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Coaches & Directors

We are here to support your needs. If your questions are related to workouts, meets, events, goal setting, and other swimming related needs, please contact one of our coaches. For all administrative questions such as dues, safety, or policy issues please contact one of our board members.

Coaching Staff

Juan Caraveo

Head Coach

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Coach Juan has been involved with competitive swimming as both a swimmer and a coach for 30 years. He began swimming in Temple, TX for the Temple Area Swim Club (TASC.) Coach Juan began his coaching career with TASC working with the developmental group and assisting with the high school group.

Juan graduated from Austin College in Sherman, TX. While at Austin College, Juan also assisted Head Coach Sig Lawson with recruiting athletes, training schedules, and developing strength and conditioning programs.

Juan began his high school head coaching career in 1998 at La Marque High School in La Marque, TX. Two years later he transferred to Dickinson High School.  During his tenure as head coach, from 2000-2004, Juan won one district title and had 20 district champions, 80 regional qualifiers, 15 regional champions, 15 state qualifiers and five state meet finalists.  

In the summer of 2000 Juan and Patty Sweeney shared a vision to bring competitive swimming to the city of Pearland. They began by starting the Silverlake Swim Team, currently the Pearland Pirates (PST). PST has 200 swimmers and competes in the Clear Creek Summer Swim League. In 2003 Juan and Patty started Synergy Aquatics Club with 18 swimmers. Synergy Aquatics has now become Pearland Aquatics (PEAK) and has grown to more than 200 swimmers. To complete the swimming pyramid, Juan opened the Pearland Swim Academy in the spring of 2007. 

 

Juan has been a member of USA Swimming for more than 20 years and is an ASCA level 3 coach. He  has coached LSC champions, TAGS champions, Texas Age Group record holders and National Top Tens. Juan was also a Zone Select Camp Coach in 2011, Texas Elite Camp Coach in 2011 and a member of the 2012 National Diversity Select Camp staff. 

 

John T Burke

Assistant Coach

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John Burke joined the Pearland Aquatics staff in March of 2008. An ASCA level 4 coach, John is the primary coach of the Gold group, but helps out with most aspects of the program. Previously, John was an age group coach in Maryland with the North Baltimore Aquatic Club and age group coach and founder of the Annapolis Swim Club. In Maryland, he coached swimmers who placed in the top eight and won events at the Maryland All Star and the Eastern Zone meets. His swimmers have also been ranked on the USA Swimming top 16 list and set state records. He was on the Maryland Swimming Board of Directors as the Age Group Chairman.
 
John moved to Texas in August 2006 to be the Head Assistant Coach with Aquastar where he also helped out in most aspects of the club.  Since being in Texas, John has coached swimmers who have qualified for Sectionals, have won TAGS, have been finalists at the Southern Zone meet, and have been ranked on the USA Swimming top 10 list. 
 
John met his wife Ann while they were coaching at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Ann is a sixth grade English/Language Arts teacher in Fort Bend I.S.D. The Burkes reside in Pearland with their children Emma, Klara, Anna and Jack.

Travis Sandifer

Assistant Coach

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  Coach Travis Sandifer comes to us with 20+ years of swim coaching experience, and is an ASCA level 4 coach.  He has spent most of his coaching career in the GULF with USA Swimming Clubs, 17 years with Katy Aquatics as both their Head Age Group and Head Coach and 1 year as the Head Coach of Aquastar.  During his coaching tenure, Coach Travis has developed swimmers that have competed and excelled at many levels ranging from local age group meets, TAGS Champions, Junior National and US Open Finalist to competing at Canadian and USA Swimming Olympic Trials. 

·         AS the Head Coach of Katy Aquatics, his team placed in the top 100 out of 2400+ USA Swimming Club teams in the Virtual Club Championship rankings for 8 straight seasons from LC 2004 to SC 2006/07.

·         His swimmers have placed in USA Swimming’s National rankings (Top-16) over 60 times.

·         He has coach swimmers that received 47 USA Scholastic All-American Awards

·         He has been awarded Gulf Swimming Coach of the year award 4 times, twice as Age Group Coach of the Year (1996 and 1997) and twice as the Senior Coach of the Year (2001 and 2005).

Coach Travis has stayed actively involved in swimming governance holding various positions on USA Swimming Committee’s and the Gulf LSC Board of Directors.  He current serves on the Gulf board as an AT-Large member. 

·         Gulf Swimming Board of Directors (1998-2007 and 2010-present)

·         Gulf Swimming Open Water Coordinator (2003-2007)

·         USA Swimming Domestic Open Water Committee (2003-2006)

·         Gulf Swimming - Senior Vice-Chairman (2000-2002).

·         Gulf Swimming Age Group Vice-Chairman (1998-2000)

 Coach Travis has a degree in Economics from the University of Houston.  He is married to his wife Angela of 19 years and enjoys fishing, kayaking and camping in his spare time.  They have a daughter Paige, who is a 9th grader at Friendswood High School and spends much of her free time riding horses.

Caitlin Cunningham

Assistant Coach

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 Coach Caitlin has been involved with swimming in Brazoria County since she was nine years old. She began swimming for the Alvin Aquatic Club summer league team and moved onto the Angleton Aquatic Club, Coach Rick’s former club, when she was fifteen. After four years of swimming at Alvin High school, she continued her swimming and studies at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport. During her four years on the Centenary Ladies’ swim team she qualified for the Summit League All-Academic team and swam personal bests every season. On her summer and winter breaks, she swam with PEAK and worked with Coach Juan at the Pearland Swim Academy. Coach Caitlin graduated from college in May 2009 with a BA in English; she hopes to become an English teacher as well as coach swimming for many years to come.

Rick Veal

Assistant Coach

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Rick Veal joined Pearland Aquatics as an ASCA level 3 Coach and has over nineteen years of coaching experience.  Rick currently serves as PEAK's Head Age Group Coach as well as Manvel High School's Head Swim Coach.  Rick has had the priveledge of coaching one olympic trial qualifier, multiple junior qualifiers and state champions.  Rick has also been the Head Swim Coach at Angleton High School and Angleton Aquatic Club.  Coach Rick feels he can help anyone improve as a swimmer by devoting a lot of time to each individual on a daily basis because can everyone improve.  Rick is married to Stacey Carter who holds a Masters in Marine Resource Management from Texas A & M.  Rick and Stacey have a daughter, Abigail Elise Veal.


 

Natalie Melenric

Assistant Coach

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Coach Natalie began swimming with Alvin Aquatic Club at the age of seven. At 14 she joined Coach Rick’s Angleton Aquatic Club and swam for honors such as Texas Age Group Champion, Junior Nationals Qualifier, and Gulf Zones participant. She swam for Alvin High School where she attended the 5A State meet three years and placed as high as 3rd. She continued her swimming career at Texas Christian University where she graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology and a minor in Communications. She worked for Coach Juan at Pearland Swim Academy and was the head coach of Alvin Aquatic Club for three summers. Coach Natalie aspires to be an elementary school teacher as well as continuing in the swimming world as a coach. She currently coaches Red and Blue team and helps with Bronze 1.

Charyl Teal

Assistant Coach

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Coach Charyl has been swimming since the age of 3 and has 4 siblings who all were competitive swimmers.  At 16, Charyl gained her first Lifeguarding Certificate followed by her Water Safety Instructor, First Aid / CPR, and Pool & Beach Management certifications. For the next 10 years, Charyl worked for the City of Columbus, Easter Seals of Ohio, The Ohio State University, and the YWCA of Columbus. She coached several Swimming & Diving teams and has taught nearly one thousand people with varying skill levels how to swim.

After getting a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering Technology, working at NASA & Apple Computer, Charyl started a family. Not wanting her children to miss out on the joys of swimming, Charyl began teaching her children how to swim. Realizing the hazards of home pools, Charyl set out to make her neighbors safer around the pool which led her to start her own highly successful backyard learn to swim program.

Charyl continues to bring her passion for swimming to others as the lead coach for the Pre-Competive I  & II development groups, and is on the coaching team for the Blue group.

Board of Directors

Richard McCurley

President

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Rebecca Decker

Vice President

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Renee Braun

Treasurer

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Faleen Franks

Secretary

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Lisa Kosinski

Regsitrar

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Jessica Bellina

Member at Large

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Sarah E Walla

Member at Large

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