ECU Health Fitness Specialists in High Demand | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post, Morgan Tilton, is a contributor to ECU News Services.

    Helping people get healthier is paying off for health fitness specialists who graduate from East Carolina University.

    Wendy Mastin is a 2003 graduate of the program and the director of operations at Aquila, which is a management and consultant company for corporate fitness and well-being programs. She likes to hire fellow Pirates.

    "I know what I had to go through to complete the program; it's very well rounded," Mastin said. "You're not just learning about exercise prescription. You're also going to learn how to teach class, which is something that a lot of other programs don't offer. They don't have that extra leadership component."

    Aquila works with companies and government agencies to help their employees live healthier and happier lives. They have offices across the country including Miami and Los Angeles.


Kristin Carbonara ‘10 (left) and Kindal Smith ‘12 are health fitness specialists who once took classes together at ECU and now work together with Aquila in Washington, D.C. (Contributed photo)

    Mastin's "collection of Pirates", as she calls them, began when she was in charge of interns at Aquila. At that time, she said, the internship program wasn't as strong as it could have been, so she went back to her advisors at ECU to get interns.

    "That really started to get us traction in terms of having more people specifically from ECU," said Mastin. "Once these relationships were established, we often received suggested candidates directly from them, or candidates would reach out to us directly."

    Over the past seven years, Mastin estimated they have employed or taken through internship programs 30 ECU graduates. She said they would often hire an intern after their internship, and in some cases, they would have liked to have hired an ECU intern, but there weren't any openings available at the time.

    "In comparison to other team members that we have we worked with from other universities, ECU grads are well equipped to join the health and fitness work force as soon as they graduate," Mastin said.