I first started teaching swim lessons and coaching back in high school. At the time, it was just an enjoyable way to make slightly more than minimum wage, so you never imagined it could become his career one day. After teaching and coaching full-time in college and beyond, I received some terrible advice, and not knowing or believing in myself enough, I decided to step away from the pool. It was not until a while later that I found myself drawn back to the water around January 2016 — and that’s when everything started to shift.

At the time, I had been working as a UPS driver full-time since October 2009, fully expecting this to be my job for life. This job was not difficult physically, but mentally, it was very taxing. Drivers at UPS deserve a lot of credit for what they do and how hard they are pushed daily. Please be kind to your UPS drivers. I give much credit to the Teamsters and their commitment to mental health. They are a significant factor in my position today. 

By September 2017, I began to see true enthusiasm from the people in the program about swimming, which encouraged me to start thinking this could be more than just a side project I do for fun on the weekends. A month later, in October 2017, I launched Timm Swimm LLC—or better known as Swimm with Timm. 

The major ideal of the program is that children need to swim as much as possible during their time in the water in order to gain valuable strength, comfort, and confidence. My simple frustration is seeing children standing around waiting for their turn to swim. I didn’t do very much at the beginning when I started the program. I just want the children swimming for as much of the 30-minute class as we can get out of them. We wanted them to leave tired. It turns out that many people appreciated that approach, and since then, the program has developed into a challenging and fun curriculum for the swimmers. 

I started teaching by myself, doing 2 hours, four classes on Sunday mornings with seven swimmers in January 2016. By May 2018, when I started running classes as Swimm with Timm, we were up to 120. In January of 2019, we hired our first employees. We made it through Covid doing outdoor lessons during the summer of 2020, and since then, we have only grown and been able to help more and more children learn to swim and be safe around the water. We are now Timm Swimm Inc. and include not only Swimm with Timm, but also the Danvers YMCA Dolfins.

Today, Swimm with Timm is more than just a swim program — it’s a growing community built on trust, progress, and fun. For me, what began as a side job turned into a passion, and now has turned into a purpose-driven business that continues to make a splash in the lives of kids and families daily.