MEMBER SPOTLIGHT | October 2021 (Shane Facteau)
“I still have not done anything harder than wrestling”….
Member Spotlight
Shane Facteau, Chief Operating Officer, Ironman Group
This month, we are super excited to introduce Shane Facteau as part of our monthly Member Spotlight. Shane joined Ironman Group in 1999 and has remained with the organization through tremendous change, expansion, and turbulence. Along the way, he rose through the ranks and is now the Chief Operating Officer of the largest endurance sport organization in the world.
Wrestling Roots
Originally from the Adirondacks of upstate New York (Saranac), Shane grew up in a wrestling family. His father, uncles, cousins and brother all were wrestlers and the sport was part of the fabric of the family in general. He began wrestling in the 5th grade and enjoyed a good but not great high school career. Wrestling played a big part in his decision of where to go to college and he went to school and wrestle at SUNY Oswego, a Division III school in Western New York. While at Oswego, he had a successful wrestling career capped by being team captain as senior, an All-State Performer and an academic All-American, wrestling for Coach Mike Howard in the mid-90s. Howard remains the Oswego coach today and is part of a 50+ year coaching legacy at Owego with his father Jim.
There were two things that wrestling provided to Shane as a young man that remain with him to this day: great coaches/mentors and opportunity.
Almost as soon as he began wrestling, a new coach moved to the town fresh off a wrestling career at Hofstra, Mike Hogan a member of the National Wrestling High School Hall of Fame.
While the technique and physical aspect of wrestling he was taught was important, it was the influence and the importance of proper and effective coaching, particularly around using wrestling and the skills developed to better oneself and see a bigger world that remain with him today. He joked that like many of us, he can’t recall his teachers but still talks to both his high school and college wrestling coach on a regular basis.
The other thing that wrestling provided to Shane at an early age was opportunity. Wrestling was his avenue to leaving home for college and only through the sport of wrestling was this door opened, creating future opportunities that would lead to a career at Ironman.
Ironman History
Obviously, Ironman is a highly recognizable brand but few know how it started and grew to the king of endurance sports. In 1978, 15 Navy Seals in Hawaii were sitting around a bar arguing about who was the fittest. This “discussion” led to a challenge of combining three difficult Hawaii-based endurance sporting events and making them into one. A 2.4-mile rough water swim, a 112-mile ‘around the island’ bike ride and the Honolulu Marathon. Whoever completed this event would be an ‘Ironman.’ 15 athletes competed in the first event with 12 finishing.
Word of this race soon spread around the world and it soon gathered a following among people looking for a challenging event to test themselves. Ultimately, it would be a Sports Illustrated article to really create awareness and this was followed by coverage by Wide World of Sports. From there, Ironman events started popping up around the globe.
In the early days, there were a few events throughout the world, but the only event in the US was the Hawaii Ironman. And these events were owned by franchisees. Over time, each of these organizations were acquired by a series of owners/investors until, ultimately, all were consolidated under Ironman Group.
Shane’s History with Ironman
After graduating from Oswego and with a degree in Communications, Shane began his journey that would eventually see him land at Ironman and become a part of the organization for the last 22 years. He started his “adult” life at Norwich University where he coached wrestling and worked in Sports Information. After a short time there, he accepted a position at a newspaper in Lake Placid, NY. It was in this job that Shane would be introduced to Ironman.
Ironman North America came to Lake Placid in 1999 for an event and this marked the first race within the continental US. After the event, he met the organizer who offered him a position as the Communication Director….but it would include having to learn every aspect of the organization and this would serve him well down the road. Not long after, he was moved to Head of Operations for NA businesses. After Ironman NA was bought by Providence Equity as part of the business consolidation beginning in 2009, he became the VP Ops for Ironman in North America. And then in 2013, following the unification of the Ironman brand and the hiring of a new CEO, he was named the Chief Operating Officer for the company. And this is when the real work began.
Now a centrally managed entity, Shane worked tirelessly across the various newly acquired Ironman companies and races. He has lived and traveled across the world and instituted standardized systems and processes to ensure the organization was delivering on the premium product it was offering to its consumers. This, much like an Ironman endurance event, turned into an endurance event of its own. Through his hard work, dedication, and determination, Ironman has grown to the most widely recognized endurance sport in the world. He has also was part of the companies continued expansion into other vertical categories such as running, cycling, mountain biking, and trail running. In 2022, Ironman Group will host approximately 250 events in more than 50 countries across all brands and event types.
Wrestling Helped
Wrestling was certainly a central reason for Shane’s success and he is quick to credit the sport as a chief reason he is where he is. He credits two traits he learned through wrestling as the most impactful responsible for his success: discipline and mental, physical and emotional toughness. Over the years, he experienced moments of chaos and uncertainty as the organization evolved, changed, and grew. Rather than walk away from the challenge, he used skills developed and learned from wrestling. While he watched others quit, he thrived….and in those moments, he would remind himself that it could be worse. He told a story that no matter how tough his days were, he would think about “sitting in a snowbank in Western NY in January, 10 pounds overweight having to wrestle a returning All-American tomorrow”. If he could do that, he could do this. Wrestling allowed him to work through the challenges and continues to help him today.
Working at Ironman
There is no secret to working at Ironman. You have to be organized and willing to work hard. Of course, you must be competent. In addition, you have to willing to travel and work in a physical situation….setting up and running an Ironman event is a grind in of itself. And wrestlers are already ahead of others trying to break into this and similar organizations. Shane mentioned that his industry knows this, and others do as well. He even offered that the US is not alone in its respect for wrestlers. Globally, wrestlers are immediately respected as employees because of the traits/characteristics they bring to an organization.
Giving Back to Wrestling
Shane remains very active in the sport in many different capacities. In previous years, he spent a lot of time coaching. Currently he focuses on financial support of programs he’s been involved with and being an advocate for the sport typically behind the scenes. That said, he frequently helps wrestlers in a number of different ways. He has actively advocated for wrestlers at Ironman and has mentored many wrestlers across industries.
He follows wrestling religiously and continues to learn from the sport. His thoughts and comments on this were really fascinating because he stated that by being a fan of the sport, he still draws the same way that he drew the discipline and mental toughness…..just that he draws different things from the sport now that still help him equally as much. He cited watching Gable Steveson in the Olympics and simplicity of hitting a basic move on the highest stage and watching as one wrestler embraced the moment and another didn’t appear able to handle it as well. Watching Helen Maroulis come back from tremendous adversity with mental and physical health to win the Olympic Trials and medal in the 2020 Olympics was another recent learning experience for him. He also referenced watching the fight to keep Stanford Wrestling and Rob Koll moving to the program from Cornell.
Finally, Shane mentioned as part of keeping up to date on coaching certification he took part in a webinar conducted by Dave Crowell, who is the legendary high school coach at Nazareth (PA) HS. While most wrestlers acknowledge what they learned from the sport, Shane is rare in that he actively admits that he still learns from it.
Shane at WIBN
Shane is not a member of a particular WIBN chapter. He lives in Tampa and we have yet to establish a chapter there. He is very much interested in being part of an effort to set up a chapter in Tampa but knows that being the COO of the most recognized endurance event company in the world would prevent him from leading these efforts. That said, he is 100% committed to helping as a board member. If we have others in the Tampa area that are equally interested in starting a Chapter, please reach out to us at dfallon@wrestlersinbusiness.org.
If you’d like to connect with Shane, please reach out via email at shane@ironman.com or via LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shane-facteau-9b888780/