PHIT America added Sports Industry Hall of Famer Rusty Saunders to the board of directors. The decision to add Saunders to the board was made during the recently completed 49th NSGA Management Conference in Palm Beach Gardens, FL.
Rusty Saunders is currently the principal of Saunders Consulting. Throughout his 40-year career in the sporting goods industry, he has held senior sales and merchandising positions at the MacGregor Division of Brunswick Corporation. He has also held senior management positions at retail. And he worked as a sales agent for 19 years where he served as president of his own agency, Saunders & Associates, Inc. He has been the moderator of the NSGA Management Conference since 2000 and was a founding partner of
SportsOneSource. Saunders was a basketball player at the University of Dayton in the late 1950s.
Rusty Saunders has been a proponent of physical activity, whether you are competing in sports or simply being active, for his entire life, said PHIT America Founder Jim Baugh. More importantly, Rusty understands that while this is a national issue, the sports & fitness industry needs to come together now to turn around the inactivity pandemic. He also has worked closely with me on some other PHIT America grassroots initiatives we will be announcing soon.
When I first heard about PHIT America, I supported it, said Saunders. The more I learned, I realized our industry must get behind this cause and campaign. The inactivity crisis will not turn around by itself. Our industry must take a lead in getting America more active, playing sports, fit and healthy. And, PHIT America is the perfect way for everyone to help.
PHIT America — an educational, advocacy and social media marketing campaign — is designed to reach millions of Americans and create a Movement for a Fit and Healthy America. PHIT America will combat the obesity and sedentary activity crisis — which is having an adverse effect on health care costs in the U.S. — by promoting new legislation and grassroots programs that will help get Americans more active, playing more sports, getting fit and becoming healthier.
