page_title: Bob Hoffman (sports promoter)
section_title: Business career
hierarchical_section_title: Bob Hoffman (sports promoter) / Business career
context_page_description: Robert Collins Hoffman was an American entrepreneur who rose to prominence as the owner of York Barbell. He founded magazines such as Muscular Development and Strength & Health, and was the manufacturer of a line of bodybuilding supplements. Hoffman promoted bodybuilders like John Grimek and Sigmund Klein, coached the American Olympic Weightlifting Team between 1936 and 1968, and was a founding member of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
context_section_description: To be closer to his brother, Hoffman moved to York, Pennsylvania in 1919 where he co-founded an oil burner business named the York Oil Burner Corporation. In 1923, he started the York Oil Burner Athletic Club with a team of employees from the company. In the early 1930s, Hoffman took a leadership role in the Amateur Athletic Union. In 1932, he co-founded the Strength and Health Publishing Company and began Strength & Health magazine. Hoffman bought the bankrupted Milo Barbell Company in 1935, and sold his oil burner interest in 1938 when he founded the York Barbell Company.
  "During his athletic career, first as an oarsman and then as a weightlifter, he received over six hundred trophies, certificates, and awards."
  Hoffman started Muscular Development magazine in 1964 as he began a shift from weightlifting to bodybuilding.
  In December 1969, Hoffman and three other weightlifters associated with the 1968 Summer Olympics met with President Richard Nixon for seven minutes at the White House along with Pennsylvania congressman George Atlee Goodling.
  His Hoffman Foundation gave him some philanthropic fame in the 1970s and he appeared in popular television shows and magazines. 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".
caption: Hoffman (far right) was among those who presented President Kennedy in November 1961 with life membership in the Amateur Athletic Union.
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