Face Time: Let's get physical (not really) with Chuck Martin

Chuck Martin

Age: 53.

Business venture: Partner, Cascade Summit Physical Therapy. Martin operates the clinic at 3901 Creekside Loop, Suite 102. There are two other locations, 111 S. Third St. in Yakima and 220 W. First Ave. in Toppenish.

Web site: www.cascadesummitpt.com.

Education: Graduated from Idaho Falls High School in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in 1973; graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree in physical therapy in 1981; graduated from Des Moines University with a doctorate in physical therapy in 2007.

Family: Chuck and wife Stacy, 50, have three children: Brittany, 26, Andrew, 24, and Matthew, 21.

Favorite book: "The Bourne Identity" by Robert Ludlum.

First job

My very first job was working for an amusement park in Idaho Falls (now called Funland). I was a snow cone and soda pop maker.

What really got me was the dipped ice cream cones.

We dipped it into the chocolate or the strawberry covering and then when you went to pull it out, if it fell, you had to make another one. The waste got put in a cup and somebody had to eat it.

Eventually, I moved from the concession stand out to the rides and became a ride operator. So, I worked there through most of my summers during high school.

I learned to run a Ferris wheel and a merry-go-round and an octopus.

You learned responsibility (at the amusement park), but you also learned to talk to the public. You became pretty good at just being able to visit with folks and deal with people.

Getting started

I was born in San Antonio, Texas. My dad was in the Air Force, stationed at the Lackland Air Force Base. When he was out of the Air Force, he moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho, so I grew up in Idaho Falls.

We left San Antonio when I was 3 or 4. I was born there, but my formative years were all in Idaho.

Idaho Falls was a small community at that time of about 35,000 or 40,000 people. It was kind of a rural community, yet with a touch of city to it.

As a young kid, we rode our bikes everywhere. We'd ride out on the farms and catch frogs in the frog ponds. We played a lot of tag at night and a lot of hide-and-go-seek in the neighborhood. It was just a wonderful childhood.

I participated in high school athletics. ... I was on the basketball team and football team, and played soccer as well.

After school

I graduated from Idaho Falls High School in 1973. From 1974-76, I was serving a mission for the LDS church in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

When I was finished with that, I went to the University of Utah and graduated from there.

I followed in my father's footsteps. My father was a physical therapist. He graduated from Stanford in 1954. I would go with him on some Saturdays down to his work. And, the hospital he worked at had a swimming pool. I'd go down and help him take care of people in the pool. Then we'd go out and play basketball or catch a baseball, after he got done with his work on Saturdays.

I think one of the important things (in my life) is the relationship I had with my father. To this day, I sort of at times do comparisons. Am I measuring up? I still think he's one of the brightest men that I've ever known. I don't think I'm anywhere near as smart as him when I do a comparison. The relationship with my father, that's partly what helped draw me into physical therapy.

Getting to Yakima

When I got out of college, I stayed and worked in Salt Lake City for a year and then I moved to Vernal, Utah.

That's a town of about 15,000 people. I was working for a 36-bed hospital there. And, we just decided that we wanted to have a little different experience than what we were having.

So, I called up a company called Therapy Management. I said I was looking for a new position -- a better career opportunity.

They said they had a job available in Rock Springs, Wyo., one in Las Vegas and one in Yakima.

We interviewed here in (the summer) of 1988. The summertimes and the springtimes were interchangeable between Southern Idaho and Yakima. Brown foothills all the way around, river through the middle.

So, the minute I got off the plane, it's like, I'm home. It felt like this was the place to be. When I completed the interview, we were offered the job and moved up to Yakima in August 1988. We've been in Yakima ever since.

A new practice

During the mid-'90s and late '90s, physical therapy clinics were being sold right and left. They were buying and selling lots of small clinics and contracting with hospitals.

Every time they were bought and sold, they had a little higher debt load. They would decrease benefits and would increase productivity standards.

It finally reached a point ... I just didn't want to treat patients the way they were asking us to treat them and I didn't want to treat employees the way they were asking us to treat them.

So, a gal that I'd worked with for 10 years -- Karen Braden -- she and I decided to open our own practice.

We formed a partnership and opened in January 1999.

We started out -- she and I and a secretary. We now have three clinics, the two in Yakima and one in Toppenish. And we've got 15 employees with us between part-time and full-time employees.

-- As told to Assistant City Editor Scott Mayes

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