CEO Dave Thomas on Mark Highsmith Leaving to Lead Franchise Area Development

The following is a personal statement from owner Dave Thomas.

“As most of you know, we have recently announced three new Performance360™ locations coming to North County where our very own Mark Highsmith is an owner. Mark will be our second coach-to-owner at Performance360, joining Lenny in that career path that we fully expect to grow even further and put our stamp on what it means for your opportunity when you became a Coach at P360.

For some quick history, Mark started out as a part time Coach with us back in 2017. He has since worked his way up the chain, at every stage exceeding what was asked of him and playing a huge role in our HQ gym’s success. Mark now serves as Director of Operations, which is a fancy title for doing quite literally anything and everything the business side of offering you workouts entails.

I know it’s difficult for some to think of their favorite local gym as a business, but it’s important to grasp that like anything else, it requires a consistent level of quality control, systems, operations, and procedures to keep operating at the P360 standard, and if we’ve done a good job – have made the operation seamless enough where you don’t even realize they exist.

Mark is the Swiss Army knife behind the scenes who makes that happen, everything from cleaning up nasty ass bathrooms, planning social events, leading team communication and countless other jobs. There is no task that Mark pushes back against, no role he sees himself above, and no job he isn’t willing to tackle if it means it’s what’s best for our members and the gym.

Earlier this year, we sat down and talked about his future and what we could to help him achieve his goal of owning a gym, and with the addition of Mark’s partners: Hoffman Leung, John Blackburn, and Matt Newhouse – we’re all incredibly thrilled to see this goal of Mark’s come to fruition.

“What can I continue to do to help?” has been Mark’s MO his entire tenure and we’ve done our best to reciprocate that for his career.

Every small business needs a Mark Highsmith. We were lucky to get five great years from ours. It’s been a pleasure to have Mark work for me for the last five years and I am incredibly excited to be in a position where I now in fact, work for him.

There is no sadness about Mark’s departure from HQ, only excitement that I get to work with him on a completely different and exciting level, and see him continue to succeed in the deserving manner he has earned.

If you haven’t already, wish Mark well as he embarks on this new journey. I promise you – he deserves it.”