SEASON 1 EPISODE 9 with

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Learn how to Swim to Save a Life. This Charity Raised Nearly $100 million to Directly Fund Therapies to Defeat Cancer A Conversation with Swim Across America’s Rob Butcher and Pam Ryan from Goldman Sachs Season 1, Episode 9

Guests: Rob Butcher, Swim Across America CEO and Pam Ryan, Swim Across America board chair and Goldman Sachs Managing Director

AARON KWITTKEN Hi everyone. My next guests, Rob Butcher and Pam Ryan, are from Swim Across America. They’re actually the first non-profit organization to be on my podcast. You’ll soon find out why I wanted them on the show.

Swim Across America is an incredible organization that raises money to fund therapies that treat and beat cancer. You’ll also be happy to know that I successfully completed my monster 6-mile swim across the Long Island Sound the day after we recorded this episode. We talk about it in the episode. And I also raised about $8k along the way.

This episode is dedicated to the millions of people who bravely fought and won the battle to beat cancer. And also to the ones that, sadly, lost their brave fight, in particular my family friend, Kate Foster, who taught me many things, including how life is asymmetrical. And my college buddy, Dave Robb, who left this world and his family way too soon, after his long and courageous fight with pancreatic cancer. May their memories always be for a blessing.

Swimming saved my life, and now you can find out how Swim Across America is making waves to save others. Enjoy.

AARON KWITTKEN Broadcasting from the 10 Hudson Square Building, home of WNYC Radio in Soho, New York, welcome to Brand on Purpose, the podcast dedicated to uncovering the untold stories behind the most impactful purpose-driven organizations.

My guests today are Rob Butcher, CEO of Swim Across America and Pam Ryan, Swim Across America board chair and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. Swim Across America is a non-profit that hosts benefit swims to promote cancer research. They held their first benefit swim way back in 1987. I was 17 years old. And has since expanded to include 20 annual open water races and over 100 pool swims. And these guys can tell me if I’m wrong with these numbers, but they’re still pretty spectacular. And the core value of Swim Across America is to keep donations local.

So, for example, proceeds from a Long Island Sound swim would fund New York hospitals and proceeds from a San Francisco Bay swim would fund San Francisco hospitals. Now in its 33rd year, Swim Across America is closing in on nearly $100 million dollars raised for cancer research, which I think is incredible.

Rob, who joins me in studio, has been the CEO of Swim Across America since 2016, but he’s always been a swimmer. He even qualified to compete at the 2000 Olympic trials. Then he decided to take a dip into marketing instead. It’s just a bad pun.

Following the tragic passing of his mother from cancer in 2017, Rob’s passion for swimming was renewed. He was hired as Executive Director of US Master’s Swimming the following year and in 2015, Rob joined the board of directors of Swim Across America. A year later he was asked to become the CEO, where he’s responsible for strong growth in both attendance and fundraising for all of Swim Across America’s events.

And like Rob, Pam, who joins us via Skype, is no stranger to the water. Um, I’m going to embarrass her a little here. She captained the Harvard Swimming and Diving team to a national championship in her college days. She has been a regular participant in the Swim Across America Boston Harbor swim for almost 20 years, where she’s consistently a top donor. It was this later connection and fact that inspired Pam to join the Swim Across America Board of Directors back in 2014.

Both Rob and Pam are passionate about the work they do and have used their positions to contribute to a very personal cause. Building Swim Across America into a nationally recognized and universally admired brand.

Tomorrow, I will be swimming the 10k across the Long Island Sound from Glencove, Long Island to Larchmont, New York. I am slightly terrified to do this, but I’m also very excited.

And I was very fortunate to be introduced to Swim Across America through my friend, Mike Kelly, from the Greenwich YMCA a few years ago. I did the 5k last year, I tried to do the 5k the year before, but as you recall, Rob, the swim got cancelled for good reason, it was a little dangerous. There was a nor’easter swirling up, creating bad waves and tough currents in the water. So we did it in the back of the Y actually, so we still raised money and we still swam, just did it in the YMCA, another great organization.

So, Rob Butcher and Pam Ryan welcome to Brand on Purpose, it’s awesome to have you here in studio and its great to have you join by Skype, Pam.

PAM RYAN Thanks.

ROB BUTCHER Thank you, thanks for having us.

AK: So, Rob, just take me back a little bit, 33 years ago. Or I don’t know, you were probably born maybe you’re, like, five years old. No, I don’t think so.

RB: I’m 72.

AK: Ok great. I like it. Tell me a little bit about the story behind the founding. I know why you’re so involved and why you decided to join the board and become full time as CEO of the organization, and we’ll obviously talk a little bit about that.

But tell our listeners a little bit about the founding of the organization, the inspiration behind it, and full disclosure, and we talked about this offline earlier—the reason why I’m doing this podcast is because I want everybody listening to either participate in an event, donate to an event, or sponsor an event with your organization so let’s just get that out of the way now, because that is the whole purpose of this podcast today.

RB: Some campfire stories that both Pam and I have heard over the years, the whole precursor of Swim Across America was actually from a gentleman named Jeff Keith. And Jeff lost his leg when he was in his early teenage years to sarcoma. And he decided, he and Hugh Curran and Matt Vosler and even Jack Salerno, some others who are still with us today, involved in the organization in 1984 they were all graduating from BC or in that area, that they were going to run across the US. Run.

AK: This is the Run Across America?

RB: This was called Jeff Keith’s Run Across America, yes. It started in the summer of 1984 and finished in 1985 in February. Took them 8 months. This was no internet, no cell phones. The old Rand Mcnally atlas maps that you have to have and you draw things out and you send a scouting map out 40 miles ahead and so forth. And they ran, they were running on average about 20 miles a day.

AK: Everyday. Almost everyday.

RB: Everyday, yeah. They raised over $1 million dollars for American Cancer Society and along the way they became celebrities. Ronald Reagan met them twice. Once in St. Louis, and talked to them on the phone at UCLA, and you can imagine all the other celebrities that were clapping and cheering for them and the praise that they were getting.

So they get to Los Angeles and Jeff is going to UCS, he’s going to grad school and so his life moves in that direction. And on that run was Matt Vosler. And Matt moved back to the New York City area, he’s from Connecticut, and for about a year, year and a half, he sort of stewed on it, like a lot of us would, and thought, what can I do? I cant run again. I can’t give up a year of my life. But I’m now 23-24 years old, what can I do to inspire and give back and at the time that core group in addition to Jeff, so many of their family and friends were affected by cancer and the only options were surgery, chemotherapy and radiation in the 80s.

AK: There was a dearth of drug and therapeutics back then compared to what we see today.

RB: And as you had talked to Sarah earlier, the advent of triathlon was just coming about in the 80s and so triathlons were starting to sprout up. It wasn’t as big a sport as it is today. And so there were some swimmers that were friends with Matt and a couple of others and they decided to do the very first open water charity swim. And so the swim that you’re actually going to do on the Long Island Sound, they did from Port Jefferson across Long Island Sound. It was about 14 miles.

AK: I was going to say, that’s double the distance, that’s not.

RB: The climax to that story is there were about 60 of them on that and it raised about $5 thousand dollars. $5 thousand. So, instead of it raising $1 million like the run, they raised $5 thousand and even more of a campfire story is the boat actually sunk, not on purpose.

AK: You’re kidding.

RB: Too many people were on it and it capsized.

AK: But they were ready to swim anyway weren’t they. I’m not being…

RB: Yeah, but there were a few people on the boat that didn’t know how to swim.

AK: Oh, well that’s not good.

RB: So we’ve heard this story and Matt shared it in long form for us and it’s just incredible stuff and it’s very inspiring, but that’s been the grit, the perseverance of Swim Across America. We’re not gonna give up, were gonna continue to do charity swims and so often that very first one in 1987, here we are 33 years later and have grown to become who we are today.

AK: The last I looked on the site, the swim that’s tomorrow that I'm participating in and there’s different distances for people to know. There’s a 5k a 2k and maybe a 1k as well, I can’t remember.

RB: There’s a 5k and a 2k and then there’s this one, yeah.

AK: 5k, 2k and 10k. But in totality, you’ve raised almost $1 million dollars just for this one event tomorrow. It’s like at $800 thousand dollars or something.

RB: Because of all the satellite pool swims that exist underneath its umbrella at NY Athletic Club and elsewhere and the country clubs in the Greenwich, Connecticut area, it’s gonna raise about $1.3 million dollars.

AK: That’s crazy. That’s amazing.

RB: And, as you shared on the opening and, as Pam knows, all the money raised stays within the community. So a hallmark of Swim Across America is that we actually operate 20 different bank accounts. Each swim has it’s own bank account. So everything that your participants and supporters are donating to your swim to sport, all that $8 thousand dollars is sitting within a Larchmont-specific bank account. And so it doesn’t leave the community and end up in other parts of the country. But, the impact, the cures, the treatments, those can have a global impact.

AK: And was Vosler, did I say his name right, Matt? Was he a swimmer at all? Did he have to learn how to swim? I know he’s a runner.

RB: Lacrosse.

AK: Oh, wow. Ok.

RB: Yeah, yeah.

AK: That’s a stretch.

RB: And Matt’s still with us today and he’s a board colleague to Pam and to me, and a dear friend, most importantly, but someone, if you were to meet, who has given so many hours of his life to Swim Across America and, quite frankly, to other causes as well. He just, when you look at a servant leader, Matt is a servant leader.

AK: Right, right. And Pam, how did you get involved with Swim Across America? I know you’ve been on the board now for a number of years, and now you’re board chair, but what was your first moment and your engagement with Swim Across America?

PR: Well, I think echoing what Rob said, it is truly an organic organization. About 20 years ago, Goldman Sachs actually had a team, I’m in the Boston office and I’m a diver. I mean, yes, we swim to the side of the pool, but we weren’t really swimmers. But, they finally convinced me to pop in with this team.

And I did it because one, I just wanted to be part of a team and Goldman’s always encouraged us to get involved in our communities, but I also did it because my mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and was being treated at Dana Farber. And I had the most amazing experience.

The Boston swim is a 22-mile relay swim and that sounds daunting, but there are so many ways to be involved in it. I actually can swim and so I was able to participate in the full way which is just doing your segments, but, there’s opportunities for people to kayak, be on zodiacs, be at registration and when I finished that first swim, I have to say, like, it was such a spirited family feel.

And the fact that the beneficiary of this swim at the time was actually there at the end, it was a man named David Kareeny and his wife, Eileen, and they lost a child to cancer and they started which is really spectacular, a survivorship center at Dana Farber.

That was a time when cancer didn’t have the outcome when you got the diagnosis that it does today and the fact that he was there doing something so positive and the fact that I had, actually, so much fun with so many people including some of the people that Rob spoke about, just made me keep going and so roll the clock forward I just did the Boston swim two weeks ago, my mom was a volunteer she helped at registration. My dad has done it in year’s past and all three of my kids have participated in some way in our events. Like you said earlier, my kids, they didn’t want to be divers or swimmers, they were all lacrosse players. Anyway, it’s been just a terrific part of my life and a great way of giving back.

AK: I mean, my only experience so far with the organization is through this one event with the Long Island Sound swim. It’ll be my third year, so I’m way behind you guys. But, I have never been to a more spirited, more, kind of, emotionally connected very human-centered event for a charity.

And I only, when I do big, kind of, extreme things in races, I only race for charities, but it is so connected and, sadly, I think we all know multiple people who have been affected and impacted by cancer. It’s, sadly, one of those things that’s more common, so I think that it is very personal.

And, Pam I’m kind of curious, what made you then take it a step further and then say, you know what, I’m going to join the board, and in fact, that’s not enough, I’m gonna chair the board. ‘Cause, that’s a big commitment. And we all, for the others listening and myself and people who’ve been on non-profit boards, it’s something that does require, a lot of times, and it only works, if you’re really passionate. So clearly, you’re very passionate. But what made you kind of take it even further than just participating in the events.

PR: Well, I think, Aaron, you’re exactly right. It just is the most spirited, personal, touching organization that I’ve ever been a part of and, through my decades at Goldman Sachs, I’ve had the opportunity to be on a number of not-for-profit wonderful organizations and participate.

This one has a particularly entrepreneurial spirit and feel to it and it just resonated with me I come from an extremely entrepreneurial background in Louisville, Kentucky. My dad’s an entrepreneur, he’s very cost conscious, we were never allowed to even drink orange juice at restaurants because it cost too much, and literally, those core values of every dollar we raise is watched and it goes directly to these local charities, so that was very inspiring to me.

Local research and investigation and even though at the beginning we weren’t raising that much compared to if you were to be at a big dinner which is raising like $500 thousand dollars. If we were raising $80 thousand dollars at this swim, and it was funding one investigator and they could count on that money every year and that meant a lot.

And a lot of great things, which Rob can talk about, came out of that, so I think, number one, it just is such an entrepreneurial spirit and, even to this day, where we’ve grown from that fateful one swim where the boat sank to 20 open water swims and so many pool swims, each of those swims is very entrepreneurial in and of themselves. And so I think that’s the main reason why it fit me, plus, no black tie, no like high heels, just cap, goggles, bathing suit that’s better for me too.

AK: I agree, and I’m going to make Rob blush a little bit here because I’ve been involved with a lot of different non-profits, through a lot of different avenues and you are the most spirited, the greatest cheerleader, like, I LinkedIn with you a couple months ago, before we kind of knew each other and, thank you for accepting by the way, I appreciate that, like, who’s this creepy guy trying to LinkedIn with me?

But you’re so active on social channels and it’s so authentic and so genuine and often times, I’ll see social feeds and I’ll, kind of, go right through them but I always read your stories. And what people probably don’t know is that you also have a little bit of a marketing background.

So, you’re not only an athlete and you’ve worked in other organizations like NASCAR, but you’re also a marketer and, I feel like this is like a culmination of all the things in your very young life so far, coming together and it’s almost like you’re destined to be CEO of this organization. Not to be like weird about it, but I feel like, it worked out.

RB: Someone asked me, what’s my role and responsibility and I said to be the Chief Enthusiasm Officer. Much like Pam, I was on the board of directors at Swim Across America before I came into this role.

Frankly, I was happy at Master’s Swimming, leading that organization, I had been there for eight years, was the first CEO they’d hired, was putting my stamp on it. Much like my predecessor Janelle Jorgensen here, at Swim Across America and Janelle and I had known each other and we first got together in 2010 and I was trying to bring a spiritual purpose to the reason Masters swimming should continue to grow and bring more people into swimming.

Off of that, Janelle and I met four or five times and we just developed a really healthy respect for each other. Collaboration, open up doors between Swim Across America and Masters Swimming and then in 2014 or so she invited me to come socialize with the board of directors and ultimately join the board of directors and one of my conditions when Janelle said she was going to step back from CEO, and Pam will tell you this, was that I wanted to create a role. Janelle was stepping back to be full time mom. There was no other reason, it wasn’t, there was no push out. It was her choice, exclusively her choice.

So we wanted to honor that but I also wanted to create a role for her to still stay involved. She had taken this from a small little regional non-profit to one where, could this model of Boston and Larchmont work in Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas and so forth? And it was a proof of concept. And so she was able to do that. And I wanted her to continue to be part of the vision. So, when you hear Pam and I together on a phone call, I don’t know how many times you would hear a board chair and a CEO on the same podcast together, symbiotic of the healthy of the relationship.

AK: Very rare.

RB: Janelle is on our board of directors and is our treasurer and so that’s all by design and consciousness that it’s not about one person it’s about Swim Across America. And it’s about the impact it sounds a little honky but it’s like saying three words we all want to hear are I love you. All of us want to hear the words I love you, those three words.

The three words you never want to hear are, you have cancer. And I don’t say this out of sympathy but empathy, having lost my mom to cancer, and to hear that experience and all the what-if’s and all the emotions and the ups and downs and everything. But if you do hear those three words and, unfortunately for my mom there was no hope, you do want to hear there is hope.

And, through Swim Across America, for Pam for me, for Janelle to be involved it’s a spirit of hope. And it’s a place where people can feel empowered if you want to swim a 10k or you want to swim a 1k, if you want to stay at the finish line to hand out towels or you just want to donate. There’s an opportunity for you to provide hope and then that hope becomes dollars, which are funding investigators.

And funding investigator-led projects, which, ultimately, are leading to new cures. Swim Across America’s had a hand in like Opdivo, and Keytruda and Yervoy. All of those are today immunotherapy treatments that are out there that are having a global impact for cancer patients, nearly 16 million people a year living with cancer.

That Swim Across America was there when those ideas were just on the white board, in an oncology suite at Memorial Sloan Kettering, or it’s at Baylor Hospital, the funding allowed those investigators to collect, to data science and ultimately go for larger dollars which ultimately led to now FDA new approved treatments.

AK: What’s interesting, too, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling that these investigators know where it’s coming from and there’s a connection between the investigators and they recognize Swim Across America, and I say this because, and again, this is just one small example, my son last summer did research at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in the Koch building, the Koch Cancer building.

And there is a big Swim Across America sign and he finally, cause typical teenager, he connected the dots and was like, “Oh dad, aren’t, isn’t that, oh! You’re doing that swim.” ‘Cause otherwise he’s a teenager, you know, it goes right by him. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, the physicality of a charity connected directly literally in the building where they’re doing research. I’ve never seen that before.

RB: Yeah, there are 10 hospitals including Memorial Sloan and Johns Hopkins, where the research labs if you went inside the hospital itself is actually named the Swim Across America research lab.

AK: I did not know that.

PR: Yeah, it’s very direct. That’s what creates the spirit, in fact, a couple weeks ago, we take the Olympians always the day before we swim to visit the hospitals that we support, and a lot of times they bring their medals, and they really give the kids that are there being treated hope, and to come full circle on that, we were at Mass General and Dr. Sweetzer, who is one of the doctors we funded in the pediatric leukemia area, he was there, and I looked at him and, of course I recognized him because he, earlier in the year had participated in a pool swim with his wife.

I mean, not only is it very direct and we know who we’re funding, in addition, some of researchers we support participate in our swim, so you really get to know what the funds are doing and it really becomes a full family.

AK: Rob, I know that you’ve probably had, to ask you, what has been the most rewarding experience, probably a very difficult question to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway, what’s been your most rewarding experience of being CEO of Swim Across America? It might not be one thing, but.

RB: I think it’s the impact on people and back to those three words there is hope. And being able to provide hope to people and knowing that Pam and the rest of the board of directors, and you, Aaron, and everybody else who’s participating are in this cause and you’re raising money that is giving hope to people.

Because I know what it’s like on the other side when someone you love, you look up to, my hero, my mom, and was diagnosed with appendix cancer and to be told, quite frankly, surgery’s your only option and there’s nothing really beyond that and you pretty much got to get your affairs in order.

Well, today if you’re now diagnosed with colon cancer, you’ve been diagnosed with lung cancer, you’ve been diagnosed with melanoma, it’s not a death sentence anymore. There is hope because of organizations like Swim Across America.

There’s this story I was sharing that I think really sort of ties it together as well. We started a swim in Detroit this year. First time. It’s actually someone who was running an open water swim. He came to us and said he wanted to start a charity swim and went and explored it and thought it would make a lot of sense, so.

AK: What body of water?

RB: The Detroit River, right off Belle Isle. About three weeks before the event, it was the day Pam was doing the Boston swim, three weeks, maybe, a month before I get this out of the blue email and it’s from the parent of one of the swimmers and she said that Kara’s her name, the parent said, my daughter Kara has been rediagnosed with sarcoma, she’s already met the fundraising minimum for the swim but unfortunately she has to get her leg amputated and she’s not going to be able to swim in the event. We don’t want our money back. We just want to know if Kara can still come to the swim. Ok, so I’m getting tingles right now on my arms as I think about this story and I had to let it sit for about 24 hours after I’m reading the words.

AK: And the amputation was pretty much immediate, like it had to be done right away.

RB: Yes, sarcoma’s very aggressive for Kara. So I let the weekend settle, I called the father, Claus, on Sunday night, I introduce myself to him by phone and had a conversation. They are the most spirited, optimistic, outgoing family. I had a phone conversation with Kara.

I said, Kara, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you still come to the swim, and first off, we want to hear your story. And let us wrap our arms around you and get a big hug. And she goes, “Really, that’d be great, thank you!” She was thinking “Maybe I could kayak” and I said, “How ‘bout you be at the finish line and you hug and high five and you inspire everybody the way that they are inspiring you who comes out of the water. That’s your area.”

And we had three Olympians at that swim. Gold medal Olympians at that swim. Kara got a bigger ovation than anybody else did at that swim. Over people who had hardware around their necks because that was the spirit of Swim Across America.

And so now you see someone who is battling sarcoma and because of Swim Across America, they’re immunotherapy clinical trial’s going on in the sarcoma space that Swim Across America helped played a role in funding, that you see somebody like Kara who now has hope.

She was telling me, “I’d like to get married one day in life, I’d like to have kids,” and I think that swimming, a sport that Pam and I both care so much about, has played a role in helping raise dollars for greater good that can bring forward opportunity life and hop for somebody like that. That to me, is the fulfillment of sort of my journey and my professional mission.

AK: It’s interesting because I think that swimming over things like running or cycling and so many other sports has almost like a, at least it is for me, and probably for you and Pam as well, it’s like a, it’s almost like a transcendental type of effect because it’s literally moving with waves created by the earth and that’s kind of like it mimics life’s waves.

And for me, personally, and you guys were kind enough to include me in your Instagram feed awhile ago. I say swimming saved my life, I was very asthmatic as a kid, I still have it, and had it not been for swimming, I wouldn’t be here today. And I’m also a melanoma survivor. Thankfully I caught it very early in my late 20s but swimming, for me, is the only time I could actually think through everything in life, in addition to helping your body and to helping others by participating, there is something so spiritual about swimming that you cannot get from any other sport. I mean, that’s just me and how I feel about swimming, but you must feel the same way, right?

RB: You know you were telling us about your warm-up swim and you did 4+ miles as a warm-up swim we’re like, we’ll take four miles in a week let alone a day like what you did. I call it Snack on Fitness, and so I like to go out there for my 30-45 minutes and just get out a mile, mile and a half swim it just clears my head, makes my body feel good, all of the above. By the way, the world becomes quiet.

AK: No one can bother you.

RB: No phones, it’s just sort of…

AK: I see people swimming with gear, and no judgment, well I’ll judge a little bit but I’m like this is like the one time that no one can call me or bother me. It’s me time.

RB: Totally.

PR: It is true. You can’t. You can go for a run and talk to somebody, kind of, along the way but swimming is that peaceful moment and I will tell you that it’s for me, its also the camaraderie of it, and the local YMCA that I happen to train at really some of my best friends in the world have come from that and they’re also some of the teammates that participate in our swims. So it’s a real, it’s a real camaraderie.

But I don’t want you to think that you have to an expert swimmer to be a part of Swim Across America because there’s an opportunity to be a volunteer in so many different ways. I mean, there are many people that are on the boats or the shorelines or on the sidelines of the pool who simply are there, as you said, handing out towels, or helping us with the technology or even putting out the bagels or donuts. Every one of those people is valued.

AK: Yeah, and to that point, so your corporate support has been nothing short of phenomenal. So you’re going to have Merck donate another $2 million dollars very shortly so I guess, will be total $5 million dollars from Merck.

RB: Right. $5 million.

AK: And they’re just one of many brands and many companies that support you.

RB: And, by the way, somebody like Merck, or KPMG its not just corporate donation but it’s also volunteering is the new happy hour. And so you’re going to be at Larchmont and you’re going to see 100+ Merck employees are there volunteering and this is their way much like you do at AKWT you encourage your employees to volunteer.

AK: I have to be honest, I’m really looking forward to the buffet when I get out.

RB: It’ll be set up. It’ll be ready.

AK: Oh, I know. I’m like, I can’t get out too late. Do not close the buffet. Do not close. You guys do an amazing job with that event. It is so amazing.

RB: And that corporate support has put wind in our sail. And so if I now wear my entrepreneur hat which Pam was talking about. Janelle had taken our organization to about 13-14 charity swims. Which were all successful in their own right.

AK: Were those all open water or were those combination open water pool?

RB: Yeah, the most visible was the open water swim in each of those communities but then there’d be support or sort of swim-a-thons would sort of pop up around them in their community.

But, wearing the entrepreneur hat for a second. What happens over three decades is oncologist will move from Memorial Sloan to a new hospital in say, Denver. Which is a true story. That oncologist will reach out to us and ask can we start a Swim Across America swim in Denver.

And my answer is, I’d love to but it takes, the reality is, about $100k per year for us to operate, sustain, and fully run insurance, legal and otherwise, one of these charity swims.

AK: Yeah, I can’t even imagine the logistics around it. By the way, I just bought my first marine radio. My friend, Mark Leibowitz, he gets a shout out because he’s going to be guiding me tomorrow. Hand it to him along with my banana, granola bar and drink. Logistics are insane. I mean, it’s hard.

RB: They are. So here’s the balance to it. If it costs you real money to start, where does that money come from? And so, if we are like have purchase orders in hand meaning communities that would like to have them, how are we going to fulfill those purchase orders? And so, companies like Merck and even 7-11 which donate corporately to Swim Across America, we use those dollars to invest in the start up of new swims and why would a company like Merck want to do this because their money $5 million dollars over 5 years…

AK: Well that will be like $50 million, right?

RB: That’s right.

AK: There’s a huge return on it.

RB: That’s right, it turns into fundraising annuity within each community, plus it creates a space for their employees in Denver and Detroit and Houston and in Richmond and in new communities we started swims in order to get involved and come volunteer and participate and so now you look at a company like Merck which has over 500 employees throughout its entire system, and not just in oncology but in vaccines to anesthesiology and so forth that are participating within the Swim Across America program.

AK: So, what is the long-range plan then? So you have, I don’t know if these numbers are right, but you’ve got about 100 open water swims, 20 pool swims, your knocking on that $100 million dollar door over 33 years and I think a lot of the traction feels like the last several years. What’s the ultimate goal here? I know it’s a never end, it should never end until we beat cancer which god willing that happens in our lifetime but we still have to keep our eye on that. So what’s the big goal?

RB: We still have some ramp ahead of us with communities that have stuck their hand in the air where they have core group of volunteers. And there are three things we’re going to need if we’re going to start charity swims.

We need a core group of volunteers, we need an engaged beneficiary, as Pam was saying like Dr. Sweetzer who came out and participated and swam with us and the hospital that supports the charity swim, and then we need a great venue like you swam at Larchmont that we can put on one of these magical experiences when everybody goes back we say on Monday, or on social media, they’re talking about what an incredible experience they had.

There are still communities and still parts of the calendar that we want to fill out to create more of a 12-month calendar look for us. We’ve had a few events that have gone international, so there’s perhaps there’s some opportunity there.

There’s a really good space for us in the content as well, all these stories over three decades that have sort of bubbled up as we’ve told yours and others, so that I think sort of becomes the ramp.

But, what happens for us within our model, Aaron, is that every December, that’s when we’re writing out the grants. We take our, just because you swam 5k three years ago, doesn’t mean you can just show up and say I’m going to do the 5k the next year without some practice training and grit grind, and so forth. Get the nutrition right..

AK: I was just looking at my strava yesterday. I swam 172 miles, so far, leading into the swim tomorrow. Since January.

RB: And that parallel for us is, we have to go out and restart every January all over again so we take our bank account all the way to…

AK: That’s a good analogy.

RB: Basically down to a one-year reserve, in order to fund operating expenses, and then we’re back in the market and we’re fundraising and we’re telling stories, we’re doing everything that we need to do because the oncologist are counting on us.

AK: How do you do it? You’ve got eight-year old twins, I think you were saying earlier, you’re traveling all the time, ‘cause these events, I mean obviously in the winter you probably have a little break, but I feel like just watching you on social it’s exhausting.

RB: Well, I think the heart and soul thing and I couldn’t do it without my family and Pam’s met my wife Ali and she’s met my twins and when I was trying to decide between Swim Across America or not, my wife was actually the one that came to me and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Your mom is actually sitting on your shoulder telling you should do this, I’m just speaking through her. You got to go do this.” So it doesn’t happen without great family support, of course, and we just balance it.

And you’ve got an incredible team. It’s not just me. It’s the five people we have on our staff, it’s Pam, it’s our board of directors, it’s our other core volunteers that if I cant be somewhere, or one of our staff cant be somewhere, then one of the Olympians might be there for us. And so the total team environment, it’s that spirit of charm and camaraderie that allows us to be successful.

AK: It’s a very well-run organization. I accidentally signed up for the wrong swim originally. There’s a swim next week, going the other way.

RB: You can come do that, too.

AK: Yeah, but I don’t think there’s a buffet at the end of it. I mean, I have my priorities.

RB: There actually is. There is a buffet at the end of that one, too.

AK: Let’s see how this one goes. And I very quickly emailed I can’t remember who it was in your organization.

RB: Probably Ali.

AK: And she responded in seconds. And she’s like, sorry, you’re going to have to forget the $65, and I was like, that’s fine, no big deal, but she fixed it. I just signed up too quick. I wasn’t thinking. So no, you guys run an amazing organization. If I’m corporate, how do I learn more, how do I get involved at a corporate sponsor level?

RB: I’m the best point person on that. So, I drive our conversations with our corporate partners, I’m easy to find Rob@swimacrossamerica.org.

AK: So you can’t hire anymore Rob’s now. It would have to be Rob2, Rob3.

RB: Do you know, there was a Rob. And Pam knows Rob Shapiro in Tampa. And he had Rob@swimacrossamerica.org. Lets just say it cost me a couple thousand dollars in order to get that email from him when I came on. But it was all for the cause. So I'm rob@swimacrossamerica.org. People can find me there, all my contact information is on swimacrossamerica.org and we’ll sit down and we’ll craft all types of partnerships with them. There’s another one you’re going to hear about tomorrow, if you haven’t seen it yet, we’re in Times Square.

AK: I saw that.

RB: For the month of July. Through one of our supporters in Dallas, who knew the folks at Clear Channel, we were put in touch with them. And Jim Campbell, who’s the president of Clear Channel in New York, came to our board meeting this spring. Pam was there and shared that they really loved the spirit and cause of Swim Across America.

AK: And in-kind donation are also donations, to be able to give that real estate up, that space up.

RB: It’s a PSA that’s running for us for the month of July, by design, leading up to the two swims that are here in New York. And Clear Channel is now beginning to seed employee teams in multiple charity swims across the country, too.

AK: Awesome.

PR: The other thing is that you don’t realize how much this touches so many lives and so many people so when you outreach, people rally do want to donate because they know you’re making a difference.

AK: Maybe this is a new strategy, I kind of went out a little early for my fundraising on Facebook, and then I did it again and I had four or five people accidentally donated twice. One person donated three times. And I said did you realize that? And they said, I did now. It’s fine, I didn’t do it on purpose, but it was kind of funny. It’s an interesting thing. I wouldn’t advise anybody to do that.

PR: Give early and give often.

RB: One of the Boston swimmers was emailing and said that if you’re on this email you’re going to get five emails from me if you don’t donate. If you want to get off the list, you have to donate. So, every week I'm going to send five emails.

AK: I like that. My strategy was you’ll never have to see a picture of me in a Speedo ever again if you donate. One of my clients was like, I’m just giving you $250 because I never want to see that, I can’t unsee it.

RB: You know, your swim that you’re doing, the 10k, that’s really probably Aaron, one of our longer swims. Most of our swims, we’ve migrated towards the typical ½ mile model, even a 1 mile and perhaps up to a 5k. And that’s by design, again, on our risk management program. Depends on the body of water you’re using, there’s a certain number, back to logistics, of lifeguards we have on the water per number of swimmers, there’s a certain number of kayakers we have on the water.

AK: You don’t want Cabot coming back into the Long Island Sound, either.

RB: Yeah, Cabot’s not allowed. He should stay away. But the risk management really drives a lot of decisions and also we’re seeing and coming in, people look at us and say, Swim Across America, you all must be swimmers. Every one of you must have a high school, college or some level of swimming background. We’re seeing a lot of people come into the model who are not necessarily swimming background. Or they’re learning how to swim later on in life.

AK: What’s really fun, actually, the first time I did a Swim Across America event, there were people jumping in with like noodles and like backstroking. I mean, obviously there’s a time, but they were having fun they were just enjoying it, you know. That’s great to see!

RB: You can wear fins, you can wear a wetsuit. For us, our scoreboard is not who finished first, second or third, but it’s the team one, team two, team three, that raised the most amount of money and then the individuals who raised the most amount of money.

That’s the scoreboard that we highlight, in fact, one of the stories you and I were talking about earlier was, one of the Olympians was telling us, if you guys actually put results out, I probably wouldn’t come. Can you imagine being in a gold medal Olympian within the last squad and not having swam in a few years and some weekend guy shows up or girl shows up and goes, yeah, I just beat this gold medalist. It’s not a very fun feeling.

AK: And it’s not the point.

RB: It’s not the point, but it’s the competitive nature to say, hey, I beat somebody like that. And I think the Olympians really appreciate that we don’t publish the times. Or if we do, it’s later on down the road, its not part of the spirit of the celebration that takes place that weekend.

AK: It’s www.swimacrossamerica.org? Awesome.

RB: Swimacrossamerica.org

AK: And you guys are on LinkedIn. And you’re also on Instagram and on Facebook. And whoever does your web stuff is very good. It’s very clean. You’re probably very close to it so you’re probably the most critical person, but I'm telling you as a brand marketer and a user of your site and everything from fundraising to the engine behind it, it’s really good.

PR: Yeah, and I could say one thing about our, if I could chime in and say that we have an incredible group of people that run this organization, but that incredible group of people is only seven full-time people of which…

AK: What? Really?

PR: Rob is one. So it is a very levered organization. It is very collaborative and that’s one of the hallmarks is that we do this on a shoestring so that all of the funds go directly to the organizations we support. I’m really proud of that. It’s a fun group of people. So much fun.

RB: So, in 2016, when I came on and Janelle and I both identified this, our website was not mobile friendly, so, a lot of broken links. We had to redo it. We went out and we started getting proposals for it. And, there was none coming in less than $100 thousand dollars, total redesign and a redo. How are you supposed to in a non-profit, sort of come up with $100 thousand dollars. Merck wasn’t there at the time, so…

AK: Yeah, and by the way, you don’t want to be the guy that the first thing you do as CEO is like, I’m going to spend $100 thousand dollars to redo our website.

RB: Well, here’s what we did. This is back to the healthy relationship you have with your board of directors and say, what are the skills and talents that they have. We have one board member, Bob Cokely, who owns a digital media company, and he said, you know what that’s crazy! You shouldn’t have to spend that kind of money and I said, Bob, I’m not coming to ask you for a donation, personally, but could we maybe get one or two of your programmers that would dedicate the time, and he said, Done. Done.

And Pam knows this, Bob’s team put in probably 200, 250+ hours in a total redesign in about a two-month period of time for us. So we came out of the box with a brand new website that cost us no money on the redesign side.

AK: It’s really well done. It’s so good.

RB: This is where, my sort of encouragement to other CEOs would be, and a lot of times you look at your board of directors and they walk into the meeting and the first thing they’re doing it sitting on their checkbook. Because it’s like, Ok, guys I need another check. I think if you can look at your board of directors as partners and look at each one and say what’s the value that you can bring to the table outside of writing a check? Is it a relationship? Pam Ryan who’s a really gifted encourager and inspirer the way she is? Is it Bob Cokely who’s…

AK: Do you have a legal background? A marketing background? A digital background?

RB: We do have that.

AK: You need all those people.

PR: Yeah.

RB: We brought on a board member from our Larchmont Swim, Kimberly Wilson-Wetty, who is the CEO of one of the largest travel agencies in the whole US. And we did it because we knew how much we were going to be doing in the travel and our annual summit space that it was an area that we were kind of naïve in and we needed some help.

And so, Kim had been doing our Larchmont swim like you have for eight years now, sort of under the radar raising a quarter of a million dollars and Pam and I both went and sat down with Kim and approached her hat in hand and asked her if she would be willing to get involved in an even larger way.

Well, this is someone who’s very busy, she’s the chair of her board of college as well, the alumni associate, but she said yes. And now we have a travel partner on our board of directors knowing how much we’re across the country. So, if it comes to airline travel, hotel travel, conventions, conferences, we can go to Kim and say, you’re the expert. Can you help us either in relationships or think through this.

And so as you start to, as a CEO or as a board chair like Pam, develop your board of directors, my encouragement would be look at what are skill sets that you have and what are pockets of need that you would like to have and it doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who could write a check, although that’s great. It doesn’t have to be that, there’s other forms of currency that your board members can bring to the table that can help you from a sustainability and efficiency standpoint.

And so, that’s part of thinking where Pam and I have worked really well, is we’ve looked at a board of governance and who do we want to identify and where are the holes that we have on our board of directors.

AK: Yeah, and it can’t be too big. It needs to be kind of tight and smart. You don’t want a board of directors that’s like 30 or 40 people. I’ve been on those before, it’s unwieldy. It’s unwieldy.

PR: Right, the board needs to feel like they have impact as well, and I think as we grow, keeping that family spirit is so important with this organization.

AK: Yeah, agreed. So listen, it was great having you guys on. It’s one of my favorite charities, it might be my favorite charity for lots of different reasons and for those of you listening, it’s swimacrossamerica.org. Feel free to donate. Donate to a swim, participate in a swim, and if you work for a company, if you run a company, if you know a company that should get involved, then help us help them get involved so you can help others and save lives and beat cancer. Thank you again.

RB: Thank you, Aaron.

PR: Thank you, Aaron. Good luck tomorrow.