Robert Collins Hoffman was an American entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the owner of York Barbell, founder of magazines such as Muscular Development and Strength & Health, and the manufacturer of a line of bodybuilding supplements. Hoffman was the promoter of bodybuilders like John Grimek and Sigmund Klein, as well as a coach for the American Olympic Weightlifting Team between 1936 and 1968 and founding member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
Video Bob Hoffman (sports promoter)
Early life and military service
Hoffman was born in November 1898 in Tifton, Georgia to parents Bertha and Addison, an engineer during construction of a nearby dam. His parents were both from Pennsylvania and he grew up in Wilkinsburg, a Pittsburgh suburb where the family moved in 1903. At age 18 in April 1917, he enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard's 18th Infantry Regiment, Company A at Pittsburgh; his enlistment papers identify him as having blue eyes, dark hair, and a height of 6 feet 2 inches. As the U.S. entered World War I, his unit entered federal service as Company A of the 111th Infantry Regiment, in a newly redesignated 28th Division. Hoffman was deployed to France in May 1918 as part of the American Expeditionary Forces, with whom he was active at the front and "in numerous campaigns and engagements" including Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, Oise-Aisne, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. He was decorated many times for bravery during the war, and received the Belgian Order of Leopold, the French Croix de Guerre and a silver star. Hoffman was promoted to Private 1st Class in December 1917, and to Corporal in February 1918. Honorably discharged from the 111th, Hoffman joined the 802nd Pioneer Infantry Regiment as an officer in late March 1919. He was slightly injured from a shell splinter in or about early July 1919, and honorably discharged from the military on August 13, 1919.
Maps Bob Hoffman (sports promoter)
Business career
Hoffman moved to York, Pennsylvania in 1919 where he co-founded an oil burner business named the York Oil Burner Corporation; he later sold his oil burner interest and bought the bankrupted Milo Barbell Company in 1935.
"During his athletic career, first as an oarsman and then as a weightlifter, he received over six hundred trophies, certificates, and awards."
His supplement business was involved in several brushes with the law. During several occasions (1960, 1961, 1968, 1972 and 1974), his company's products were seized by the Food and Drug Administration, and in a 1968 consent decree he and his company agreed to stop a long list of questionable health claims for their products. The fact that he sold supplements through his company, was a weightlifting coach and a founding member of the aforementioned Council, as well as his athletic career, helped make him "a major factor in the growth of nutritional fads for athletes", according to alternative medicine critic Stephen Barrett.
Until the definite ascent of the IFBB by the 1970s, Hoffman remained the single influential figure on the North American weightlifting, weight training, bodybuilding, and overall physical culture scene.
Hoffman was a leader of the National Health Federation, a pro-alternative medicine lobbying organization.
Additionally, Hoffman was an author of several books, including "How to be Strong, Healthy, and Happy" and "I Remember the Last War".
See also
- John Terpak, a longtime business associate of Hoffman's
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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