Hastings, Minn. – If you’ve ever met Jeff Klinger, then you know there’s nothing he loves more than a new challenge. As a Co-founder of the Anytime Fitness franchise, Jeff helped build a brand that’s enabled hundreds of men and women to realize their dreams of being their own boss. That same entrepreneurial spirit is why Jeff has decided the time is right for him to leave Anytime Fitness.
“The growth of Anytime Fitness has been exciting and gratifying,” Klinger said. “But I am an entrepreneur at heart and I love to take a new idea and get it started. Dave Mortensen, Chuck Runyon and I have been working alongside each other and building things together since 1989. It has been a tremendous pleasure for me to work with these guys – they are like family – but I felt the time was right for me to move on.”
From its humble beginnings in 2002, when Anytime Fitness opened its first club in Cambridge, Minn., Klinger helped build the franchise into an international powerhouse that greatly changed the face of the fitness industry.
Klinger’s many achievements were recently recognized with the 2009 John McCarthy Industry Visionary of the Year Award, presented by the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA).
Although he will no longer serve as an executive officer for Anytime Fitness, Klinger will continue to serve the franchise in his capacity as President of EI Insurance Advisors, the preferred insurance provider for Anytime Fitness clubs.
“Jeff Klinger will certainly be missed and we’ve had a great ride filled with laughter, success and friendship,” says fellow Anytime Fitness Co-founder, Chuck Runyon. “But our business model and growth rate are still very strong and the best days for Anytime Fitness are ahead of us.”
In parting, Klinger added: “Let me say that I will leave Anytime Fitness with great memories – from the sale of club number one to the addition of employee after employee – all who helped ‘sculpt’ Anytime Fitness into the incredible company it is today.”
Runyon, who will assume the duties of CEO for Anytime Fitness, emphasized that one of the strengths of the company – our collaborative team culture – will continue.
“Quite frankly, we don’t care much about titles here,” Runyon said. “Over the last few years, Jeff spent a great deal of his time focusing on ancillary companies, and less time on Anytime Fitness. So, for Dave Mortensen and me, day-to-day roles and responsibilities will not change.”
How can I contact Jeff klinger to present an idea for a start-up for him to develop?
I would like to know who the CEO of anytime fitness is now. I have a complaint against the facility in my city to which i have already turned into the health department. I canceled my membership last November 2009 and received a response from aaron that he was going to go ahead and bill me two additional months, then followed up with another letter stating he was going to continue to bill me until March of 2010 then he would cancel it. I closed my credit card so that he could quit padding his pocket book with it because that was completely unethical. He then denied receiving any cancellation when i disputed the extra months (which i have proof to) and now here lately he has his secretary or someone calling me up repeatedly at work making threats. I told her to quit calling me at work and she continued to do so. I have now had to seek medical care for the stress and want to get compensated for this. In addition to tall this they switched the bill over into my husbands name who was not even my husband at the time. I REMOVED them as a recommended gym through the company I work for. The guy is a psychopath.
hey his email is jeff@5charmllc.com
elaine platt if you were wondering his email is jeff@5charmllc.com I bet he would love to hear from somebody about a business propisition im his kid and he needs to do somethin LOL