Bio
Bill Meier has trained nearly 2,000 instructors in more than 35 cities to teach adults to swim. Adult learn-to-swim in Masters Swimming began with him, and at SwimWise he and Bill Brenner have created a new curriculum and teach every swimmer clinic, coaching workshop, and instructor training course together.
USMS named Meier its national Coach of the Year in 2025, a year after the New England LMSC named him its regional Coach of the Year, and in 2026 the LMSC inducted him into its Hall of Fame. He is a USMS Level 4 certified coach, and in 2016 served as head coach of the USMS High Performance Camp. He has also received the Kerry O’Brien Coaches Award, the Dorothy Donnelly Service Award, and the USMS Fitness Award.
That track record, combined with contagious enthusiasm and a teaching style as animated as it is expert, has made Meier one of the most sought-after adult swimming trainers in the United States and beyond — he has led swim instruction in China and trained lifeguards in Montserrat.
How adult learn-to-swim began
It all started with a week of free children’s lessons at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Parents kept asking whether there was anything for them. Meier typed an 11-page manual on teaching adults and recruited his Masters swimmers to teach from it. That ignited a passion that motivated him to become chair of the New England LMSC, where, with the board’s support, he trained 250 members to teach adults in their own communities and launched April as Adult Learn-to-Swim Month — proclaimed, at his urging, by the governors of five New England states.
U.S. Masters Swimming adopted his manual as the foundation of USMS Adult Learn-to-Swim, and Brenner built the instructor certification on it to complement the coaching curriculum. For more than a decade the two taught USMS courses and clinics across the country, until USMS suspended in-person coach and instructor education in 2026. Every April, Meier and his PaceMakers swimmers still teach free lessons to adults in the Berkshires.
Coaching and water safety
Meier has led the Simon’s Rock PaceMakers Masters team for more than 20 years and has coached age-group, high school, and college swimmers. He came to coaching through the water — an ocean lifeguard on Long Island, a team captain at SUNY Albany, a New England longboard surfing champion. As founder of SwimAmerica of Western Massachusetts and later its regional and national director, he helped thousands of people learn to swim, and as a Red Cross trainer he has certified nearly 1,000 lifeguards. He also helped make tow floats standard safety equipment among New England open water swimmers.
He lives in the Berkshires, and his proudest achievements are his marriage to Maureen and their two children.