Board Members
Birch McMullin
Board Member
Birch is the brother of Nicholas McMullin. Birch was five when Nicholas drowned and his brother’s death has had a lifelong impact.
Birch graduated from MICDS, Amherst College, and after taking a year off to travel, attended University of Virginia Law School. He played football, lacrosse, and rugby but he always loved swimming. During summers in high school and college, he worked at a summer camp where he was a swim instructor and then head of the waterfront. During his year of travel, he worked in Hawaii as a scuba instructor.
After law school, Birch practiced law with Thompson Coburn and then in the law department of Graybar Electric. However, when the opportunity arose to buy a franchise of British Swim School, he acted. Providing kids with the chance to learn to swim and to be safe in the water was a way to do meaningful work and to respond to the death of Nicholas. He chose British Swim School because he believes it is the best program for teaching survival skills to students of all ages, from infants to adults. His program teaches kids, even very young kids, how to jump in the water, roll over and float on their backs - skills that save lives and would have saved Nicholas
Learning from Birch’s experience with British Swim School about the statistics of drowning and about the life-saving techniques that can be taught to even the littlest kids, was the impetus for his family to create SWIM ON Foundation.
Birch and his wife Amy have three children: Teddy, Clare and Greta.
Before children and, in his spare time, Birch was a member of a hurling team and played the bagpipes. Now in his spare moments, he enjoys woodworking and reading and his role as a board member of Care and Counseling.