Oregon City Tankers
Tim Waud has been involved with the Oregon City Swim Team as a coach and athlete since 1977. His coaching career began as a student athlete at the University of Oregon. Tim was very involved in the University of Oregon Swim Camps from 1987-1990. Working with Dr. Don Van Rossen in 1987, Tim created the U of O Club Sport Swim Team as a coach and athlete. In 1991, Tim was a coach/counselor at the Stanford University Swim Camp working with NCAA Division I National Championship and U.S. Olympic Team Head Coaches. In 1991, Tim was hired by Oregon City Swim Team as an age group coach. Tim continued to coach both USA Swimming and the Oregon City High School Swim Team through 1997. Tim has been an ASCA Level I & II Age Group coach since 1991.
Tim began coaching United States Masters Swimming in 1992 at North Clackamas Aquatic Park (Tsunamis’ Masters Swim Team). He is now head coach for The Oregon City Tankers masters swim team. Through the years Tim has been heavily involved in USA Swimming and USMS. Tim has been an athlete member of USA Swimming for Oregon City Swim Team, Eastmont Aquanauts, Mt. Hood Aquatics, University of Oregon and Corvallis Aquatic Team. Tim has been a masters swimmer for North Clackamas Aquatic Park Tsunamis Masters, Portland Parks Masters, Oregon Reign Masters, Corvallis Aquatic Team Masters and Oregon City Tankers. Tim is quite involved in Oregon Masters Swimming having served numerous terms as Vice-Chairperson of OMS. Tim has attended several United States Aquatic Sports (USAS) Conventions throughout the years as a delegate for OMS. Tim was also involved in the committees that brought the 1995 and 2008 USMS Summer National Championships and 1997 Nike World Masters Games to Gresham, Oregon. Tim has competed in and coached at over 16 USMS National Swimming Championships.
Tim’s swimming career has been very colorful. Tim has had Top Three finishes in Oregon Swimming Championships and Western Zone Swimming Championships. OSAA State High School Swimming Champion 100 Breaststroke for La Salle High School. Numerous Top Five times for Oregon Swimming and several Oregon All-Star Teams. Tim currently holds Top Ten USMS times in Backstroke, Breaststroke, Freestyle, Individual Medley and Relays. Tim is also a USMS National Champion and USMS Relay All-American. Tim serves as the Northwest Zone Chair for United States Masters Swimming.
Tim truly believes that “Swimming is for Life”. His passion for the sport of swimming carries into every aspect of the sport. It is his hope that swimmers will find their niche in the sport and continue swimming for a lifetime. “Swimming has been very good to me, it has made me the person I am today. The sport of swimming breeds intelligence, self confidence, pride and a very strong work ethic which will continue for a lifetime.” Tim hopes he can share his experience and knowledge to develop swimmers of every age and ability.
Neal may be the fastest swimmer on the team. We may never know because he chooses to perform at the intermediate level. He believes that by keeping a moderate pace, you will always have something to strive for. It also helps to boost the confidence of his swim partners. Being such an accomplished swimmer, it may sound surprising that Neal started swimming only within the last couple of years. But with the help of the team’s masterful coach, T. Waud, Neal has been breaking swimming records across the state. Although when asked, Neal will not share which state records he’s known for breaking. Apparently, he’d rather remain humble about it.
Neal really spends most of his time teaching chemistry and playing and coaching soccer. He competes in triathlons during the summer months and enjoys his family and their much appreciated support. Neal is really not a good swimmer at all, he just likes spending time with his OCT colleagues at 5:00am every other morning. He hopes that someday he will be the first man to swim “around the world”, fourteen oceans in 17 days, not once touching bottom. Until then,he will need to work on finishing his 100 backstroke.
Alex started swimming at age 10 with the Costa Mesa Aquatics Club in Southern California, and continued swimming and playing water polo through high school. A bit burned out, he spent two years out of the pool but was drawn back to the chlorine at Willamette University. He swam briefly with the Willamette Bearcats where he was utilized for his ability to rest his teammates while burning large amounts of time in the 1650.
After fourteen years out of the water, Alex was again drawn to the pool in 2010 as he trained for his first triathlon. He stumbled upon the Oregon City Tankers before lap swimming one morning at the Oregon City Swimming Pool. He enjoys swimming all the strokes except breaststroke, butterfly and usually backstroke. However, as a dedicated team member, he can often be persuaded to swim a 25 of just about anything (as long as Coach Tim provides a counter).
His wife Amy hails from Canby, and they have two daughters. Together, Alex and Amy own a financial and tax planning business in Oregon City, serve in ministry at New Life Church in West Linn, and are active with several community organizations.
Kristina started swimming in September 2012, the day after returning from Cycle Oregon. And by started swimming, literally, as in she really didn’t know how to swim before that. Kristina’s shoulders are double jointed, which aside from being entertaining at parties, is why she started swimming. She has always had weak shoulders and wanted to strengthen them to prevent old lady injuries.
Krstina is currently trying to be an apparel product developer. While she hasn’t found that perfect niche, she did design and create a line of dresses that incorporated LEDs for her degree in apparel design. She started off trying to design a line of LED lit swimsuits, but it turned out to be more of a torture device than a fashion statement, with more than a few testers getting zapped in uncomfortable places. She was originally a chemist and spent 10 years in the lab before her creative side couldn’t take it any more. Also aiding the decision was the decade of blowing up the lab much like Beaker from the Muppets. Turns out being a “creative” chemist isn’t a good idea.
Kristina says, “Every day the alarm goes off at 4:25 and I can’t believe it. But swimming is really fantastic, and my shoulders have never been stronger!”
Monique was born Ogden, UT in and is the oldest of 4. Married in 1971 and graduated the following year from U of U with BS in Medical Technology. Juggled work and family duties as they moved 15 times during a period of 31 years, when AF husband Paul was reassigned to various military bases/posts in Colorado, Korea, Illinois, Virginia, Germany, Kansas, and England. Together they had two children, Caroline in 1975 and David in 1977 both born in the Washington DC area. Monique worked as a medical technologist in a variety of positions in hospitals, private labs and donor center. Finally moved from the east coast to the west coast to settled in Oregon, as they followed daughter Caroline, who accepted a position at Token Torp in Portland as an attorney. Her son, a physical therapist, a few years later, also moved to the area to be closer to the family and is now working in Oregon City. Monique and Paul are now blessed with 3 grandchildren ranging from 3 to 10 years. Hobbies include birding, hiking, & gardening. Monique took up swimming in October with the Master Swim Program looking for a way to challenge a frozen shoulder after breaking the right arm over a year ago on the ski slopes at Timberline. In addition to belonging to the swim team, she is also member of the West Linn Garden Club, Serra Club of Portland, Teams of our Lady, (an international ministry for catholic couples), and choir member at St John the Apostle Church in Oregon City.
Mom, Nana, voice talent and on camera spokesperson when out of the water.
In the water, a newbie hoping to stay fit and learn to swim at the same time.
Mike, who recently changed his name from Gimli, hails from Middle Earth, but has been living in Oregon City since the dawn of man. We weren’t entirely sure that anyone from the race of Dwarfs of Middle Earth knew how to swim, but Mike proved us all wrong and is a regular (and favorite) at morning workout. Being the capable warrior that he is, Mike regularly leads us in battle cries and has proven valuable when it comes to defeating the other swim teams in the Pacific Northwest region. In all seriousness though, Mike is one of the longest standing members of the Tankers team in its current form and is well respected for his dedication, attitude and perseverance.
Kent has been swimming with the Tankers almost as long as Gimli Mike has been. In those early days, it was usually a person per lane. How things have changed! Despite all those years, Kent, unlike Neal, is not the fastest person of the Tankers. In fact, Kent prides himself on consistently being the dead weight in the intermediate lanes, helping keep Neal keep his “moderate” pace. When not slowing Neal down, Kent routinely “fins up” so he can mess with the lane pacing, thus keeping his fellow Tankers thinking and alert as they transverse the pool. He also enjoys seeing how many times he can get Coach Tim to repeat what the set is and specializes on forgetting what lap it is, even if it is a four lap set.
Besides swimming, Kent loves the outdoors and geocaching. He, like Neal, is also a soccer player, in semi-retirement, as he keeps popping some ligament every time he plays. By day, Kent is an atmospheric scientist and consultant, working in downtown Portland.
Byron (aka superbee) started swimming competetively when he was 7. Growing up in southern California presented him with an abundance of opportunities to excel within one of the finest teams in the area. By the time he was 16, he was an accomplished USA swimmer and water polo player, competing in many national level meets. After he moved to Oregon during his junior year of high school, his last competetive meet of his youth was the Oregon State High School Championships.
16 years later, Byron returned to the pool with a new found love for the sport that he had all but forgotten. “Getting to be a part of the Oregon City Tankers has brought me back. The Tankers are such an amazing group of swimmers who welcomed me in and encourage me to get up in the morning and swim.”
Aside from swimming, Byron is very active competing in triathlons and the occasional adventure race. He enjoys spending time hiking, swimming and cycling with his wife and daughter and is currently an assistant coach for the Oregon City High School swim team.
A fourth generation Oregonian Tom started swimming at the Willamalane pool in Springfield. At 12 his family moved to Southern California where he swam through high school. He returned to Oregon for school, first in Eugene then in Portland, receiving a degree signed by Ransom Arthur, the father of masters swimming. His collegiate swimming career was cut short after 2 years by a tragic lack of talent. With middle age showing its full force he began to exercise, including lap swimming in 2006 and he joined the Tankers in the fall of 2010. He does best in distance freestyle and butterfly but his backstroke is beyond hope.
LaDawn started swimming with the Glendale Swimming Gauchos at age 7. She swam competitively through high school. Setting swimming aside to attend the University of Arizona and Baylor College of Medicine. Married and raising a family kept her out if the water. Her son’s interest in scuba diving with mom and dad, brought her son to the OCST. Surrounded by the excitement of the pool, meets, and the return of the smell of the chlorine, LaDawn returned to the pool last year to discover that the gills never go away, and her son loves to dive with her!
John Saltenberger swam regularly for fitness before joining the OC Tankers in late 2010. John never had any coaching or competitive experience prior to becoming a master’s swimmer. John swimming goals include improvements in stroke technique and overall fitness.
John is a meteorologist employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and works in wildfire preparedness for Oregon and Washington at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland.
Sonja “the swimmer” Skinner was born in England already knowing how to swim. Instead of traditional methods of moving to the United States, she swam to New York with her belongings strapped to her back (all the while narrowly avoiding ship sinking ice bergs). Once there she ran (her OTHER sport) to Oregon where she now lives with 2 kids and her husband.
Her likes: swimming, running, bbqs, beer, and sunshine (though seriously misjudging the amount of sun Oregon gets). Sonja’s swimming career started with a summer league, as she figured, good enough to swim an ocean, good enough to swim during the summer. In 1990 she joined Oregon City Swim Team and swam with them till 1997. In 1999, having swam well over a million miles, she officially hung up her suit (where it promptly disintegrated from years of use). 14 years later, she thought she’d swim a workout or 2 to show off her skills in front of the Tankers. So enamored by the fact that our workouts start at the ungodly hour of 5am, She told herself “I’ll swim 6 months on, then take 6 months off”. Within a month she realized that swimming for 6 months straight without stopping was a lofty goal and decided that just making regular practices throughout the year would suffice. Sonja’s current goals include USMS Nationals and striving to swim the times that she swum when she was 18.
Sarah lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere, which is something around 20 miles away from the pool, and somehow uphill both ways, which she runs, in the rain every day (even when it isn’t raining) to get to the pool to swim. This requires her to get up a day early for practice to make the trek, and turn around the second she gets home to make it on Saturdays. Talk about commitment. One might wonder how she also manages to work her day job at Wieden+Kennedy, but she gets that in as well as taking care of her daughters and her husband! She is a SUPER STARR!
In addition to being a force to be reckoned with in the pool, Sarah has working for her a force minions of unequaled skill and has provided the Tankers with their logo and other Tanker paraphernalia. Sarah also dominates the Tankers with her facebook friend count, which got so high, they turned off the actual number so as not to embarrass Mark Zuckerberg. When asked about this amazing feat, she shrugged it off as if it were another walk to the pool. Much of her life is shrouded in mystery, but we are glad we get to share an hour every other morning in the pool with her! (We’d tell her so anyway as we are pretty sure the last person who said otherwise has never been heard from again).
Robbert was born in the Netherlands but has lived most of his life in the United States. He began his swimming career at age 10 and hasn’t left the sport since, participating as athlete, coach and volunteer. Robbert attended high school in Vancouver Washington were he qualified for the High School State Championships all four years. He spent a year after high school training to qualify for the 1996 Dutch Olympic team before burning out and heading off to the University of Oregon where we studied Exercise Science. While there, Robbert began swimming in Masters competitions, winning the 1650 at the 1997 Nationals and earning several National Top 10 times in the 400 IM and butterfly events. Robbert has earned many more Top 10 times, including a number 1 ranking in the 1500 meter freestyle. His Top 10 times have been in a wide range of events, including freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and individual medley events. Robbert swam at the 2006 Masters World Championships where he placed 8th in the 800 free and 400 IM. He holds OMS records in the 1650 and 1500 freestyles and 200 breaststrokes in several age groups. Robbert has coached club, masters and high school teams over the past 20 years and currently serves as webmaster for Oregon Swimming and was the webmaster for Oregon Masters Swimming for several years.
In his non-swimming life (is there really such a thing?), Robbert has been married to his wife, Yvonne, since 2008. He has a teenage daughter, from his first marriage, and 3 year old twins. He works out of his home as a web developer for a Yakima based company.
Assistant Coach and founder of the Tankers, Bryan brings 41 years of experience in the pool and on deck. He is currently a coach for the Oregon City Swim Team and has coached the Oregon City High School Swimming Team for the last 3 years.
Bryan began swimming competitively in 1972 for the Oregon City Swim Club and went on to swim all four years during his time at Oregon State University, graduating in 1987. Upon graduation Bryan earned not only a degree, but also a commission in the United States Air Force where he spent 20+ years flying cool airplanes and swimming Summers. While in the Air Force, he got the chance to command a squadron whose winning ways went beyond the everyday Air Force experience. Physical fitness has always been a top priority for Bryan, and that is one of the ways in which he led his squadron…winning not only in the air, but also on the field and in the pool where he competed in several team triathlons and other events.
While in the Air Force, Bryan met Shannon Wright and started a family, which has grown a lot through the years. :O) Four of Bryan and Shannon’s five progeny are swimming on the Oregon City Swim Team, and the fifth – under daddy’s tutelage – will be added to the team soon. Bryan has a strong faith, and that is what guides and directs his daily path. He is both a pastor and Bible teacher and enjoys his family time immensely. Swimming for Bryan has become not only a way to stay physically fit, but also a strategy to make sure he is around to encourage his grand children (and beyond) in the ways of his faith and addiction to chlorine!.