Gymnastics is in Michele Zapple’s DNA. She grew up in Florida as a competitive gymnast in her mother’s gymnastics academy, where she also got her start as an instructor. When Zapple and her family moved to Wilmington from California in the mid-1990s, she first taught part-time at three gyms, then landed a full-time position at Gymnastics Unlimited.

At the Wilmington gym she met Rebecca Bishop, another instructor, and the two decided to start their own gym in a different part of town. Zapple, a “voracious reader” who says she can learn anything from a book, read one on starting a business. Then she and Bishop mapped out the venture.

They rented a large warehouse on Carolina Beach Road and began shopping for a business loan.

“We were turned down by 15 banks,” Zapple recalled. “We had a business plan but could not get a loan. Bankers said our numbers didn’t work out; that we wouldn’t make it. Then remembered I knew a woman who worked in a bank, Donna Cameron. It turned out she was a vice president at SunTrust. I called her and she said ‘Come talk to me.’ She believed in Becky and me and gave us our first business loan.”

That startup loan, plus a percentage of estimated costs that the two women provided from their own funds, paid for equipment and other up-front expenses, enabling the new gym to open its doors in 2000.

“That was an Olympics year, which didn’t hurt,” Zapple said.

Once the business got going, its two owners began dreaming about building their own facility.

With a short but successful track record, Zapple and Bishop went back to Cameron, who was able to approve a larger loan to finance property purchase and facility construction.

“We opened the new place in 2004, also an Olympics year,” Zapple said.

Since settling into a permanent facility – Carolina Gymnastics Academy at 3529 Carolina Beach Road – Zapple and Bishop have expanded their offerings and their enrollment, keeping a weather eye on demographic trends but always grounding their programs in their shared philosophy, which is reflected in their motto: “Where kids come first and learning is important.”

Successful learning, says Zapple, results from an 80/20 mix of familiar to challenging content. For example, to teach the cartwheel, they break
the movement into a series of steps. They also have taken a small-steps approach in building their business.

Bishop and Zapple have complementary interests, so while they both teach and confer on the instructional content for their roughly 650 students, Bishop does the lesson plans and scheduling and supervises Carolina Gymnastics’ 49-member staff, which includes Zapple’s daughter, Zoe. Zapple handles the business aspects of the gym and coaches its competitive teams.

The gym’s primary emphasis continues to be on teaching, even though it offers competitive artistic and rhythmic gymnastics team options.

“One reason gyms fail is because the gym owner, like my mother, is a former gymnastics competitor and everything is focused on competitive teams, which are money losers,” Zapple explained. “They ... don’t pay attention to other aspects of the gym. Our largest source of income is the twice-a-week students – preschool through high school – who come back year after year. They make friends and develop loyalty. I knew ...  that I did not want to follow my mother’s model.”

The partners pay close attention to trends as they plan their programs. They were considering expanding into after-school care just prior to the recession but waited.

“You have to stay ahead of demographics and know what people want,” Zapple said. “There was a drop in two-income families during the recession, so more people were home with their kids.” After the recession was over, things picked back up and demand increased.

In 2009, Carolina Gymnastics rolled out its after-school care program, welcoming 12 students and using an old cinderblock building on the property for the non-gym activities. Enrollment grew rapidly enough that Zapple and Bishop decided they needed a better home for the program.

A new building and outdoor play area next door to the gym, designed and built by Michelle’s husband Rob Zapple, was finished in November. By that time, Carolina Gymnastics’ after-school program was bursting at the seams with 70 children transported from nearby elementary schools in the gym’s four vans.

Parents’ changing preferences also have influenced the gym’s programs.

“When we started, parents wanted instruction for their [very young] kids,” Michele Zapple said. “Now they want a social outlet for parents and grandparents during free play for children in a safe, stimulating place.”