Marcie Gorman-Althof loves her Lantana neighborhood, and her new home.

The president and CEO of Weight Watchers of Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Okeechobee, Indian River and Brevard counties moved there in March with her husband, Stanley Althof, a renowned marriage counselor and researcher. They share their home with an elderly golden retriever and four Siamese cats.

Marcie Gorman-Althof was a fifth-grade teacher when she began learning about the business of Weight Watchers in the 1970s. Her franchise is expected to earn $5.5 million this year.
 
Gorman-Althof's neighborhood has a view of Manalapan across the Intracoastal. "Being close to Ocean Avenue, what a cool neighborhood," she said. "I never knew that area existed. I walk all over. It is so beautiful there."

She knew her husband when she was 14, living in New York and attending the High School of Music and Art. "He lived two doors down," she said. "He was this geeky kid I dated when I was 14."

They kept in touch for awhile as adults, but "we were never single at the same time." A mutual friend re-introduced them, and they married in 2003. "Some things are fated," she said, laughing. "I could have saved myself a couple of husbands along the way."

Gorman-Althof, 56, has two sons from a previous marriage: Michael, 30, and Mark, 28, plus daughter-in-law Angela, and granddaughter Rebecca.

Gorman-Althof was born in New York City and raised in Hollywood, Fla. She earned a bachelor's degree in education from Memphis State University and moved back to South Florida "because that's where my family was."

Her mother, Carole Sothern, started the Palm Beach County Weight Watchers' franchise in 1966, which makes it one of the nation's oldest. Sothern lost 103 pounds on the then-new diet, which was founded in the early '60s by New York housewife Jean Nidetch.

Gorman-Althof, who was a fifth-grade teacher, weighed 187 when she joined Weight Watchers in 1972 and lost 47 pounds. She started in the stockroom in 1973, and soon became a group lecturer, then training director, then area director. When her mother died in 1977, she bought the franchise and expanded it. "This is, kind of, teaching," she said. "We're teaching people to change their eating habits."

Today the franchise, which spans from Boca Raton to Titusville, has 200 traditional meetings and more than 100 At Work meetings each week. Gorman-Althof says the company has more than 200 employees, 5,000 members and an estimated annual revenue of $5.5 million. "Most of my employees are women," she said. "And they have all lost weight on the Weight Watchers program."

The teaching aspect of her job was always easy, she said. The ebullient CEO enjoys representing the company in TV commercials. The hard part was the financial aspect. "They say you should surround yourself with people smarter than you," she said. "That's what I've tried to do."

She also mentors children and displaced women and is on the board of directors of the local Communities in School. She's the 2005 winner of the Women in Leadership Award from the Executive Women of the Palm Beaches and the Valor Award from the American Diabetes Association.

"I've been through some really rocky times," she said. "I've almost lost my business before. But I chose not to declare bankruptcy. I worked my way out of it. It took longer, but that's how I live my life."

What do you do to relax?

"I love to read. I like to be quiet. I like the serenity of the Intracoastal." She enjoys traveling with her husband "when he goes somewhere interesting." She also tries to do something for herself every week: a massage, bubble bath, pedicure or manicure.

What is the best advice you've ever received?

"Eleanor Roosevelt said, 'we must do that which we think we cannot.' The best advice I've ever given is, 'Support other women. Hold hands when you cross the street. Don't ever step on another woman to get ahead.' "

If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

"I'd invite Gloria Steinem, mainly for her quote, 'some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.' Eleanor Roosevelt, William Shakespeare and Martha Mertz, founder of Athena Awards (recognizing women leaders and business owners). She's an interesting person. And Lucille Ball, because she was brilliant. She did everything: comedy, directing, producing. And she was the funniest woman ever."

Source: Palm Beach Post