KEYNOTE / OTHER SPEAKERS

Bill Graves
President and CEO, American Trucking Associations

Bill Graves is president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations (ATA), the national trade and safety organization of the U.S. trucking industry. Through its 50 affiliated state trucking associations, conferences and other organizations, it represents motor carriers before all branches of the government.

Under Graves' leadership, the ATA is advancing several safety initiatives. ATA has proposed requiring that all new heavy trucks be equipped with speed limiters and supports a government proposal to test the use of onboard recorders. In the public policy arena, he is leading a coalition that opposes the rush by state governments to lease public highways to investors who would operate them and levy and collect tolls.

In January 2003, Graves completed 22 years of public service in Kansas, highlighted by two terms as governor of Kansas. He was re-elected to his second term with the largest percentage of votes in Kansas history. Under his administration, Kansas taxpayers saw the largest tax cut in state history, and many state services were streamlined and privatized. In 1999 he signed an historic 10-year, $13-billion comprehensive transportation program into law, improving highways, railroad infrastructure, airports and public transit service in Kansas. As Commander-in-Chief of the Kansas National Guard, Gov. Graves oversaw the deployment of Kansas troops to Bosnia, Turkey and the Persian Gulf, among other areas. Prior to his election as governor, he served two terms as Kansas secretary of state.

Graves has been involved in the trucking industry his entire life. For almost 70 years, members of his family have operated trucking companies offering a diversity of services.

Among the outstanding combination of attributes he brings to his role as president and CEO of ATA are his ability to create public policy, his administrative experience and political skills, and a life-long knowledge of the motor-carrier industry. In addition to his duties at ATA, Graves serves on the board of the International Speedway Corporation, the leading promoter of motor sport racing in America.

He earned a degree in business administration from Kansas Wesleyan University in his hometown of Salina, Kan., and attended graduate school at the University of Kansas. Graves is married and has one daughter.

Jay Blake
Motivational, Professional and Keynote Speaker

While working as the head mechanic of a transportation company in May 1997, Jay Blake was involved in an industrial accident that caused him to lose complete vision, smell and taste. At age 31, he was faced with relearning how to live as a completely blind person.

Refusing to give up on life, Blake aggressively participated in rehabilitation. After being released from the hospital, he enrolled in an intensive program at The Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, Mass. With renewed self-determination, he began to follow his dream – owning a professional auto-racing team. He soon learned that even without sight, he was still able to do what he loved most – work on racing engines. Turning his dream into a reality, Blake combined his renewed participation in drag racing with his desire to spread his true-life success by inspiring others, both with and without disabilities, to accomplish their goals through the power of positive thinking, self-determination,
and teamwork.  

In 1999, Blake established Follow A Dream, a non-profit organization that demonstrates how the power of positive thinking, self-determination and teamwork can overcome adversity. The organization's message is uniquely delivered through NHRA drag racing as its medium. As racing's only totally blind race crew chief, Blake draws upon his personal experience of overcoming adversity and achieving his dream of auto racing and shares his inspiration with others.