The Pickleball Club, a firm founded in 2019 that develops and operates private, membership-based high-amenity indoor pickleball facilities throughout Florida, recently welcomed two new hires to its Lakewood Ranch team: Cari Gardner and Forest Dennis. Gardner joins The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch as the club’s new membership director. With a record of success in sales management and marketing at local, regional and national levels, Gardner is an experienced problem solver with the ability to drive revenue growth, resolve conflict, improve morale and consistently exceed profit goals. Most recently, Gardner was the regional sales manager for Jekyll Island Club Resort in Jekyll Island, Georgia. In her new role as membership director for The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch, she will be responsible for recruiting and retaining club members and promoting membership-related products and services, developing prospective members and engaging inactive members, providing exceptional service to members and guests, dealing with member records and keeping the management aware of members’ concerns, among other duties.Dennis joins The Pickleball Club at Lakewood Ranch as head pickleball pro. With a robust background of strength and conditioning practices and coach experience, Dennis will report to the program director and teach high-quality lessons and clinics, as well as create member engagement. Additional responsibilities include organizing, planning, promoting, scheduling and managing all programming activities to ensure each member feels motivated and engaged, among other tasks. Most recently, he served as head of strength and conditioning at Steele Performance Training. During his time there, he trained high-performance clients and worked with professionals and celebrities to determine optimal diet and activity composition in order to achieve results. Dennis has a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Florida Gulf Coast University and is a certified strength and conditioning specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association.