Community Highlights: Meet Kristin Berard of Midland Sports Rehab, Freeland Sports Rehab, and Stretch Center

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristin Berard. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Kristin grew up in the small town of Saginaw, Thomas Township; her whole life, her dad worked for GM/Delphi, and her mom passed away when she was 4. Growing up, as an only child, Kristin saw her dad work all of the time, manage the household, and still get involved in Kristin’s activities. Since her dad never remarried, Kristin learned how to work hard nonstop growing up. She looks back as a happily married wife and parent of a preteen daughter and has no clue how her dad did it, but she still has the same work ethic her dad did and is always involved in something, especially with her husband Jeff’s visionary mentality. Kristin manages all of Jeffs ideas, she gets to be the deciding factor in what projects are taken on since she is responsible to organize, launch and manage all that goes into Jeffs ideas. Unlike Jeff, She never moved until she graduated high school at Swan Valley and loved the small-town feeling. It was wonderful knowing everyone in your town, being close to everything, having local events like small-town parades and fairs, and still having the luxury to being able to afford to travel out of town because the cost of living was so reasonable. Growing up with her dad, the two of them spent 2 weeks per year on one-week driving vacations visiting many different states and national monuments. Being the only child had its advantages and disadvantages, but everything they did, they did together. I learned a lot more than I wanted to growing up. I truly thought everything my dad taught me was really annoying, but now I can say it has made me a very successful business owner and decision-maker. I remember at age 13 getting a book about Stocks for Christmas from my dad, I was so mad. Little did I know I would be more knowledgeable than most one day, and now I am able to teach others, including our clinical team members, about finances and planning for the future. My dad also knew how to do a lot growing up, and I learned a lot from him; that’s why I call myself a Jack of All Trades and Master of None; he taught me that you need to learn how to do just about everything yourself if you can, so I practice that trait now by self-taught leadership and entrepreneurship. I put in a lot of time and energy, and I want to make sure I am giving it at least 99% every time. When I see people complaining about their life outcomes, it makes me sad that they didn’t learn how to be driven in life. If we could all just switch our mentality, of how hard it is to be successful and get what you want, I think people would put more effort in, as opposed to complaining and blaming all the time. Nothing is easy, life requires hard work, when its your time, good things will come, as long as you are honest with yourself and others. Jeff had a very different upbringing, he grew up moving every few years of his life, his dad worked for an oil company and needed to move around for his job. He was born in Venezuela in an expat community with 6 other siblings, and between the time he was born and graduated with his Chiropractic Doctorate degree he had lived in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, so it’s far to say, Jeff had a lot of experience moving around and is much better adjusting to challenges and changes. With lots of kids in his family, he remembers growing up together with close siblings and his parents fostering kids at the same time, as well. His mom has a heart of gold, and his dad was a geophysicist who had a visionary mindset, so it’s safe to say he got his mom’s heart and his dad’s brain. Both attribute to his great success today. During his 9th grade year, his parents moved with his youngest sister to Saudi Arabia for a job transfer, and since he was the last of the 6 oldest, while still in high school, he had to attend Boarding School alone with his parents on the other side of the world. It was this experience that made him grow up quickly and focus on Sports and being creative in life. He played a lot of sports growing up, but Lacrosse stuck with him most, giving him an opportunity to play in college. Following his graduation from Chiropractic School, he settled in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where he bought his first practice in a large city with lots of opportunity and culture. He was in practice for 7 years before he and Kristin met. We met online while Jeff was living in Delray Beach, Florida, and Kristin was living in Athens, Ohio.  She quickly picked up and started her life over in Florida a few months after meeting.

Jeff and Kristin married on April 17, 2011, on the island of Saint Lucia, almost 13 years ago.

After Jeff and Kristin met, got married, and had their daughter Annabelle, they decided that South Florida was not the lifestyle they wanted to raise their family in. After traveling to various parts of the US, mainly the East Coast, Jeff and Kristin decided that moving to Midland was the best choice. It offered great schools; it was the perfect place for raising a family and starting all over again in business. The best thing about Midland is that it is a city where you can get around town in 15 minutes without being stuck in traffic, the cost of living is lower compared to most of the big cities, the community takes care of each other, and you can get to just about anywhere in 2 hours or less, including Traverse City, Detroit, and Grand Rapids. One of the selling points was the transient community with Dow Chemical, bringing people in from all over the world, which allowed for a very diverse culture and opportunity to meet many people with various backgrounds. The other thing that sold us on Midland was that it was an active community, many of the residents of Midland are active, which is Jeffs specialty, in sports healthcare. Last, they loved that the cost of living was low compared to South Florida so that they could be sure to have more opportunities to travel.

We absolutely LOVE to travel, both in the USA, the Caribbean, and around the world. Our best memory as a couple was traveling from Bali to Hong Kong in 2016 and as a family traveling the Baltic from Sweden to Norway for a month in 2019 and 3 weeks in South Africa in November 2022 for Jeff’s 50th birthday. Traveling is one of the most important things for the Berards; it gives them an opportunity to meet new people, experience different cultures, and expose Annabelle to as many different places as possible as she grows and develops her ideas of what life has to offer.

Jeff is a Chiropractor for our Midland clinic, Midland Sports Rehab, and is a Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician and ART (Active Release Technique) Provider. He attended the University of South Florida for his undergrad courses and moved onto the Northwestern Health Sciences University to finish his degree as a Doctor of Chiropractic. Jeff purchased his first practice near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in 2001, and in 2008, Jeff and Kristin opened their second practice in Port St. Lucie, Florida. In 2013, Jeff and Kristin made a big choice to sell both practices to move to Midland, MI, near where Kristin was born (Saginaw), and start Midland Chiropractic, Corp, aka. Midland Sports Rehab.

We originally started in Saginaw, August of 2013 while waiting for our new clinic location to be completed and open in Midland December 2013, where we recently celebrated our 10-year anniversary in our first Midland Location. Originally starting with only Chiropractic and Massage services, Jeff and Kristin, CEO, added Physical Therapy services in 2016 when he knew that there was a key missing element of his patient’s overall success. The work between their Chiropractic and Physical Therapy team allows their patients the opportunity to have a full-service rehab program under one roof, also offering Massage Therapy, Assisted Stretch Therapy, and Acupuncture.

Jeff then developed Stretch Center in late 2021, an assisted stretching service that is licensed to Chiropractic, Physical Therapy clinics, and Small Boutique Gyms. Stretch Center offers a full-service licensing program to allow businesses to add cash revenue, new client acquisition and gives existing clients more services under one roof. We also have an Assisted Stretch Therapist Certification available online and in person, which offers continuing education for those in the health and wellness field. Our pilot location was at the Midland Sports Rehab clinic, which offers a customized stretch session performed by a trained Assisted Stretch Therapist using the created proprietary system to isolate and stabilize muscles. The therapists deliver an amazing experience providing newfound effortless motion and flexibility. Stretch Centers moto is “We do the stretching. You sit back and relax.”

We opened our second Michigan clinic, Freeland Sports Rehab, in June 2022 along with Stretch Center, and it offers the same services as our Midland location, aside from Acupuncture which is currently only available in Midland. We opened our Freeland location after seeing a need to serve the Saginaw and Freeland community after many requests by patients who were traveling to Midland from these two areas.

In July of 2023, Midland Sports Rehab obtained the Midland Public School Athletic Training Contract, where they cover all Athletic Training services for the Midland High and HH Dow High. With Dr. Jeffs’s sports rehab philosophy, this was a great fit for the Midland Public Schools, Athletic Teams, and Athletes.

Our Midland and Freeland Sports Rehab team also offers corporate wellness services that allow companies to bring in our Stretch services to “pamper” their employees, health and wellness talks, and rehabilitation and chiropractic services that reduces the amount of workers comp and OSHA recordable injuries.

Kristin is the CEO of Midland Chiropractic, Corp and manages the overall operations and decisions of the Midland and Freeland Sports Rehab clinics and their new Stretch Center, LLC. Kristin went to Saginaw Valley State University studying Criminal Justice and Political Science. During her time at college and upon finishing her degree, Kristin worked as a student housing manager near Saginaw Vally State University with a corporation that offered off-campus student housing in the Michigan and Ohio area; while working for them, she developed a love for business management and business consulting working with many of the corporations’ other communities to improvement their business operations and management. When Kristin moved to Florida, Jeff told her to find something she loved to do instead of looking for work that didn’t interest her. Quickly, Kristin picked up the interest in health and fitness and got certified as a personal trainer and fitness nutrition consultant. She worked with clients to achieve health and fitness for over 15 years, but now finds managing the business, organizing how the clinics run and operate, and improves the operations, which is what Kristin is best at, so it has become her full-time job over the past few years as the clinics have grown and Stretch Center LLC launched at the beginning of 2023.

Kristin is currently spearheading the national launch project of Stretch Center, LLC, as they begin to implement the Stretch Center into clinics and businesses across the USA.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No life is smooth, but it is what you make of it. Kristin and Jeff believe in working hard, being honest, reinventing, and staying up-to-date and ahead of the game on the latest technologies, treatments, and studies in order to provide the best treatments for their patients. With Jeffs’s visionary mind and Kristin’s nonstop work ethic, the two are an incredible match that allows each other to fill in each other’s gaps where they are weak.

Jeff had a great practice and thing going in Ft. Lauderdale with his first practice, but that was due to his incredibly hard work ethic and need to constantly strive to be better, just like a few of his role models in the Chiropractic industry. After Kristin and Jeff had Annabelle and made the decision to move to Michigan, they sold their main clinic in Ft. Lauderdale and moved to Michigan without selling their second clinic in Port St Lucie to start over again. We basically took a chance and were very driven to be successful again in a whole new place that was completely unknown to Jeff.

They faced a lot of challenges starting all over again. Jeff found himself working every day of the week for 60-70 hours a week for almost 3 years before the Midland Clinic began to take off. We believe all the hard work you put in for so many years will eventually pay off, but since then, both Jeff and Kristin haven’t slowed down. We don’t believe in letting off steam, we know we have 30 other team members and their families that are counting on us, so we never rest or back down.

The change in standards and expectations during Covid set them and their team back, but they have an amazing team and were able to maintain their practice and push through the setbacks…

When Jeff has a vision, he gets going and both Kristin and Jeff support each other in order to see those visions out. You can’t give up; you can’t slow down, and you can’t quit when it gets hard. That’s why so many businesses fail; people quit too soon and aren’t willing to put in the hard work for a VERY LONG time in order to be successful.

As you know, we’re big fans of Midland Sports Rehab, Freeland Sports Rehab, and Stretch Center LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
Midland and Freeland Sports Rehab is a Chiropractic and Physical Therapy clinic that offers gold-standard care, integrating Massage Therapy, Assisted Stretch Therapy, and Acupuncture in their treatment plans. We also offer additional services such as Piezowave, K-Laser, Senaptec brain training, athletic training, running assessments and training, TPI Golf Assessments, and Injury Screens. We are a sports rehab clinic specializing in sports rehabilitation, but we also see a large variety of conditions, not only sports injuries, including back, hip, ankle, shoulder, neck, knee, and ankle pains and conditions.

What sets us apart from your typical physical rehabilitation clinic or chiropractic clinic is that we marry the two services together while offering noninvasive treatments for aches, pains, bone and muscular conditions, and post-surgery rehab all under one roof.

Our team approaches each case with evidence-based treatment plans and uses a variety of therapies and services tailored to each patient’s individual needs.

Our patients do not need a referral to see any of our services, and each provider is accessible to anyone just by setting up a new patient appointment,

With the amount of youth athletes we see locally, we have also incorporated complimentary injury screens in which our Certified Chiropractics Sports Physicians, Physical Therapists, and Athletic Trainers can evaluate the youth athlete if an injury is questionable and can be given a diagnosis, treated only as necessary or referred out immediately to one of our qualified physician partners based on the need of the athlete.

What we are most proud of at our Midland and Freeland Sports Rehab clinic is the dedication of our team. They continue to work and grow every year and educate themselves to offer the best services and treatments for our patients. Our team truly strives to be the best and give our patients the best experience possible. Together with our team, we have opened a second clinic, launched a stretch center, offered wellness programs to corporations surrounding us, and now managed the athletic training program for the Midland Public Schools.

Stretch Center LLC was established to offer the new and popular assisted stretch services created by Dr. Jeff, who saw a need for the assisted stretch service in the 23 years he had been in practice with the majority of his chiropractic patients. He is very excited to bring this training and certification to anyone looking for continuing education for their licensing needs, which will grow the health and fitness providers’ knowledge base. The Stretch Center can be added to any Chiropractic or Physical Therapy Clinic or Small Boutique Gym. By adding a Stretch Center to an existing business, they will see a large increase in their cash revenue by offering more services, bring in new patients who may have never stepped foot into their business before to try this assisted stretching service and give reasons for past clients to return.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
One of the things that most people don’t know about us at Midland and Freeland Sports Rehab is that we require our providers to develop a community growth project that gets them involved in the community in some way that they are passionate about. One of our providers volunteers at a local food bank, another volunteers his time at a local high school weight room to teach proper lifting techniques to high school athletes, and another is involved in bringing awareness to preventing sports injuries in grade school athletes all the way up to adult weekend warriors. Our focus at Midland and Freeland Sports Rehab is to be involved in the community we work and serve in and educate them on ways to healthy, safe, and fit.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.midlandsportsrehab.com and www.stretchcenter.com
• Instagram: MidlandSportsRehab and FreelandSportsRehab and TheStretchCenter

Image Credits
Krista Moe