The demise of the Jenny Craig diet empire after 40 years marks a new era in the weight-loss industry — perhaps one where all it takes to trim inches is popping an Ozempic pill.

At one point Jenny Craig, Inc. operated 500 brick-and-mortar stores and had 1,000 employees. With a recent bankruptcy filing, the company is now liquidating assets.

Apart from one of its now-closed retail stores being in Fresno, there’s a deeper tie to Jenny Craig that involves Fresno State’s business school.

Fresno’s State Craig School of Business is named for Sid Craig, the husband of Jenny Craig who helped build Jenny Craig International.

Sid Craig pledged $10 million to Fresno State in 1992 for the School of Business and Administrative Sciences, which became the first California State University business school to receive a naming endowment.

 

Sid Craig was Canadian by birth but moved to California with family and majored in business and psychology at Fresno State. Before that, he was a child tap dancer who was featured in some of the Our Gang comedies starring the Little Rascals. After serving in the Navy, he managed an Arthur Murray dance studio he used to teach at to pay college tuition. He eventually bought the entire Arthur Murray company.

He then bought into a small chain of “ladies figure salons,” eventually building a new corporation called Body Contour, Inc., where he hired a manager named Genevieve Guidroz, or Jenny — his future wife. After selling Body Contour, they moved to Australia to get around a non-compete clause, founding Jenny Craig, Inc.

From there, the company saw a meteoric rise, going public in 1992 at the same time he blessed the Craig School with his name $10 million gift.

Sid Craig lost a battle with cancer in 2008. Several years later, the company was sold to a private equity firm, which has now taken the steps to wind down the business.

Fresno State has a notable list of alumni — even when you remove the athletes who would go on to sports greatness. Sid Craig was among the most colorful.