Coaches and Directors

Coaching Staff
Megan Oesting Head Coach
Megan comes to Bend Swim Club as an ASCA Level 5 coach, member of the ASCA Board of Directors and the TritonWear Elite Advisory Board. She joins the club after being head coach at SwimMAC Carolina and the Eastern Iowa Swim Federation.
 
Megan grew up in Seattle, Washington setting multiple Pacific Northwest age group records, winning multiple Junior National titles, and completing an undefeated high school swimming career with 3 State records and two national #1 rankings. Megan represented Team USA internationally on the Junior and Senior National Team, ranking 18th in the world in the 100 Free and earning a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Havana, Cuba. She went on to swim and play water polo at UCLA. Megan earned All-American and Academic All-American honors as a team captain while setting multiple school records and being voted “hardest worker” on the swim team, while earning All-Conference as a starter on the Bruin water polo team. Megan scored the opening goal to help win UCLA's first Women's Water Polo National Championship, UCLA beat Cal 8-2 for the Title.
 
As the owner and head coach of EISF, Megan’s swimmers broke almost all of the team records and 30 more State records, posting over 25 Top 100 All Time National Age Group swims, half of which were in the top 10, one of which was a National Age Group Record. Megan also owned SwimFastIowa, a private lessons business in her Endless Pool studio serving clients from all over the midwest. In North Carolina, swimmers at SwimMAC set multiple team and state records including 1 National Age Group relay record.
 
Megan was a 2018 finalist for the ASCA National Age Group Coach of the Year award and won the National Age Group Coach of the Year award in 2019. She appears in USA Swimming’s Foundations of Coaching 101/201 coaching education videos and has been featured in Swimming World Magazine multiple times. She was selected as the Head Coach of the 2019 USA Swimming Southern Zone Select Camp in Louisville, KY, assisted at the USA Swimming Leadership Summit Camp in 2019, and assisted at the 2018 USA Swimming National Girls Select Camp at the Olympic Training Center.
 
Megan serves as a speaker at national coaching conferences including the ASCA World Clinic, regional clinics in California, Indiana and Texas, and with the University of Iowa student business organizations as an expert on communication and empowerment. She is a part of the USA Swimming Women’s leadership conference, the National Team Coaches Conference and an active member of the USA Swimming National Team Alumni Association. Her purpose in coaching is to empower people to build trust in themselves and their ability to create the experiences they want to have in life. Megan has a B.S. in Applied Math with a minor in Computer Science, an M.A. in Psychometrics, and is a certified Newfield Network Life Coach.
Heather Thomas Head Age Group Coach
Heather Thomas grew up in San Diego swimming for Heartland Swim Club. She earned a scholarship to Oregon State University to swam with the Beavers.   With 10 of her coaching career years as an assistant coach and 20 more as a head coach  Heather  brings a vast knowledge of technique and experience to the program.   Heather has coached in Oregon with the Riverplace athletic club, Lake Oswego swim club, West Hills Aquatic Team, Mt Hood Swim Club and RACE.  She has also coached in California with the Heartland swim club and Spring valley lake stingrays. 

Heather has been awarded the USA swimming Phillips 66 award for dedication to the sport of swimming twice in her career and continues to volunteer her time to the sport of swimming at the national level as a coach, administrator and team manager.   Heather has been the team manager of the Oregon Zone and All Star team for 10 yrs asn was chosen for three USA zone select camp manager positions in 2014, 2015, and 2016.  And she was selected as a Manager of the USA JR national team in 2018.

Heather brings enthusiasm, leadership, and humor to our deck everyday as a coach while exhibiting her persistent work ethic and organizational skills as our team meet director, hosting 4-6 meets per year for both local and regional competition.  Heather wants her swimmer's to fall in love with the swimming and learn the skills that will help them have a successful long term experience in the sport.

Kerry Carleton Team Manager

Kerry is a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and moved to Bend in August of 2021 as the Team Manager and Associate Head Coach. Kerry served for five years as the co-owner, assistant coach, and director of operations for the Eastern Iowa Swim Federation overseeing marketing, budgeting, logistical management, uniforming, and volunteer coordination. He also ran a successful logistics business which he sold in 2017 to spend more time in the swimming business and in 2018 founded 2 more businesses: MOSTSwimTech which markets and distributes MySwimEars, the underwater hearing device allowing swimmers to hear and be actively coached throughout their entire swim practice, and SwimFastIowa where he built an endless pool swim studio where he managed signups and staff to support a diverse client base from learn to swim adults and children through elite athletes in pursuit of collegiate opportunities and beyond.

On deck, Kerry coached in both the age group and senior programs helping the younger swimmers learn the basic skills of competitive swimming and the older swimmers work on power and strength. Kerry assisted all groups providing video feedback and overall encouragement wherever needed. In 2019 Kerry was selected to be the assistant team manager for the USA Swimming Eatern Zone Select Camp.

Brandon Powers Assistant Coach

I began swimming at the age of 8 competitively with the Bend Swim Club until I was 13. Then I started again in high school until was 18. I began swim instructing at the age of 18 and coaching at the age of 19. I never stopped coaching. From there I moved into teaching PE for a year then came back and found a passion in coaching and been working and improving my ability as a coach ever since.

Jordan Opdycke Red Coach
Elizabeth Meskill Assistant Coach

Elizabeth Meskill is a Washington State native who began her swimming career at the age of five. With success as a nationally ranked age-grouper to a U.S. Senior National finalist, Elizabeth attended Colorado State University as a college athlete. Elizabeth was a Division I NCAA qualifier from her sophomore through senior year and graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Studies with an emphasis in adolescence.

Elizabeth’s coaching career began in 2001 while training on Irvine Novaquatics National Championship team.  She spent two summers in Southern California instructing under USA Swimming National Team head coach, Mark Schubert.  She later became the senior development group head coach for North Coast Aquatics. After retiring from her own swimming career and moving to Bend, Elizabeth remained on the pool deck for another ten years as the head coach for Bend Senior High School’s swim team. Elizabeth appreciates being able to give back to the sport by coaching, and loves helping swimmers improve their strokes and achieve their goals. She and her husband James, love living in Bend with their daughters, Kamryn and Avery, and enjoy all the fun Bend has to offer.