And it is membership--more specifically, Life Time's Member Management System--that boosted the internal stature of the company's IT organization and piqued our interest. MMS is a group of software modules based on Sun Microsystems' J2EE and Java. It supports registration, authorization and usage tracking of Life Time Fitness' 400,000 members. But before you fire off a résumé to Life Time IT, remember the maxim: "Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it." Snowballing demand for new functionality and quicker project completion to support business units keeps Life Time's IT pros on their toes. The IT organization is clearly a product of its own success, and how the staff deals with that success will determine if it can take Life Time to the ultimate goal--becoming a $1 billion diversified health and fitness heavyweight.

History In the Making

Just a few years ago Life Time's IT department barely existed, and MMS was a twinkle in CEO Bahram Akradi's eye. The group was made up of contract labor and a CIO in the making, Brent Zempel, who came up through the health and fitness industry and lacked technology experience. One thing he did have in spades, though, was management expertise, and he used it to get his contractors pointed in a common direction. He also worked a deal with Renaissance Worldwide, the agency providing programming staff, to waive the finder's fee should he hire its employees. And Zempel did exactly that: He assembled his core development team from this contract labor, saving a bundle on recruiting.

MMS Development Click here to enlarge

Zempel also enticed Wesley Bertch, who taught Microsoft technology classes that Zempel attended, to evaluate the Life Time infrastructure, which wasn't nearly as buff as most of the health club's members. Bertch was hooked by the challenge and joined the Life Time team as director of software systems.

A New Plan

A number of factors drove Life Time to build MMS. The old system was down so often that many members bypassed it, resulting in nonpayment of dues. Data integrity was so low that lapsed accounts showed up as paid. And every time there was a major hiccup in the code, the system creator--a high-priced consultant--had to hop on a plane.

But it's a sad fact of IT life that ideas rarely translate easily into working technology. Life Time pursued some dead-end vendors and architectures.

On Location with Life Time Fitness Step inside a real-world IT department as we document Life Time Fitness' nationwide applications infrastructure rollout. Check in frequently to catch the IT crew at work and at play. You can even post questions for the Life Time IT folks. and they may have a few questions of their own for you!

Bertch was key in deciding to use Java and J2EE as the core development environment. Everything had been developed using Visual Basic and other Microsoft products, but it was decided that the Microsoft environment could not support Life Time's goals for MMS--spiraling licensing costs and Microsoft's failure to deliver new software architectures on time (can you say .Net?) spurred the move. It was a bold decision--more than $1 million had been spent on contract labor, development and infrastructure to support a Microsoft solution. But Bertch felt the company had no choice. He says he firmly believes that none of MMS' success would have been possible had they stayed with Microsoft.

The company considered off-the-shelf member-management systems, but none could meet Life Time's requirements. The only viable alternative was Java, even though it would require heavy development and customization. This choice spelled the end for many contractors working on the Microsoft platforms. A wholesale body-and-skill swap took place, and soon the seats were filled with Java developers. Zempel credits the strong Renaissance relationship as the reason Life Time was able to make such a strategic shift. (Renaissance has been acquired by Boston-based Aquent.)