DURHAM, N.H. - Chris Rondeau, CEO of Planet Fitness, will discuss how the company changed the health club industry at the next University of New Hampshire CEO Forum Thursday, Sept. 29, 2011.

The program begins at 8 a.m. in Huddleston Hall.

Rondeau was an undergraduate at UNH when he took a job working the front desk at Planet Fitness that had been launched in Dover by brothers Michael and Marc Grondahl. From that part-time position, Rondeau rose to operations chief and equity partner. Along the way, he helped formulate and refine a business model that has revolutionized the health club industry.

With its low prices and "Judgement Free Zone" atmosphere, Planet Fitness has tapped into a new market of gym-goers - the 85 percent of the population who did not feel comfortable in health clubs or had never seen one with a compelling value proposition.

Today with more than 440 locations in 41 states and nearly 3 million members, Planet Fitness is one of the largest health club operators in the country. Planet Fitness has made Inc. magazine's list the fastest-growing private businesses in America for the last four years.

Upcoming speakers of the UNH CEO Forum include:

• Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011
  Major General William Reddel III, adjutant general
  New Hampshire National Guard

• Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012
  Erik Dodier, co-founder and CEO
  PixelMEDIA, Portsmouth

• Thursday, March 29, 2012
  Michael Dubyak, CEO and president
  Wright Express, South Portland, ME

• Thursday, May 17, 2012
  Roger Gifford, CEO
  Gifford's Ice Cream, Skowhegan, ME

Initiated in 1997, the UNH CEO Forum is an outreach program of the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics and the UNH Graduate School serving CEOs, presidents, and senior managers of companies in northern New England. The forum provides its members with opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with their peers in business and industry in an informal setting. The UNH CEO Forum is sponsored by the law firm of Pierce Atwood, People's United Bank, Sprague Energy, Crystalvision, and Berry, Dunn, McNeil and Parker. For more information about the CEO Forum, visit http://www.unh-ceoforum.org/.

To register or become a member of the UNH CEO Forum, call Barbara Draper at 603-862-1107, or e-mail her at barbara.draper@unh.edu. The event is free to members and $49 for first-time attendees.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

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