Jeff Klinger

HASTINGS, MN -- Anytime Fitness CEO and Co-Founder Jeff Klinger has sold his interests in Anytime Fitness and its affiliates and has left the company.

President Chuck Runyon, also a co-founder of the Hastings, MN-based key-card club company, will assume CEO duties.

“The growth of Anytime Fitness has been exciting and gratifying,” Klinger said in a statement released by Anytime Fitness. “But I am an entrepreneur at heart, and I love to take a new idea and get it started. [Co-Founder] 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.”

Klinger and Runyon received the 2009 John McCarthy Industry Visionary of the Year Award from the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA). Klinger was named to the IHRSA board of directors in 2008. It is unclear if or for how long Klinger will remain on the board.

Runyon said in the press release that Klinger had spent more time on ancillary companies and less time on Anytime Fitness over the last few years.

“Jeff Klinger will certainly be missed, and we’ve had a great ride filled with laughter, success and friendship,” Runyon said in a statement. “But our business model and growth rate are still very strong, and the best days for Anytime Fitness are ahead of us.”

Late last month, Enterprise Insurance Advisors, the Anytime Fitness preferred insurance provider that Klinger owned, was sold to Association Insurance Group, a subsidiary of Thompson Insurance Enterprises. As part of the transaction, Association Insurance Group has structured a new insurance program that will be exclusive to Anytime Fitness franchisees.

Anytime Fitness boasts it has more than 1,200 clubs open worldwide and a growth rate of 348 percent over the past two years.

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