors… giving them instructions to keep the kids safe,” he said.
Bryan said that there are some cool aquatics classes and programs that he’d love to see grow.
“I would always love to see our swim team grow, and our swim team is a large swim team…but I always love to see more and more people join,” he said. “I would like to see the water aerobics classes [grow] as well. We have an in water cycling class which is pretty cool… There’s arthritis programs… shallow water aerobics… in the future, [I hope] we could get a few more people interested in instructing.”
At the end of the day, the good vibes of the Y are the best part of Bryan’s time here at the Y.
“The Y is a wonderful place; it really is an excellent community of people. It’s kind of like a family, in a way. I’ve made a lot of friends at the Y, either coworkers or people that are members,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of positive energy around the Y. Coming to the Y and being a part of the Y experience can be a life changing thing. “