News Archives: Ron Thomson to Lead GPRC's New Regional Athletic Centre Initiative
Wednesday, June 29th, 2016
GRANDE PRAIRIE – Longtime GPRC Volleyball Coach, Physical Education and Kinesiology department chair and instructor Ron Thomson will lead a GPRC initiative to connect the community with the College’s sport, fitness and wellness programs with the goal of creating a high performance athletic centre for northwestern Alberta.
Thomson will be the Director of the GPRC Centre for Sport, Fitness and Wellness for the next year leading GPRC’s Wolves Athletics, Be Fit For Life Centre, Alberta Sport Development Council, Fitness Facilities and Campus Wellness programs while reaching out to the community to explore the opportunities that exist to provide programming and training space to support athletes at all skill levels in the region.
“GPRC has a strong foundation to build a research-based training facility to support community sports programs and attract athletes to train at a provincial, national or international level with its academic and community-based sport, fitness and wellness programs,” says Don Gnatiuk, President and CEO of GPRC. “Connecting our existing expertise with Ron’s more than 25 years of coaching, athlete training, education community experience, I’m confident GPRC and our community partners can bring the centre into reality.”
GPRC’s vision is to build on its existing sports and fitness programs and connect that expertise with community-based programs to help the next generation of athletes in northwestern Alberta succeed. Longer term there is a real need for a high performance training centre for teams and athletes in the region that would complement existing facilities in the region.
“GPRC can be the community connector and catalyst that brings all those pieces together to support athletes and sports programs at all levels,” says Thomson. “That creates healthy, active citizens and that’s good for health care, sport, physical literacy and physical education.”
The goal is for GPRC to create a community that provides all athletes in northwestern Alberta with access to coaching, physical and mental training, access to specialized training facilities and equipment that is necessary for athletes to pursue the next level in their sport.
“This responds to the needs of our community and region,” says Thomson.
“The athletic centre will also create the space and opportunities for GPRC to do more sports, fitness and wellness research which responds to our communities’ desire to see GPRC to grant its own degrees as a Polytechnic University,” says Gnatiuk.
“I am raising my kids here and I want to make this the best place for all of our kids to develop,” says Thomson. “This project is an effort to develop our community and help provide the resources for our local athletes to reach their goals.”
GPRC is a comprehensive community institution, publicly supported to provide opportunities in post-secondary education in northwestern Alberta. Established in 1966 in Grande Prairie, GPRC now includes campuses in Fairview and Grande Prairie, and learning centres in Edson, Grande Cache, Hinton and Jasper. GPRC offers a wide variety of career certificates and diplomas, pre-employment and apprenticeship trades, university transfer studies, and several opportunities for on-campus degree completion at baccalaureate and master levels through collaborations with four-year universities. For more information, visit gprc.ab.ca.
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For more information, please contact:
Mark Evans
GPRC
Corporate Communications
Phone: 780-539-2951