Chris Powell, host of "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition," will be the keynote speaker at Club Industry 2011 at 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 14, at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Chris Powell’s evolution from scrawny teen to host and transformation specialist on ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition” has taken him from Oregon to Arizona, into the air at 30,000 feet, into the homes of morbidly obese people and into the homes of millions of TV viewers. And on Oct. 14, it will take him to the stage at McCormick Place, the site of the Club Industry 2011 show where he will give the second-day keynote address. And it all started with a weight bench.

A naturally skinny kid, Powell was devastated when he did not make his high school football team. His parents picked up on his distress and came up with a creative solution.

“I walked into the house and in the middle of the room was a weight set,” Powell says. “My parents had cleared out the living room, and there was just a weight set and the TV.”

After several weeks of using the bench as a seat on which to watch TV, he finally tried lifting weights.

“I was hooked. There was no turning back,” he says.

Several years later, he pursued that passion for fitness by studying exercise science at Arizona State University. He did not plan to ever use his degree. Instead, he was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a pilot. His first airline interview was set for Sept. 12, 2011, but after the tragedy that occurred on Sept. 11, he decided to embrace his passion for fitness instead of flight.

While working as a trainer at a World Gym in 2003, Powell began appearing on a local TV show, “Good Morning Arizona,” as a fitness correspondent. His segments garnered praise and led to his big break when he received an email from a 650-pound man just a year older than him who had been told he would die if he did not get his weight under control.

Ten minutes into their first meeting, Powell agreed to take David Smith on as a client for no charge. During the next two years, Smith lost 400 pounds. His story was documented on “Good Morning Arizona” but it quickly shot onto the national stage, resulting in appearances for both Powell and Smith on “The View,” “20/20,” “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and even as the focus of a TLC documentary, “The Six-Hundred-Fifty-Pound Virgin.” And with his first morbidly obese client, Powell had demonstrated his ability to produce results and inspire the masses.

After his second appearance on “The Today Show,” Powell was contacted by the production company behind “The Biggest Loser,” and they developed the concept for what would become “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition.”

He told producers, “If we could do this transformation the right way, if we could show America what the weight loss journey looks like and what it’s like for the people at home, how would we do it? And from my perspective—a trainer’s perspective—I want time. Give me a year so we can do this the right way.”

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