Y Stories: Billie Maurer

If you have used the YMCA pool, you have likely seen Billie Maurer, our Aquatics Director. Whether in the pool, on deck, or elsewhere in the facility, Maurer is a mainstay of the Mid-Willamette Family YMCA. Many mornings, you can spot her teaching water aerobics classes to a pool full of people, giving instructions to the crowd over music blasting from nearby speakers. Other times, you can see her lifeguarding or shepherding kids across the pool during swim lessons. Maurer—like many at our YMCA—wears several hats. 

Maurer joined the YMCA staff in 2022 during a period of change and uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She previously worked as the Aquatics Director of the Stayton Family Memorial Pool in Stayton, Oregon. When members at Stayton heard she was applying, they called the YMCA and urged leadership to hire her.

Maurer grew up on a horse ranch in Scio, Oregon. As a child, she spent time swimming in Thomas Creek and took her first swim lessons at Stayton. Before managing aquatics, she taught preschool at Salem Child Development Center and later served as a 911 dispatcher. 

Maurer said that her career in aquatics developed organically: a longtime softball coach, she was asked to help teach Parent & Tot swim lessons in Stayton. From there, she became an Aquatics Coordinator, then an Aquatics Director. Along the way, she coached swim teams, taught aerobics classes, and learned how to repair equipment and manage a pump room. 

At the YMCA, Maurer oversees all aquatics operations and staff. Her responsibilities include swim lessons, aquatic fitness classes, lifeguard training, and pool maintenance. She is also BLS certified, a certified pump operator, and a lifeguard course instructor. She has a varied background in hostage negotiation training, verbal judo training, civil and criminal law training, and more. Additionally, Maurer serves as our YMCA's Safety Chair and is responsible for maintaining emergency equipment throughout the facility. 

The YMCA is also a family affair for Maurer. She works alongside her daughter, Sydney, and her son, Mason. Both began working in aquatics as teenagers in Stayton. Sydney recently welcomed a baby, making Maurer a grandmother. Many YMCA members shared in the milestone: Some have given the family gifts, and many attended Sydney’s baby shower earlier in the year. 

One aspect of Maurer’s role as Aquatics Director that she enjoys the most is the ability to participate in different work and activities all the time—whether playing with kids, teaching classes, moving around the building, or utilizing her skills and knowledge. 

Maurer is also grateful to impart water safety to both kids and adults. Once, while working at Stayton, she received a call from a mother whose son had participated in water safety training, which teaches children how to respond if someone needs to be rescued.

“She called me and said, ‘My son just saved my daughter.’ Her daughter had just started to walk, and they had a boat up at Detroit, and they were on the dock. She reached down to put the life jacket on the baby, and the baby fell in. The son was on his tummy and grabbed hold of the baby. She said, ‘It literally happened that quickly,’ and she was in tears,” Maurer said. “It was just one of those quick little reflexive things that you don’t think about.”

It is moments like this, Maurer said, where she is particularly grateful to help provide water safety education—especially because, as Oregonians, we are around water all the time. Yet, her favorite memories are the impactful stories shared with her by members, particularly senior members who find health, community, and connection through aquatics classes at the Y.

“I think my favorite moment would be when one of the older ladies came up to me and said, ‘Billie, I have just hit 50 pounds lost,’ and she started crying. She goes, ‘I haven’t been this weight since I was in my 40s,’ and she was in her late 60s, early 70s,” Maurer said. “I also look at some of the kids that I work with, because I specialize in swimming lessons—I work with a lot of autistic kids. So when they figure out how to swim, that is so rewarding. There are just so many moments.”

As a supervisor to over 45 employees—many of whom are working their first jobs as lifeguards in their teenage years—Maurer strives to serve as a mentor and hold her staff to a high standard. She operates by the motto that she would not ask her staff to do anything she would not do. And, she emphasizes customer service: growing up, her dad was a barber, and her mom worked for Wilco for decades.

“My sister and I learned, at a very young age, that customer service is huge,” Maurer said. “So, I really push my staff to say hello and goodbye to people. If they chat for a bit, that’s good, because for some, we may be the only people they talk to all day. Even if I can make somebody smile for a brief moment, that’s great.”

The community Maurer fosters at the Y is visible in her classes—particularly in shallow- and deep-water aerobics, mainly attended by the YMCA’s Active Older Adults population. The pool helps seniors maintain their mobility, lose weight, and stay active—and, for many, the classes become an outlet for socializing and friendship, positively impacting the lives of members in various ways. 

For example, Maurer said that many older folks come to the Y and realize they are in the same boat: maybe they have lost a spouse, and they need an opportunity for activity and connection. The Y, she said, provides that. 

“At Stayton, we had one lady who came every morning, like clockwork. And there was a group of them that worked out together. That was her social time. One day, she didn’t show up. And so I called—no answer. So one of the ladies got out and went to the house. She had had a heart attack, but she was alive,” Maurer said. “But if we hadn’t got there and done something, she would have been alone. But she made it, and she made it for another six years.”

That kind of support and community is something Maurer witnesses each day at the YMCA. Her popularity among members—and her full classes—are a testament to her dedication to the YMCA organization, facility, and community.

For more information on Billie's classes and the rest of our aquatics schedule, visit our Aquatics Exercise Classes webpage.