Meet Lonnie Somers of HAL Sports in Littleton

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lonnie Somers.

Lonnie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
They say kids change your life, well mine changed my life in every way imaginable. During our pregnancy with our identical twin daughters, at 20 weeks gestation, we were diagnosed with a fetal syndrome called Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS). We were told that there was really no hope they would survive. Our only options: terminate the pregnancy, or let them die in-utero. Our lives were devastated and we searched the internet for any help and any hope. We found HOPE! A week later, we were in Florida having minimally invasive surgery in the womb to save our daughters. Today we have two beautiful 16-year-olds fulfilling our life every day.

We were fortunate, TTTS kills more babies per year than SIDS. Yet very little awareness is known about it. Additionally, when you add in all fetal syndromes, daily we lose 200 babies to a fetal syndrome. That means 200 parents today will never get to meet their child, never see that first smile, first step, first word, first day of school and so on.

From that my wife and I started a charity run back in 2004 and grew it into the largest timed 5K in Colorado and 48th largest in the USA. Further, we launched an international non-profit, the Fetal Health Foundation. Today it is the only foundation that provides support, research, and advocacy around fetal anomalies and syndromes.

Through all of this, I got more involved in the running/walking events. Starting out announcing/hosting at events for free then getting “discovered” and paid to announce with various long-standing events, and nationally well-known premier events. As I gained more experience in this wonderful world, an opportunity presented itself to my wife and I to purchase out some assets of a national company that had roots in Colorado. Thus HAL Sports was born (HAL stands for Healthy Active Living).

We saw a need to be a partner with events, an expert resource, and guide to help them achieve their best possible event along with meeting their mission goals. Quickly this “side business of ours” grew from about 25 events in year one to now (in our 11 years) to working with more than 120 events all over the USA. All my skill sets (and that of my wonderful wife) from Disney, to radio, to being a partner in venture capital/investment banking, plus a love of creating experiences led to what we are as HAL Sports today.

As an announcer, I often remind participants that the finish line they cross today isn’t the end, it is the beginning of what is possible. It is very rewarding to have a career in which you create the foundation for people to give back and make a difference while also bettering themselves.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Smooth, ha.. not at all. We had many growing pains and school of hard knocks lessons. When you first start out, you tend to give more of your valued time and services away at lessor cost to help build your business. The challenge for us transitioning to a more fair price that correctly valued the services we provided. You can’t in many cases just change it overnight, so we had to carefully change things over a couple of years and also be sure you put a value on my time as a resource/expert. It is very easy to give information away and expertise without compensation, but in doing that, you also devalue your time and our time is worth something.

What has also been a challenge, and still to this day, is trying to make a switch to managing our staff vs. wearing all the hats in the business. It is a leap of faith that bringing in part-time or full-time people at a cost will benefit you in the long run and allowing them truly to make mistakes. It is very easy to fall under that, “I will just do it because I know it better and can do it faster”. You somehow have to protect against major mistakes, but you have to allow your team to take over things and realize they are not going to do them the way you do them at first.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our company is all about being a partner. Our core values are certainly what set us apart. Those values, Safety, Integrity, Experience are ingrained in all we do for our clients and thus their stakeholders such as the participants, sponsors, volunteers, etc.

Further, regardless of what “role” we are hired for, we will never allow a client to suffer and take the stance that “hey this isn’t our job, so not our problem”. That isn’t how we operate. We realize things happen and we are that resource to ensure things run smoothly for the clients’ events.

This has certainly been the secret to our success. All our business has come from word of mouth and having and living up to this reputation.

What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was a really quiet kid. Hard to believe for those that know me well since I have a love of announcing/hosting/emceeing (meaning I never met a microphone I haven’t liked), public speaking, and love meeting people.

Growing up though it was tough in my formative years. Our family sadly experienced a lot of death over a couple of years, my parents divorced (which was a good thing really), I spent a lot of time truly feeling lonely but earning for more. While those times were tough, it shaped who I am today.

So how did I get through this and turn out to who I am today? Glad you asked (ha). I was 14 and working downtown Denver at a drug store stocking shelves, etc. I would take the bus home. One such day, while waiting for the bus, a group of about four or five native Americans, who clearly had been drinking, approached me. I was very scared (as this was also a time when downtown Denver was not as safe as it is today). However, one gentleman in the group addressed me in a very kind way. He said, “I can see you have the ability to become something great in life. Don’t be who we have become. We are not educated, we have lost hope, but you don’t have to. You can become and do anything you want”. I am sure there was more to what he said that I don’t recall, but I do remember some odd feeling that this was a “higher power” believing in me and it was time for me to believe in myself and make myself what I wanted.

Truly from that day forward, I was a new person and I had dreams, goals, and confidence I could achieve whatever I set my mind to.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.halsports.net
• Email: info@halsports.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/halsportsevents/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Halsports/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/halsports

Image Credit:
Twain Wilkins

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