For Luke Andrus, exercise and fitness mean more than a job, a business, or an industry. He considers it a calling to build his own healthy lifestyle and help others realize their fitness goals.
His mother was diagnosed with lung cancer when he was 14, and she died two and a half years later. Seeing her struggle and ultimately lose her battle with cancer left a profound impact on his life. He took a job at a gym and started working out for the first time in his life.
"It was a formative moment in my life that shaped me into becoming what I am," Andrus says. "My hope for my mother's survival started with her health and mostly focused on nutrition. That became my mission. I didn't want to be in a situation in which my kids lose me at an early age in life. For me, there has always been a deeper purpose of fitness other than the conventional goals of just having a better physique."
After working as a videographer, Andrus returned to school to complete his degree. In 2009, a friend opened an Anytime Fitness franchise and hired Andrus as an assistant manager. A year later, Andrus became a personal trainer. He didn't plan to keep the position for long, but the personal connections with his clients made it too difficult to leave.
"Fitness is essential in my life," says Andrus, who has run two 50K ultra-marathons this year and plans one more. "I don't think I've had more than one week without working out in the past 15 years. I think fitness needs to be filled by intrinsic passion, whether it is for appearance or to be functional in a certain way. It really comes down to what you want out of it and what you are going to enjoy doing. To me, that is the perfect place for fitness."
In 2014, Andrus became a personal training director for five locations and won the Anytime Fitness Trainer of the Year Award. He recalls it being the breakthrough moment of his career because franchise owners started reaching out to him for advice. He was hired as a franchise business consultant by Anytime's corporate office in December 2015.
With the help of his business partners, Kevin Tupy and Kay Bergendahl, Andrus became CEO of Blue Star Investments in 2020 and purchased multiple Anytime Fitness franchises. During their first several years of ownership, they successfully navigated numerous challenges caused by the Covid pandemic.
Although he has been a franchisee for only five years, Andrus already owns 46 Anytime Fitness locations and has an aggressive plan for expansion. He would like to double that number over the next five years and become the largest franchisee in the system over the next decade. Along the way, he wants to provide customers with consistently high-quality service.
"If we are not driven to be the biggest and best, then what are we doing? We don't want to just be the biggest; we want to be the best," Andrus says. "We won't forfeit quality to have the biggest unit count. Growing slow is not in our vocabulary. We want to grow fast and have quality in everything we do."
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