Knoxville business owner celebrates how her dad helped her find success

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) – On Father’s Day, one family business owner is reflecting on how her father has helped her become the woman and entrepreneur she is today.

“I have worked with my dad since I was 16, it’s great, we love it, we’re together every single day we get to do things I never thought I would dream of,” said the Owner of FBS Combat Club, Chole Padilla.

After watching her father, Frankie Padilla, interact with his training clients, and start his own training gym in Knoxville, Padilla said she wanted to follow in his footsteps. She has co-owned Frankies Body Shop the Gym with her father for nearly five years.   

“I just decided hey I love that, this is amazing, I have a knack for helping people too and like this is what I want to do,” she said.

In growing up with a trainer as her father, and working alongside him, she said he inspired her to break stereotypes.

“It’s always been something that my dad has very much instilled in me and then my two sisters, he is definitely a girl dad,” she said. “He has taught us to break every glass ceiling that there is, all of us have really big aspirations, and all of us want to go somewhere where the boys have never been before, or do it better than the boys have, and that is something that my dad has really taught us to do.”

This led her to compete in Mixed Martial Arts and start a business on her own. Just across from the gym, Padilla opened the FBS Combat Club in April. She aims at training students who are interested in Brazilian ju-jitsu, strength and conditioning, and MMA.

“Especially with martial arts it’s not only male-dominated, but it’s pretty much 100% male ran, so going tournaments and being one of the only females coach there, going to fights and being the only females there, that would not have happened without the support of my dad,” she said.

Padilla said she hopes someday she can be the same inspiration her dad was to her to her future children.

“That is what really inspired me, is that you know my dad’s here training, working out, helping people all the time, and then that’s why at 16 years old I was like I want to do that like I want to work out in the gym,” she said. “I think it’s really important to show kids by actions, you know, I want to kind of inspire them by my actions that they want to follow my footsteps like I did with my dad.”