BILLINGS, MT — Summit Combat Academy announced Monday an exclusive Founders Rate membership program for its most loyal long-term members, which owner Travis Hendricks described as “our way of giving back to the people who built this gym.” The Founders Rate is $189 per month.
Members currently paying $159 per month were encouraged in a Monday email to lock in this “deeply discounted, never-changing rate” before the offer expires May 31.
“This is a thank-you to our OGs,” said Hendricks, a second-degree black belt under Antonio ‘Sao Paulo’ Salave who opened Summit Combat Academy in 2017. “You guys have been here from the beginning. You deserve something special. This is that special thing.”
When asked why the special thing costs $30 more than what members are currently paying, Hendricks said the comparison was “apples and oranges.”
“Your current rate was grandfathered in from a promotional period we ran in 2018,” he explained during a brief phone call. “The Founders Rate is $10 below what we’ll be charging all new members starting in June. So you’re actually getting a deal.”
Summit’s current rate for new members is $179 per month. The planned new rate for new members starting in June has not been announced anywhere except in Hendricks’ explanation of why $189 is a deal.
Dale Kowalski, 43, a forklift operator from Billings who joined Summit as one of Hendricks’ original students in 2017, said he read the email three times before calling his brother to read it to him as well.
“The subject line said ‘Exclusive Founders Rate’ with a little kimono emoji,” Kowalski recalled. “I thought it was like, a reward. Like I was getting grandfathered in cheaper. I’ve been here nine years.”
Kowalski currently pays $159 per month. The email explained that his current rate would be “phased out” on June 1 as part of a “membership restructuring,” at which point he would automatically move to the standard member rate of $179 — unless he elected to join the Founders Program.
The Founders Program is $189 per month.
“So I either pay $20 more and get nothing,” Kowalski said, “or I pay $30 more and get a patch.”
The patch, an embroidered black-and-gold medallion reading “Summit OG — Founding Member,” retails at $8.50.
The email, authored by Summit’s Director of Member Experience Kristin Novotny — a title and position that did not exist until February — outlined the Founders Benefits:
- The Founders Patch (retail value: $8.50)
- A framed photo on the Wall of Founders in the gym lobby
- Priority registration for future seminars
- A Founders Ceremony to be held May 30, with cake
Novotny, who was previously known as “the front desk person” and before that as “Travis’s girlfriend,” said the program had been months in the making.
“We looked at what our long-term members needed,” she said. “What they needed was recognition. That’s what the patch is. That’s what the wall is. We’re honoring these people.”
When asked whether long-term members needed a $30 monthly price increase, Novotny said she would need to get Hendricks on the call.
Hendricks did not respond to a follow-up message.
Summit’s original membership structure, established at opening in 2017, offered founding members a rate of $129 per month with a handshake agreement that rates would never exceed $159. The $159 cap was quietly removed from the gym’s website in 2022. The change was not communicated to members.
Kowalski said he discovered the change last year but “didn’t want to make a thing of it.”
“Travis is my professor,” he said. “I got my blue belt here. I’m not going to fight him over, you know, $30 a month.”
He paused.
“I mean, the original $30. Not the new $30. This is a different $30.”
The Founders Program email generated what Novotny called “a mixed response” among Summit’s estimated 84 active members.
Senior purple belt Marcus Fitch, 37, an accountant who has trained at Summit for six years, put it more plainly.
“It’s a price increase with a patch,” he said. “That’s it. The only thing ‘exclusive’ about it is that it’s exclusively for people they know won’t leave.”
Fitch said he had mapped out the economics: if all 22 eligible Founders members accept the program, Summit will collect an additional $7,920 per year. The patches cost about $187 total if ordered in bulk.
“The margin on the patches alone,” Fitch said, “is considerable.”
Hendricks, reached by text Saturday evening, pushed back.
“People forget that I kept the gym open through COVID,” he wrote. “I kept rates the same. Two full years. So if now I need to restructure to keep the lights on, I think my long-term members should understand that.”
Summit Combat Academy closed for six weeks when gyms shut down in 2020, during which time monthly billing was paused. It reopened at full billing in June 2020.
The gym’s mat space was expanded in 2023. The expansion added about 400 square feet and a wall-mounted whiteboard calendar.
In 2021, Summit hosted a weekend seminar with Felipe ‘The Surgeon’ Dominguez, a visiting black belt from Sao Paulo who charged members an additional $125 to attend. It remains the gym’s only seminar.
“Priority registration for future seminars,” Kowalski said, rereading the benefits list. “Priority registration for a thing that’s happened once in nine years.”
As of press time, eleven of the 22 eligible Founders members had accepted the new rate. Three had replied with questions. Their questions had not been answered.
Kowalski said he was still deciding.
“Where am I going to go?” he said. “There’s one other gym in Billings. It’s mostly wrestling. Travis knows that. I think that’s the whole thing, honestly.”
The Founders Ceremony is scheduled for Friday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m., following the adult intermediate class. Attendees are asked to bring their own plates.