In memoriam: FitCorp’s Trevor Glanger shared his business smarts

Trevor Glanger, partner in the FitCorp retail business in Texas for several decades, lost his fight March 29 with a brain tumor that was discovered nearly three years ago. He was 62.

The tumor, which was a glioblastoma of the brain, is one of the more aggressive forms of brain cancer. After initial treatment it had gone into remission in 2009 but reappeared in 2010, FitCorp executives told SNEWS®.

Although known in the fitness industry as a partner in the FitCorp business — which runs Busy Body of Dallas, Fitness in Motion  in a partnership and, since 2005, Fitness Headquarters — he had run other businesses prior. He founded a company called Videoland, which was acquired by Circuit City, and he started independent bicycle shop Wheels in Motion in the ‘80s, which would become Fitness in Motion when he turned his focus to fitness.

“For those of you who never got to know him, my words can do no justice to the man he was,” Gary Glanger, his son and FitCorp business partner, wrote to friends and colleagues Tuesday morning. “For those who knew him, you know he was literally ‘the man.’ You’ll never find a more respected, intelligent, entrepreneurial, tough, athletic, intense, powerful, giving, loving, charitable, loyal father, boss, or friend.

“This is a sad day, but I can tell you that my mother and I sat by his side every moment during his final hours and he truly looked at peace in the end,” added Gary Glanger (in photo: left to right, Gary Glanger, partner Ian Rosenberg, Trevor Glanger, in 2001)

According to FitCorp purchasing manager Jimi Bowman he had walked the talk of fitness and health for many years as a cyclist and also as a workout enthusiast.

“He’s one of the smartest businessmen I’ve ever known – in terms of ideas, in terms of running a business, everything,” said Bowman, FitCorp purchasing manager, who started working for Trevor Glanger as a part-time cashier at Wheels in Motion in 1994.

The biggest coup for the Glanger family, which is partners in the FitCorp business with Ian Rosenberg as well as in the Fitness in Motion business with Paul Cuevas, was winning the Busy Body stores in the Dallas area in 2001 when that chain went bankrupt for the first time.

Currently the FitCorp business has 16 stores. Rosenberg noted that all will continue to operate as usual with the same executive team that has been running them fully since Trevor Glanger became ill, including Gary Glanger, Trevor’s wife Karen Glanger, Ian Rosenberg, Bowman, Cuevas, and others.

In addition, Trevor Glanger was always a supporter and friend of the industry as well as of the need to support industry shows – often in no uncertain words. In 2007, at a time when the industry struggled with a shrinking show while some manufacturers held court in private rooms on- and off-site, he told SNEWS that if a company was going to appear at a trade show, it should be on the show floor, not in a private room. 

In 2009, when the Health & Fitness Business show was suffering with the economy, he added a comment to a SNEWS chat about merging the retail show with the commercial show that noted, “We are a small industry, and this would be a great way to bring excitement back to the show and get people going.”

Others remembered the impact he had on their lives and development as business people.

“Trevor was one of the people I respected most in this business,” said John Trigg, Accell Fitness vice president, U.S. sales. “He was a progressive thinker and an open-minded businessman. Very generous with his time, he made sure he gave me his full attention whenever we met. Trevor took a chance and gave me an opportunity at a time when I was struggling. Many of us in this business are better for having the chance to know him.”

Services will be March 30 at 2 p.m. at Sparkman Hillcrest Funeral Homein Dallas.

–Therese Iknoian