John Watson started his 32-year mortgage banking career at Mellon Bank, working his way up to an executive level in his early 30’s at that organization, responsible for bank territory and the eastern part of the country for bank’s mortgage division.  Shortly after leaving Mellon Bank, he founded his own mortgage banking firm, Community Home Loan, that he eventually sold to a publicly traded bank. Among many other mortgage industry leadership positions, he also served as the president of the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association. 

John and Jill Watson have a beautiful daughter, Emma, who lives with an intellectual and developmental disability diagnosis. As Emma grew up, the Watsons found options to support Emma’s physical and emotional health through movement and fitness. But as she entered adulthood, options that met her unique needs seemed to be few and far between. John and Jill knew they wanted to fill this gap using their passions for fitness, people with IDD, and philanthropy.

This landed John at Texana Center – a large IDD service provider headquartered in Rosenberg, Texas. Here he found a room full of unused fitness equipment. According to staff, fitness programming had not worked as clients became uninterested over time. John left, knowing what he needed to do: build a fitness program that would lead adults with IDD to choose a lifetime of fitness. Thus began Bloom: a program that is much more than fitness equipment. It is a place where athletes like Emma feel they belong, are confident in creating new lifelong fitness practices, and wake up every morning excited for the next Bloom class.

Today, Bloom has grown beyond its meager beginnings to five states and numerous locations. John often reminds people that Bloom has become an impactful program because of what he has learned from those in the program that live with an IDD diagnosis, Bloom’s athletes.  John says, “If a person will take the time to make an authentic connection with people living with an IDD diagnosis, they will tell what motivates them and how to best serve them.”