Shannon Fable, vice president of fitness programming for the FIT4MOM franchise, has been elected by American Council on Exercise’s (ACE) board of directors as chair of the board. She will preside over the 501(c)3 nonprofit for one year.

In five years of service on ACE’s board of directors, Fable has enabled the organization to maintain steady focus on growing its ranks of ACE-Certified Professionals, a number that now exceeds 75,000, and includes the rapid growth of ACE-Certified Health Coach. Fable has also been an instrumental volunteer force in ACE’s expanded programming in community engagement as well as advocacy for changes to policies and systems to equip more Americans to reach federally recommended physical-activity levels.

“I am beyond honored to serve as chair for ACE’s Board,” said Shannon Fable. “I can think of no better way to give back to an organization I have respected, worked with and leaned on for more than 20 years.”

Fable was recognized in 2006 as ACE’s Instructor of the Year and in 2013 as IDEA Fitness’ Instructor of the Year. For more than two decades, she has helped brands such as Anytime Fitness, Schwinn, Power Systems, ACE, Silver Sneakers and BOSU as a fitness business and programming consultant. She is an educator, freelance writer and certified Book Yourself Solid Business Coach, as well as the founder and co-owner of GroupEx PRO, a cloud-based group fitness management tool.

“ACE excels, in part, because of volunteer leaders like Shannon,” said ACE CEO Scott Goudeseune. “She equips ACE’s wonderful board to focus sharply on the future–uncovering our greatest opportunities to grow our ranks of certifying exercise professionals and health coaches, be a convener on fitness and health and pursue more policies to get people from all walks of life moving. It will be a great year with her at the helm of the board.”