CEO Watts will end 40-year YMCA career in Joliet

Greater Joliet Area YMCA CEO Jim Watts plans to retire later this year.

The YMCA board of directors has formed a CEO search committee. Watts said the date of his retirement will depend on when a new CEO is hired, and training is completed.

But he expects that to be in September, when Watts would end a 40-year career working at several places but always a YMCA.

“I have not worked anywhere else,” Watts said. “The Y formed who I was.”

Watts grew up in the Elmhurst area and volunteered at the Elmhurst YMCA. Watts said he was so impressed with the organization he decided to make the Y his career.

“It combined two things that are part of me, that make me who I am: my Christian faith and my love for health and wellness,” Watts said.

Watts said he liked that the YMCA is a “values-based, character-drive businesses” with a goal of helping to develop people’s “spirit, mind and body and building into them great character.”

And he felt it was a really “noble mission” for a lifelong career.

He attended the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and earned his bachelor’s degree in community health education, according to his biography on the Greater Joliet Area YMCA website.

After graduation, Watts went back to the Elmhurst-area YMCA, talked to a few directors, and applied for the position of assistant program director.

“So I ran the ice rink and I drove the Zamboni and I was in charge of the fitness class,” Watts said. “It was a great experience.”

From there, Watts went to the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee, where he worked for 12 years in a variety of position: operations director, membership director, branch executive and group vice president, Watts biography said.

Watts then worked at the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis, where he served as vice president. He came to the Joliet Y in 2012 after a friend called and suggested he apply for the CEO position. Watts’ goal was to retire at 65 and he will be 65 next month.

“I’m healthy and my wife is healthy, and we have four kids and six grandkids, so we want to spend that time with them,” Watts said. “But I think I’ll always be associated with the Y in some form or another.”

During his time with the YMCA, Watts was able to travel internationally. He took six trips to South America, spending six months in Chile from 1990 to 1991 teaching fitness.

“I had two children at the time. They both went,” Watts said. “My wife was pregnant with our third. She flew back early in her seventh month in her pregnancy. I worked the remaining two months on my own in a variety of cities there.”

Watts said he’s not certain if he will remain in the Joliet area. His daughters live in Atlanta, Georgia, and his sons live in Nashville, Tennessee and Indianapolis, Indiana. At some point in all four of his children’s lives, they also worked for the YMCA, Watts said.

“I can look at my family and say, ‘They are all products of the Y,’” Watts said. “How cool is that?”

Watts said his children have pretty much “done it all” at the Y, from working at the front desk to serving as camp counselors.

“They have all seen how great an organization it is and that really has influenced their worldview, particularly on diversity and inclusion and how they see people and how they treat people,” Watts said. “The Y is a great equalizer. Everyone is of equal status once they come into the Y because we accept everybody. That’s what makes us an effective mission-driven organization.”