Who We Are

VITAL’s mission is to create places that people love.

A world that is filled with places you love is a better world. We want VITAL to be one of the things that makes your life feel joyful and connected. We do everything we can to ensure that you feel at home and love being at VITAL. We work every day to create a vibrant culture where customers feel like a welcomed member of a positive community and staff feel that they are an important part of a great team.

HOW WE GOT HERE

My name is Dave and I started VITAL in 2010 with my friend, Nam. Nam and I learned to climb together in beautiful San Luis Obispo, California, where we met in college dorm rooms. After graduating, we decided to try to open a gym. We were clueless, optimistic 22-year-olds and had no idea what we were doing. But somehow we managed to open a little gym that people seemed to love.

People could see that we cared and that we worked hard to make the space fun and welcoming. And people liked that we trusted them. We let members into the gym 24/7, even when it was unstaffed. Shoe rentals, snacks, and guest passes were paid for on the honor system. Members showed themselves to be trustworthy, which is why we are able to operate this way to this day.

Nam and I are still best friends (Nam is godfather to my kids), and we still own and run VITAL together. We love all of our gyms as though they were our children! We obsess over how to make every new location the best it can be, and are extremely hands on when designing and building a gym. Over the years, we’ve welded, built furniture, electrocuted ourselves, crashed forklifts, breathed toxic flooring glue late into the night, and know every nut, bolt, and screw inside the gyms. We push ourselves to the limit with each new project and learn a lot each step of the way. It has been a rewarding, sometimes terrifying, entrepreneurial ride.

We are primarily financed by our Investor Team, which is a group of ordinary people who believe in what we are doing and have invested their personal savings with us. These are current and former members, old and new friends, and even staff. This group has grown over the years and now includes over one hundred people. Financing our growth in this way has enabled us to pursue our vision without compromise.

VITAL is run by an incredible team of people. Many of our staff have been with us from the beginning, and they are what bring the company to life. They are what form deep connections with the neighborhood and define a culture that lifts spirits and brings people together. If you ever meet someone who has been with VITAL for a while, you should know that they have played an important part in making VITAL what it is today. I am grateful for the incredible amount of hard work, creativity, and kindness that our team brings to VITAL.