As the walls of the old Easter Seals pool came down last Wednesday, Bill Ruff thought back to the questions that surrounded Vector Rehabilitation's decision to buy a leaky pool 19 months ago.

Are you crazy?' That's what some people asked me. I looked them straight in the eye and said, Right. I'm nuts. What's your point?

Today, the chief executive officer of the renamed Vector Physical Therapy and Aquatic Center and the board of directors he works with are looking more like visionaries. The state-of-the art heated therapy pool is the centerpiece of an estimated $2.6 million overhaul of 3289 Edgewood Road in Eureka. The former owner, Easter Seals of Northern California, cited a flow of red ink and, despite community uproar, shuttered the pool and adult daycare facility in April 2010.

Heated to 92 degrees Fahrenheit, the new 52-foot by 18-foot pool will open to the public late fall. Ruff expects to add four to eight full-time equivalent jobs -- half of them with benefits. His payroll will jump 30 to 40 percent, and his Medicare reimbursement will jump 10 percent by adding anywhere from 400 to 800 new clients a year. And that's just for starters.

The Humboldt Del Norte Medical Society wrote a letter in support of the project and Humboldt State kinesiology professor Justus Ortega is eager to start research projects to compare pool and land therapy benefits for walking and fall prevention.

Heated pool therapy is non-weight-bearing,

This is going to put us at a level I don't think any of us comprehended when we started, Ruff said. We'll have community education classes, top of the line physical therapy, a partnership with HSU to train students and produce research, and a place special needs students from local schools can use.

They are so community-oriented, Ortega said, When you say, 'Hey, can we do this? Their first answer is yes. They say they'll find a way to make it happen. They're solution-oriented.

About 100 former student and community users have been looking for a solution since the pool closed.

When are you going to get that pool open is all I hear from doctors I visit and people who call, Ruff said. People are still asking if I'm crazy, but now that we've broken ground and are gearing up for active programs, it's becoming reality for 90 percent of the people.

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Anatomy of a turnaround; Vector starts new era with pool groundbreaking