Aqua man: now nearing retirement, Walter C. Johnson has left an indelible impression on the world of aquatics.

Looking back on it, Walter C. Johnson is maybe the last person you'd expect to have had such a major impact in the world of aquatics.

Growing up on a 320-acre grain farm in rural Illinois, swimming was the last thing on his mind. The nearby creek was only 2 feet deep, and he was warned against going to the local swimming pool or risk drowning.

Still, Johnson couldn't stay out of the water. In college, he tried out for the swim team and though he didn't make the cut, he later took an aquatics post with the military. From 1958 to 1960, he managed the Army's swimming pools. "I had to oversee 36 lifeguards, and 18 of them couldn't swim. So I put them in the shallow end," Johnson deadpans.

That experience gave him a good foundation for managing and overseeing pools, which served him well throughout his many park and recreation leadership roles in his home state of Illinois.

But over the next 23 years in parks and rec--including his tenure as executive director of the Naperville Park District--he was continually frustrated with the lack of training and support the National Recreation & Park Association offered in the field of aquatics.

So when he became NRPA's Great Lakes regional director in 1983, he knew what he needed to do. "I decided to change all that," he recalls. "And it started this whole chain of events."

What a chain it was.