Physical therapist Jonathan Fass manages sports and recreational activities for King Abdullah’s nephew
'He’s in very good shape. My job is to keep him that way, making sure he stays strong and mobile.' – Jonathan Fass
It was your typical job interview, if by typical you mean flying to Riyadh Saudi Arabia, expenses paid, to meet your prospective employers in a luxurious palace, a 120-acre ranch and a desert camp.
It was your average job offer, if by average you mean serving as private physical therapist and sports manager for His Royal Highness Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, billionaire investor and nephew of King Abdullah, sixth king of Saudi Arabia.
And it’s turned into your ordinary 9-to-5 grind, if by ordinary you mean traveling the world by private 747; interacting with the likes of Bill Gates, Prince Charles and Bon Jovi; and managing sports and recreational activities for the man who is the grandson of both Saudi Arabia’s founder and the first prime minister of modern Lebanon.
For Jonathan Fass, Rutgers alumnus and former lab instructor in the university’s Exercise Science and Sport Studies Department, the extraordinary has become routine over the past three years. But he’s not taking even a second of it for granted.
“It’s an impressive thing to have on my resume, and I realize that,” says the longtime Bergenfield resident. “When they offered me the position at the end of that week, I knew right away that I would say yes.”
After receiving his BA in political science and history from Rutgers in 2000, Fass spent seven months as a consultant in nonprofit fundraising. It was long enough to determine that wasn’t where his heart – or his future – lay.
When the manager of his local gym went scrambling for a last-minute fill-in to cover floor hours, it occurred to the gym rat in Fass that maybe he could carve out a career based on his passion for exercise and health. The possibility led him to pursue certification as a health and fitness specialist and as a strength and conditioning specialist.
During a stint at the Rutgers Recreation Department, Fass served as a trainer, group instructor and lecturer. He also worked with several Rutgers sports clubs, serving as a coach for women’s soccer, men’s and women’s rugby, water polo and squash.
Next Fass entered the first doctoral class in physical therapy at the City University of New York. “I became the first person in the history of CUNY to become a board-certified physical therapist with a CUNY doctorate in physical therapy – and yes,” he only half jokes, “that’s going on my tombstone.”
It was while Fass was doing a residency with the University of Delaware’s physical therapy program that the royal summons came. He later learned the prince generally seeks out his personal therapists from the United States, believing them to be among the world’s best trained.
A financier worth an estimated $30 billion, Al-Waleed has been called the Saudi Warren Buffet. He owns a large portion of Citi Bank, as well as the Four Seasons chain and the Savoy in London.
The 58-year-old prince and the 35-year-old physical therapist found common ground in their shared love for exercise, politics and history. It’s not unusual to see them biking together through the streets of Riyadh on late-night rides.
“He’s in very good shape,” Fass says of his employer. “My job is to keep him that way, making sure he stays strong and mobile.”
Fass speaks a little Arabic, “basically the Arabic version of Spanglish,” he says. He lives in a gated compound in Riyadh’s Kingdom City – also one of the prince’s holdings – with other members of Al-Waleed’s support team. The accommodations are posh, he says, with a pool, restaurant and gym on the premises.
His social life revolves around other residents of the compound, mostly westerners like himself. That’s a function not only of his erratic working hours but also of the realities of Saudi Arabian society.
“Outside the gates there’s a very strict culture based on Sharia law – I’d read about it before coming here, but it’s still a huge culture shock when you go outside,” the Rutgers alum says. “Men and women are forbidden to interact – you can’t be seen with a woman unless she’s your wife or you’re related to her.”
Fass had recently begun his job in April 2010 when the Arab Spring began in Tunisia and quickly spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other nations. The former political science major followed events avidly through social media. Saudi Arabia remained quiet throughout the unrest, he recalls, and he never felt any sense of danger as the events unfolded.
A highlight of the job has been the opportunity to accompany the prince on his frequent world travels: jaunts to such far-flung venues as Sardinia, Africa, Bora Bora, and Cypress, often in the space of a month or less.
Al-Waleed is generous in introducing the Jersey boy to world leaders and luminaries. Fass might be engaging in a ceremonial traditional dance with the king of Bhutan one night and shaking hands with the president of Vietnam a week later.
He’s not easily star struck, he says, but there was that face-to-face with Prince Charles at the re-opening of the Savoy in November 2010, when the English royal quizzed him on his role in the palace. Learning that Fass is a specialist in spine and back health, Charles responded, “Brilliant, brilliant.”