At Holland Aquatic Center, our facilities are awesome and so is our staff. In this We Are HAC! series, we’ll introduce you to the people who love to teach, coach, protect, serve and inspire here. Our amazing team, more than 100 strong, is passionate about empowering healthy, connected lives through aquatics and wellness programming. Meet them here in this blog series and in-person at Holland Aquatic Center!
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Roger Klaasen oversees, works on, and repairs some of the most complicated machinery at HAC. As a maintenance team member, he is responsible for ensuring that both the water and air quality in every HAC natatorium is healthy and safe. That means watching over 1.3 million gallons of water (about twice the volume of an Olympic-size pool), 3 water filtration systems with a total of 15 filters, and an air-quality handling room that looks like something that could have come out of a Star Wars scene.
“Every day, I make sure I can see a quarter on the bottom of every pool,” he says.
A native of Hamiton, Michigan, Roger is a man with a face of scruff and a heart of gold. He can fix just about anything placed in front of him for the benefit of HAC and his family and friends. Mechanically minded by nature, he was also a dairy farmer for a time before beginning his career at HAC 24 years ago.
“I love to just fix things and find out how they tick,” he confides. “It’s fun to learn how things are supposed to move from point A to point B and then help them continue to work that way. And there’s always something like that for me to do here.”
Roger Klaasen
And then he 😉s.
Learn more about Roger
Favorite food: Pizza
Favorite movie: None. I can’t stay awake.
Favorite book: Owner’s manuals
Favorite sport: Football
Biggest fear: A pool popping out of the ground (Sounds like a nightmare!)
Things that bring me joy: My wife and grandchildren
Best vacation: Any
What I like most about working at HAC: “The people here, and the everyday up-keep.”