Our Story

How The Strong Women In Our Lives Helped Us Create The Mason Transformation Center

Hey there! We are Ben Miknis & Kevin Furay, the creators of The Mason Transformation Center, and this is our personal story on why 2 guys in their 20s & 30s set out on a mission to empower busy women 45+.

Our Moms Changed Our Lives

If our moms could do that for us, you can empower yourself & do this for your children and grandchildren.

Before we start, there are 3 things I want you to know about us…

1. We LOVE our members and will do almost anything to help them succeed – even when it’s not fitness related.
2. We’re weirdly passionate about exercise & nutrition being used the right way and can talk about that topic forever (Ben’s girlfriend, Maria, loves when he talks for hours about exercise and nutrition <– total sarcasm!)
3. Our members see results.

Here's How Our Members Describe Us

(this was super fun to receive and our hearts melted a little!)

FYI…we were The Liberty Township Transformation Center at our old location.

Here's A Little About Ben's Story

I grew up in the small town of DuBois, Pennsylvania where everyone knows everyone. My parents were wonderful parents. Looking back, I realize how lucky I was to have such great people as role models and parents. 

My dad was a very good baseball player who went to try out for multiple professional baseball teams. Naturally, baseball became my passion at 5 years old. I’ll never forget the times playing catch with him. 

Years went by, many games were played, and by the time I was a senior in high school, the flame for my first passion had slowly burned itself out. But as one flame went out, a new flame was lit. 

My passion towards fitness.

At first, my goal with fitness was to become a better baseball player. But as time went on, the focus slowly shifted from becoming a better baseball player to spending more time focusing on the improvements I was feeling physically, and mentally.

You would think that my motivation for coaching came from this, right? Truthfully, that wasn’t quite it. It was something else - something quite unfortunate at the time - that fueled my passion to help others.

My Inspiration

Growing up, I always remember my Mom’s head hurting. She would come home from work, often times trying to hold back tears, and tell my sister and I that she had to lay down for a few hours because her “head hurt.” This would often cause her to sleep the rest of the night, not being able to cook my sister and I dinner or tuck us into bed. 

I know this broke her heart…

As I got a bit older, around 12 years old, I started to learn that she was suffering from migraines. On top of her migraines, she also experienced lower back pain from herniated discs and joint pain from rheumatoid arthritis. Something that my grandma, her mom, suffered from. 

As the years went by, her arthritis continued to slowly get worse and her migraines never went away. They became so painful and limiting that she finally turned to medication to help. Only to realize that this migraine medication caused her to become more nauseous, not solving the problem.

The Final Straw

I was a senior in high school and life was good. I had found my new passion of fitness and had been accepted to Penn State University. I was flying high on senioritis when my Mom and Dad sat down with me and quickly brought me back down to earth.

“I have skin cancer.” My mom said

At the time, I didn’t know the severity of it but all that kept going through my mind was that my papa, her dad, passed away from skin cancer. After everything she’s been through, this can’t happen to my Mom…

She agreed, this wasn’t going to happen to her. In my eyes, she was the best mom I could ask for. But to her, she wasn’t able to do the things that she wanted to do for my sister and I. After everything she had been through, she was ready to take control back of her health. 

In 2012, she started following a paleo diet and became more active. She started going for walks with friends and on bike rides with my dad. After a few weeks I started to notice a different Mom. Not that she needed to be different, she was fantastic in my eyes. But I noticed a more energetic, happy, and playful mom. Like she had gotten her spark back.

Months went by and she hadn’t had an arthritis flare up, lower back pain, or a migraine in weeks. It was working. She was back in control of her body and in control of her health. They removed the cancerous mole and the cancer was benign. 

I remember feeling the biggest boulder lifted off of my shoulder after receiving this news.

Watching my mom go through this process of suffering to feeling “better than she ever has” was truly eye-opening to me. Prior to this, I thought we only got worse as we aged. But my mom was suddenly turning back the clock by eating healthier and being active. 

My Light Bulb Moment

Watching my mom go though this transformation was truly inspiring. She was becoming the best version of herself. So inspiring that I often wondered how I could help others experience this same transformation.

Light-bulb

That’s where the idea of coaching women, just like my mom, to become the best version of themselves came from. I watched my mom go from what I thought was the best version of herself, transcend that person, and become an even better mom. Not only was she a better mom, but her and my dad’s relationship improved. She got promoted at work. She was living the life she always wanted to live. 

Fast forward almost 10 years later and she’s still kicking butt. All because she decided to take control of her health. Thankfully because of her, I now get to do what we do. 

I get to help you take back control of your health, your body, and start saying “YES” to more things. 

Thank you, Mom. I love you.

Ben