Business Spotlight: Change Place opens its doors in Carson City

Change happens.

At the Change Place, part of the Change Companies in Carson City, it’s something that occurs every day.

Owners Don Kuhl and Sherry Newsom decided it was time to start working directly with the people their company has strived to help over the past quarter century.

“We’re taking the knowledge we’ve gleaned from the Change Companies over 27 years,” Kuhl said. “This give us an opportunity here within the Change Place to really get dirty with the end-user, the actual person making those changes.”

Kuhl and Newsom are the thrust behind their mother company, The Change Companies based in Carson City, which has become a leading force in the area of behavior change.

Equipped with scientific research and studies, they made the biggest impacts from behind the scenes with the organization’s signature Interactive Journaling series.

But now, they hope to put all of that research into practice themselves by working one-on-one with individuals who are serious about change.

“This one is really paying back the community, which has been very kind to us,” Kuhl said. “I just love Carson City, and we’d really like to work more with the end-user.”

After spending decades on the research end of behavioral change and developing products for service-provider application, Kuhl said he feels the desire to not only see the change happening in others, but to be the change, too.

“At age 71, my thought was this was really my last crack at really being hands on,” he said, “and think I will be the best client here.”

Kuhl said the Change Place — located at 2814 N. Carson Street next to Eagle Medical Center and High Sierra Office Systems — is a venue for total wellness and complete well-being, taking a rounded, comprehensive approach to an individual’s physical and emotional health needs.

Featuring two separate work-out floors, a yoga studio or meditation room, massage therapy rooms and showers, the Change Place may look like a gym at first glance.

But it’s much more than that, Kuhl said.

“It’s a center for people for both emotional health as well as physical health,” he said. “The whole thought is to get people into appreciating all the little changes they can make that will improve their health, both emotional and physical, forever more.”

Walking into the 10,000 square-foot space for the first time, the main floor is spacious and roomy. Although there are work-out machines placed around the floor, they share the space with whimsical metal sculptures that are meant to be disarming.

“We have a love and appreciation of art,” Kuhl said. “We try to integrate art, space, and music into a place where people can feel comfortable in going to.”

On the north side of the main floor is a small space reserved for and devoted to conversations, Kuhl said.

A sculpture of the Cat in the Hat sits on a red park bench in front of chairs arranged strategically in a circle, a design best suited for communication.

Making changes to become healthier should be a shared experience, Kuhl said, one that generates conversations.

Through a program called motivational conversations, the Change Place helps to facilitate change by starting the conversation about it.

“People from the community can come in and participate in talks about diet, hope, how to change, all of those kinds of topics that are generally part of all our lives,” he said. “The goal is to get people to share what their story is. Where they’ve been, where they are now, and where they want to go.”

Motivational conversations occur two to three times daily, Kuhl said, with a facilitator who directs the topic for participants.

But the communication doesn’t stop there. Rather, the concept of sharing through conversations expands into the work-out area, too, where the floor is designed to stimulate interactions.

“We brought in really cutting edge equipment that is suited for older people as well as younger people,” said Kuhl, pointing to a large jungle-gym style circuit machine in the middle of the main floor.

Featuring more than a dozen individual stations and exercises that can be performed simultaneously, this central exercise hub positions users so that they are facing each other while they work out, Kuhl said.

“This is something new that we fell in love with,” he said pointing to the circuit apparatus, resembling a benign gauntlet. “We call it The Rig. Almost 17 people can work here at once. It’s for all ages and ability levels.”

The Rig has exercises for just about any movement. All the while, users can talk and encourage one another during their work-out sessions, Kuhl said.

“It allows for those same motivational conversations where people are working together as a team, watching each other and engaging with each other,” he said.

In addition to the main work-out floor up front, there is a second gym area in the back for clients who prefer a more traditional work-out environment where they can exercise on their own or work 1:1 with a trainer.

Professional personal trainers are on staff and available to help individuals or groups, and to work one-on-one with clients, Kuhl said.

“We have really wonderful trainers here,” he said. “People can come in and work out with our personal trainers if they choose. Once they learn how to work the machines, they can work out on their own if they’d like.”

Kuhl said that while the age range of his target audience is broad — forties through eighties — he really wants to focus on getting people in who have either never been to a gym or haven’t been to one in a very long time.

He also wants to establish a working relationship between clients and their physicians as a way of joining medicine with health and wellness activities at the Change Place.

“What we’d like to do is build a link between the medical community of the greater Carson City area,” he said. “Whether it’s diet or exercise, we’d like to be the place where that individual patient can come into the front door, be greeted and well received, and provide the type of services their physician thinks is best for them.”

Kuhl said there will be no cookie-cutter plans at the Change Place, either. One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to making change.

“It will be very individualized and specialized for each person,” he said. “There would be an ongoing relationship between the physician, the patient and the Change Place.”

Memberships are paid either annually or quarterly, he said. A one-time annual fee costs $900 while the quarterly rate is paid in $250 intervals.

Kuhl said he and Newsom are sensitive to the fact that an annual or even quarterly fee might be steep for some people who could benefit from the Change Place.

That’s why they have established a scholarship for individuals with financial need, he said.

“We’ve set up a special scholarship fund that can pay up to half of that to people for whom that may be a high number,” Kuhl said.

Even though the Change Place hasn’t even had its official opening yet, Kuhl said he’s already thinking ahead to expansion of the business and the wellness services it can offer clients.

“We’re looking for people who have special means of helping people in emotional or physical ways,” he said. “Anybody out there who has a class, and who wants to come in and use this as their space, we would be very open to talking to them.”

Kuhl said the facility can accommodate up to 35 clients at any one time. He hopes to attract as many as 250 members.

The Change Place has scheduled its official grand opening and open house event for Tuesday, Nov. 15, he said.

Music by members of the Carson City Symphony orchestra from 4:30 to 7 p.m. will preclude the ribbon-cutting ceremony at 5:30 p.m., he said. Hors d’oeuvres will be served.

“This is our gift to Carson City,” Kuhl said of the Change Place. “We just want to have a bunch of people joining us in getting healthier.”

The Change Place is open from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The business is closed on Sundays.

Visit the company web site here, or call 775-283-0699 for more information.