Staff Spotlight: Ciara Pickley

Ciara was born and raised right here in Seattle, Washington. Besides living on Bainbridge Island for 6 years in middle school and high school, she hasn’t left the Emerald City yet! 

The first time she stepped foot in Ballard Health Club was in 2013 as a college student interested in taking some yoga classes. 

During the next six years (2014-2019), Ciara struggled with addiction/mental health issues that nearly took her life.  

She found her passion for working out in 2020 after rejoining Ballard Health Club in March of 2020-a week before it closed for the pandemic! During this time, she participated in several of the virtual classes per week that really kept her going.

Fast forward to 2021, Ciara was rebuilding her life and looking for a job to assist with that. While working with a career coach, Ciara said “I think it would be fun to work at a gym” and soon after, applied to Ballard Health Club. Pat hired her on the spot. (Shout out, Pat!) The rest is history.

Ciara was promoted to the role of Facilities Assistant in December 2023, which enabled her to expand what she does at BHC. She manages the cleaning and facilities responsibilities of the front desk and reports to management each week on how well cleaning duties are being performed, any improvements she feels needs to occur and ideas to make it a better place. 

Currently, Ciara is a part of a non-profit group based in Issaquah known as Recovery Beyond. She has done many cool things with this organization such as sea kayaking in the San Juan Islands, winter backpacking (sleeping on frozen lakes!) in the boundary waters of northern Minnesota, but most recently she completed the beginner mountaineering program and successfully summitted Mount Adams in August!