Sometimes a career finds us when we’re not looking for it. Stephanie Shook is proof positive.
A teenage Shook initially entered lifeguarding as a way to make some money. But she not only found a lifelong career but handily made her mark in the industry. “I taught swim lessons for a couple of days, and I was hooked,” Shook says.
She continued to work at local pools and moved through the ranks to shift supervisor, assistant pool manager, and finally pool manager. In each new role she challenged herself to get outside of her comfort zone and learn new skills.
This early experience in aquatics made such an impression as to influence Shook’s choice of college major. She earned a Parks and Recreation degree, which opened the door to managing a large indoor aquatic natatorium with a busy swim lesson program.
Now, as group product manager of aquatics and training academies at the American Red Cross, she profoundly influences some of the most high-profile training content in the industry. As an industry volunteer, she has helped develop industry-related code, as well as raising awareness of vital issues that hadn't yet taken the spotlight.
Raising Awareness
As someone focused on learning and growth, Shook began to look for opportunities outside of individual facilities.
She went to her first aquatics conference through the National Recreation and Park Association and applied to be on the National Aquatic Board, which led her to running the National Aquatic Conference for NRPA. In terms of her own career growth, she says, this was a big turning point because she now was looking beyond the day-to-day operations of her facility and thinking of things beyond her operation.
But this also had ramifications for the industry. One of her first assignments was working on National Aquatic Safety Week.
“It was kind of a small thing at the time, so we were like, why don’t we make this a month?” she says. Shook was instrumental in expanding a week of water safety awareness in July into what is now a monthlong campaign in May.
She was an early proponent for raising awareness about recreational water illness and got involved from the start when The Model Aquatic Health Code was developed. She served as one of the reviewers who weighed in on lifeguard supervision and regulation.
“It is pretty amazing to have been involved at the very beginning of some of those things that make a big difference from an industry perspective,” she says.
Industry-wide Impact
When working on national issues, Shook had to shift her mindset from the operational side of aquatics to the national implications at facilities across the country.
In 2009, she started a new phase in her career by joining the Red Cross to work in program development. Around that time, the organization was pivoting its training from a local to a national structure.
“My first real assignment as part of that team was revising the lifeguard program, so that was a huge shift,” she says. She now was responsible for the largest lifeguard certification program in the country, with more than 350,000 a year using it to certify.
Today, every piece of aquatics certification program content from the Red Cross goes through Shook. So far, she has overseen three revisions of the organization’s lifeguarding program and content.
Recently, Shook was involved with the supervision and lifeguarding groups of the U.S. National Water Safety Action Plan Group, which is expected to be released later this year. Her role in program development and product management at Red Cross also keeps her busy.
When looking to the future, Shook considers how she, Red Cross, and the industry might need to pivot. “I think right now we’re in a weird space,” she explains.
One thing she considers is how technology might impact basic-level jobs at swimming pools and what innovations can be used to advance training and development. Shook believes there’s potential value in using simulation and virtual reality for lifeguard training.
“A lot of things are changing, but the industry is kind of remaining the same. I feel like there’s going to be a lot coming.”
