Remembering Gerry Faust, Longtime IHRSA Member

Gerry Faust, Ph.D., president of Faust Management Corporation and longtime IHRSA supplier member, died earlier this week at the age of 77.

Faust was involved in the health club industry since 1984 and had an outstanding career as an entrepreneur, consultant, professor, author, and speaker.

“When I recruited Gerry in 1984 to the health club industry, it was because I learned that we were ignorant of the concept of a business life cycle, not clear where a club fit into the concept and full of current and future club challenges,” Rick Caro, president of Management Vision, told Club Insider. “I learned that we did not truly understand the building blocks of organizational structure, culture and a methodology to deal with key company projects. So, Gerry came along at a time when the industry was dominated by entrepreneurs who had a penchant to learn and a need for improvement.”

Faust was a frequent speaker at the IHRSA International Convention & Trade Show and founded the Club Executive Roundtables in 1985. Over the course of his career, he consulted with club groups around the world and developed management and staff development programs for the club industry.

“In a sense, Gerry Faust founded a graduate school for men and women who had already experienced success in the health club industry,” said IHRSA Executive Director Emeritus John McCarthy. “He did this by bringing industry leaders together in such a way that they would benefit not only from Gerry’s own experience as a consultant to other industries, but that these leaders would also educate one another by each of them being very open and revealing about their successes and failures.”

IHRSA offers our sincere condolences to Faust’s wife Terrie and the extended Faust family.