Gordon Echtenkamp grew up in Fremont, Neb., as a “Y” kid. In the 1970s, he turned his passion for the YMCA into a profession. He started at the Kansas City YMCA, where he spent seven years, and later worked at YMCAs in Memphis, Houston, Phoenix, and Des Moines, Iowa. In 2002, he returned to Texas to run the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. Today he oversees the Y’s 23 Dallas-area branches and 90 program sites in seven counties. Echtenkamp works alongside 60 board members to bring to life the YMCA mission—“to put Christian values into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.” Despite all the grown-up responsibilities of being CEO, Echtenkamp still sees himself as a “Y” kid at heart.
AGE 54
TITLE/COMPANY President and CEO of YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas
TENURE Six years
FIRST JOB My first real job, as I grew up in the Midwest, was detasseling corn. It’s what all our buddies in junior high school did.
WORST JOB The summer after high school, I worked in a laboratory where they manufactured feline distemper vaccine, and I had to run a machine that pushed the vials that contained the serum down a chute, injected the serum into the bottles, put a rubber cork onto the bottle, and then a metal crimp around the cork. I was in there all by myself trying to keep these glass bottles from breaking. It was just horrible. It was hard, but it was humbling, too.
IF YOU WEREN’T CEO OF THE METRO DALLAS YMCA I don’t think about that much, because this is all I’ve done. I’d probably be with the Y doing something—running a YMCA some place. I absolutely love doing what I do.
BEST PART OF YOUR JOB The best part of my job is hearing business leaders’ stories—hearing how they connected to the YMCA as a kid.
WORST PART It’s balancing all the resources. It’s feeling as though you never have enough time or money or people or leadership to do the stuff you need to do.
WEEKENDS Either outside reading a book or on my bike riding to White Rock Lake.
BOOK I’m in the midst of Authenticity by James Gilmore. It’s a pick-it-up, put-it-down kind of book. I just finished a book by Dean Koontz called Odd Hours.
TV The parts of Boston Legal where they’re not making political commentary.
RECENT PURCHASE We just re-landscaped our front yard.
ADVICE Have high expectations and don’t settle or compromise.
TYPICAL DAY My day starts with a workout. I run or I’m on a cardio machine at one of the branches for about an hour. I spend a couple of hours in the office and then I’m out in branches or with volunteers throughout the day. If I don’t have evening meetings or receptions— which I often have with community events—I’m home for dinner.
FAVORITE SPORT I am a recovering runner, which means I’ve run for a long time and I’ve got no cartilage left in my knees. But running isn’t so much about the pace or the distance; it’s about the emotion behind it.
