WILDER — A cornerstone of the Upper Valley youth sports scene has changed hands as longtime Northern Lights Gymnastics owner Jill Vanderpot recently sold the gym to a new ownership group comprised of two current employees and the parents of a competitive gymnast.

Over her 28 years at the Wilder-based gym, 22 as an owner and six as an employee before that, Vanderpot coached and mentored thousands of young gymnasts while supporting competitive gymnastics both locally and statewide as an official in USA Gymnastics. 

So it’s not surprising that when it came time for her to sell the gym — which she says was spurred by the ever-accumulating weight of ownership responsibilities and nudged to the forefront by challenges brought on by COVID — her priority was to sell to someone who would continue operating it as a gymnastics gym.    

“When I took ownership, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it forever,” said Vanderpot, who estimates that the gym enrolls between 400 and 500 students in its programs at any given time. “But I was committed to keeping gymnastics as a part of our local community. So I didn’t get a realtor or anything, and that was a way to keep it more internal (to the gymnastics community).” 

The approach officially paid off on Dec. 9, when the new owners, John and Danza Leonard and Bill and Anne Sailer, took possession of the building and business. Neither party would disclose the sale price, and the town’s online property records have not yet been updated to reflect the sale. 

“They are familiar with the community and certainly gymnastics, so I think that was very comforting knowing that they understood what we stand for in the community and how prominent the gym is in everybody’s lives,” Vanderpot said. 

John Leonard, 32, is a former collegiate gymnast at Temple University in Philadelphia who has coached at Northern Lights for the past six years.

His wife Danza, 29, is an Upper Valley native who was a competitive gymnast at Northern Lights from the sixth grade to her 2011 graduation from Woodstock Union High School.

Danza has been a coach and athletic trainer at the gym while also serving as an athletic trainer for a number of local high schools, including Lebanon and Hanover. 

“It is kind of surreal,” said Danza Leonard of her transition from one-time athlete and gym customer to owner. “It’s really exciting to have that history with the place. All of my friends from gymnastics have been reaching out to me and saying, ‘It’s so exciting, so happy for you.’ So it’s come full circle now.”

While the Leonards bring the gymnastics background to the partnership, the Sailers bring business know-how. They are owners and principals of Sunstone, a Sunapee-based business consulting and accountancy firm. Their connection to gymnastics, and Northern Lights specifically, is via the couple’s 10-year-old daughter, Ava, who is a competitive gymnast at the gym and pupil of John Leonard’s. Interestingly, the distance between their Sunapee home and Northern Lights played a big role in the Sailers eventually becoming part owners.  

“Because it’s such a far commute, I don’t really have enough time to drop Ava off and then come back to pick her up,” said Anne Sailer, 44. “So I found myself spending an abnormally large amount of time every week at the gym. And besides being passionate about gymnastics itself, I also recognized the potential that the gym had business-wise. Before I even knew it might be for sale, I just kind of fell in love with the whole business.”

Once it became public that Vanderpot was looking for a buyer, the Sailers inquired about the business thinking that it would be an opportunity for some of their consulting clients. But after talking with Jill, they quickly changed course.  

“I reached out to Jill and asked her if she could share the details, like asking price, so Bill and I could reach out to some of our clients who are investors,” Anne Sailer said. “She replied back to us that John and Danza were also interested in buying it and asked if we could incorporate them into the deal. So then we worked from there to try to come up with a way to purchase the gym together.” 

While both couples said they needed to get more fully immersed in the day-to-day operation of the gym before making any concrete plans about its future, expanding the coaching staff, upgrading the facilities and equipment and possibly adding a boys competitive team are all options they will be considering. 

But the couples mostly stressed that they wanted to continue and build upon the foundation built by Vanderpot and her husband, Peter, who served as the gym’s vice president and all-around fixer. 

“I look back when I was on the team and I have the most awesome memories, and it was such a huge component to who I am today,” Danza Leonard said. “The biggest goal is to just create that sense of community … still maintaining the heritage of Northern Lights because it’s been a really important program in our community, and it meant a lot to a lot of people.” 

Among the people Northern Lights has meant a lot to are the family of Etna’s Janet Simmons, whose 19- and 17-year-old children have been involved with Northern Lights since her oldest was a toddler.

“Jill and Peter have left a foundation of what a community gymnastics program should look like with both recreational and competitive choices,” Simmons said. “Their legacy will live on through the coaches they have mentored and worked alongside in the gym. The Northern Lights atmosphere is inclusive and welcoming with a spirit that will live on through their proteges as well as the thousands of gymnasts that have passed through their doors.” 

Simply put by another Northern Lights parent, Holly Wilkinson, of Norwich: “There would be no local gymnastics community without Jill and Peter.” 

Ensuring that the Vanderpots’ legacy and the opportunity to practice and compete in gymnastics at a high level lived on was also important to the Sailers.

“One of the driving factors for us to get involved in this beyond helping John and Danza was that we did not want to see this opportunity for young athletes, predominantly female athletes, to go away,” said Bill Sailer, 42. “No one has opened a new gym facility in the Upper Valley since 1985 (when Northern Lights opened), so once it was clear that Jill and Peter were out, if we didn’t figure something out quickly, it was going to become another UPS facility or self-storage.” 

As far as her future plans go, Jill, who recently celebrated her 50th birthday, said that the work involved in selling the business didn’t leave her much time for thinking about what she is doing next. 

But she already knows one thing she is looking forward to: “Being able to say yes when there is something that people ask me to do and not always having to say no because I have the bigger responsibility of the gym and all the people there.”

Justin Campfield can be reached at jhcampfield@gmail.com.

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