New wellness center director excited to be in Clear Lake

CLEAR LAKE — Clear Lake’s new Wellness Center director is settling into his new position.

Adam Long has been on the job for about a month after moving to Clear Lake from Liberty Missouri in the Kansas City metro area, where he was the head strength and conditioning coach at Liberty Hospital Sports Medicine. Long is leading and managing all facets of the $10.6 million wellness center, which is a collaborative effort between the city and the Clear Lake Community School District.

Long says he and his wife were looking to move to a smaller community and Clear Lake was a perfect fit.  “Clear Lake was a very, very special place the first time we came here. We had some friends that lived up here and we were able to come visit a few times, and it didn’t take us long to realize the special things that they have going on in this town and this city. The more and more I learn about it, the more excited I am that we have our family here.”

Long says with the wellness center still under construction, it made the director position more attractive to him.  “In just seeing the plans from it and then being able to go through over there and seeing what type of a facility this is going to be is very exciting. Being able to help build it from the ground up, being able to staff it, but then also figure out how we wanted to equip this facility, it was a very big attraction to us. This is a dream job for me, no question about it, which was obviously a big draw as well, the town’s a bonus, but being able to come in at the ground floor is really, really exciting.”

Long says the voters in Clear Lake showed in passing the bond issue for the project that fitness and wellness is a priority currently in the community.  “If you come into Clear Lake, you’re going to notice that there is a big population that is active, especially in the summer months, we’re able to see a lot of people outside engaging in physical activity, and I love seeing that. The longer winters that we have up north here, I think this type of facility is just going to encourage wellness year-round. I think we’re going to have so many different types of programs, so many different types of wellness programs, fitness programs, recreational type of programs and organizations, I think it’s going to be very hard for people not to say great things about this new wellness center.”

Long made his comments during an appearance on the “Ask the Mayor” program this week on AM-1300 KGLO. If you missed the program, click on this link to listen. 

The wellness center project is scheduled to be completed in December.