Mark Harrington, president of Healthworks Fitness Centers for Women, works alongside his sons, Mark Jr. (left) and Matt, who also are in charge of operations for the company’s new GymIt club. Photo courtesy of Healthworks Fitness Centers for Women.

For Mark Harrington, president of Healthworks Fitness Centers for Women, every day is Father’s Day.

Harrington is one of the lucky few who get to go to the office and work with his adult sons. Mark Harrington Jr., 32, is Healthworks’ executive director, and Matt Harrington, 29, is the Boston-based company’s strategic projects manager. Matt also is the president of Healthworks’ new high-value, low-cost club, GymIt, which opened in May.

Although Mark Jr. is older, he’s been with the company a little more than a year. Matt, on the other hand, joined in 2007.

“You’re kidding,” Mark Sr. said in a conference call with Mark Jr. and Matt, not realizing it had been four years since Matt came on board.

“Does it seem a lot longer than that?” Matt asked.

“It seems like yesterday, Matt,” his father replied.

It must seem like yesterday when the Harrington boys would join their father on family vacations at health club trade shows every spring. So in a sense, they have grown up in the industry. The Harringtons now join such father-son tandems as Alan and Steve Schwartz with TCA Holdings/Midtown Athletic Clubs, Chicago, and Curt and Rick Beusman with Saw Mill Sports Management, Mount Kisco, NY, as leaders in longtime, family-owned health club businesses.

“It’s a very difficult business,” Mark Sr. says. “Being single-family owned for 33 years, I think we’re one of a handful of health clubs that can say that, that they’ve been family owned for that period of time.”

Mark Sr. has had conversations with his sons over the years about joining the company, but he says he never tried not to pressure them to do so.

“It’s a perfect situation with both Mark and Matt in that their skill sets match up so well, it’s remarkable,” Mark Sr. says. “They have great mutual respect for each other. It’s been a dream to mesh and to see that we could provide other opportunities to keep both parts of the business going.”

Aside from GymIt, which is a coed club, the five for-profit and two nonprofit Healthworks Fitness Centers are women-only, and that limited some of the possibilities for the Harrington sons to grow within the company, Mark Sr. says. Nonetheless, Matt has done just about everything in the company leading up to his current role, from sales to marketing to handling the clubs’ cafés.

Matt graduated from Colby College in Maine and spent some time working outside the health club industry in real estate—where his father made a name for himself in the business world—before joining Healthworks.

“It kind of got to a point in my past career where I needed to make some decisions as to whether or not I wanted to continue with it at a higher level or try something else out, and I decided to make the switch,” Matt says.

Mark Jr. spent more time outside the industry than his younger brother did. After graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont, Mark Jr. worked 10 years as a consultant on IT projects that often took him overseas. According to his father, computer science is Mark Jr.’s first language.

“This probably wasn’t the goal for me for a long time, and then recently as I evaluated my future, I chose to come here,” Mark Jr. says.

Mark Sr. adds: “[Mark] had the luxury of working in business and management for a period of time before he came in. Matt learned a lot of his trade while he was here. They’ve dovetailed into the company remarkably well because they both like to do different things. They’re both very confident and skilled and work together so well.”

NEXT PAGE: ADVICE ON RUNNING A FAMILY BUSINESS

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2012 Penton Media Inc.