Bill Casto Bio

I've spent my entire professional career working with commercial exercise equipment.  In high school & later while in college, I worked at several health clubs in Pittsburgh PA.  This would have been in the late 1970's into the early 1980's, before the idea of having a personal trainer was the rage.  I considered myself a personal trainer to everyone that worked out, providing help with technique and encouragement.  Fortunately, both of the clubs where I worked had circuits of Nautilus equipment, and at that point, some basic free weight stations, and a couple of lifecycle bikes for cardio.  At this time, three important aspects of my early life were converging.  I was studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, while working at the clubs, and totally becoming obsessed with Nautilus equipment; both as a training tool, but also the science behind the design.  As luck would have it, I became friendly with the Nautilus Sales Rep that covered western PA and began to read everything that I could about Nautilus, Arthur Jones, Ellington Darden, etc...  I was lucky enough to go to one of the seminars in Ocala, Fla in the mid '80s

About the time when I graduated college, I had a chance to go to one of the regional Nautilus seminars in Cincinnati Ohio where I met Gary Jones.  Gary was running the Nautilus Chrome plant in central Texas, and I was determined to get a job with the company.  Gary agreed to have me fly down to Texas and work at the plant for a week.  If he liked what he saw, and I was still interested, we would talk about a job.  The week passed, we talked, and about three days later I was driving to Texas to start my career as an engineer for Nautilus.  I worked as a production engineer for the next three years.  My primary function was to troubleshoot and resolve any production related issues.  I also was responsible for altering the components of machines that were designed in Virginia so that they would be able to be chrome plated.  The components are submerged in the chrome tank as opposed to paint being sprayed  as the parts traveled past on a conveyer system.  I was privileged to work directly with Gary on a new line of equipment called Leverage (this later became Hammer Strength equipment).  Another highlight of my three years in Texas was a trip to the Virginia plant where I spend a week learning how things operated on a much larger scale.  I remember that the chrome machines accounted for approx 10% of all equipment sales.

In late 1987 things were changing rapidly.  Arthur had sold the company to one of his distributors and needless to say it wasn't a smooth transition.  I remember feeling very uncertain about my future, and the future of the entire chrome plant.  At one point I thought that I might be transferred to the Virginia plant, but as luck would have it, a sales position became available in the Northeast.  I took that position and moved to Rochester, New York in February 1988.  Working as the regional rep for the next three years, I was able to rebuild a territory that had been neglected and  became one of the top five performers in the company while working in one the smallest territories.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot that Nautilus was going through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the time.  I think that I still have the Wall Street Journal article which sales reps from completing manufacturers would hand out to all prospects that were looking to purchase equipment.  Talk about overcoming objections.

Unfortunately the turmoil continued.  A series of upper management teams came and went in succession, and the position became more frustrating.  But, I always felt that through all of the B.S. that the for the most part, the quality of the product remained high.  I sold the "2nd Generation" equipment for a short time, the series III Low Friction machines, and finally the Next Generation machines.  The last straw for me occurred in 1991 when I was asked to move to the metro NYC area because of a restructuring of the sales territory.  I even covered the entire Northeast territory for the last few months of my employment.

So here's what I did.  I had always wanted to start my own business and saw an opportunity.  I remember calling between 50 - 100 customers and contacts that I had met during my three years, and asked one basic question.  "If I start a service and repair company, would you hire me to provide maintenance to your Nautilus machines?"  The response was so overwhelming that I immediately started Integrated Fitness Resources or IFR in June 1991.

So for the past 17 years I have repaired, reconditioned, bought, sold, traded, moved, and even been injured by Nautilus machines of all generations.  An occasional treadmill or elliptical has also taken up some of my time :-)  Over the past few months I have been adding what I hope are interesting items to the website related to Nautilus equipment.  I have been updating often, so please check back frequently.