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Chris Harkness

Chris Harkness

President of SafeSplash Swim School, the largest swim school franchisor in the US, and a former US Navy submarine lieutenant with two decades in franchise operations.

Sep 7, 2026

5:42
But I still think it's limiting, right? And then the question is, how often is it measured? Do we know how long those lessons were given? Do they come back? Is it all the time? Where's the commitment? And then what does the child feel maybe a year later? I mean, that's research down the road, but I think it's important in understanding because there's no standardized in the government that says we need to teach these basic things for water survival education.
6:17
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment of it.
6:21
And even any assessment that we do at Safe Splash is a point in time.
6:27
Like we've provided instruction up to a point in time.
6:31
We provide a test where we look at very specific skills and the ability of the child or the adult to to, to demonstrate those skills and say, we say, yes, you passed today inside of our pool.
6:46
That doesn't mean a year from now you could still pass.
6:49
And so that's really next step, you know, for us, as we think about this business is how do you have the right safety checks in place and bring, you know, bring people in when we, when you, You know, you bring up a broader conversation about people's access to water.

18 MINS LATER

25:03
So I want to talk about how your program, the swimmer promise around specific skills and outcomes and what problems were you trying to solve with this development?

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