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If you have already decided to hold your
next event in Hawaii, Mahalo for
your confidence in our state, and Congratulations on a great decision! Now
if you could only find the speaker most appropriate to your program already
in Hawaii that would be even better.
Well you can, and I’m that Hawaii speaker! As you’ve seen by scanning this website, my
program fits most every audience and every venue. But in Hawaii, I fit even
better. After living in Hawaii for over 27 years in my home overlooking Pearl
Harbor, Ford Island , and the USS Arizona Memorial, the state’s vast and
colorful history is at my doorstep. Hawaiian culture, custom, and food are
second nature to me. And raising 4 children here, I learned Pidgin' English, the
slang of the islands. Indeed, my very style has been influenced by the Aloha
spirit that pervades this beautiful environment.
I sometimes open my Hawaii programs with humor; "KALAUKAUA, KUHIO, ALA MOANA,
KAPIOLANI, PI'IKOI!....I'd like to tell you that's an ancient Hawaiian greeting,
but those are just the five Waikiki streets to avoid during rush hour!"
I sometimes tell the story of the Friday afternoon song fest at the old
Molokai Hotel on the island of Molokai, the most Hawaiian of all the islands.
The Aunties and the Tutu (grandmothers) in Mu’u mu’u and with ukulele always
finish their very Hawaiian repertoire with God Bless America in deference to the
tragedy of 9-11-01 and to Pearl Harbor, the first American target to be bombed
by aggressors.
When demonstrating the POW tap code, I tap out "Aloha" very softly, observing
that "Aloha should always be tapped softer:" And, when appropriate to the
meeting dress code, my wearing a Hawaiian Aloha shirt adds a seamless quality to
your meeting set in Hawaii.
And last but not least, when speaking on Oahu, I have done book signings on the
deck of the historic USS Missouri (on which the peace treaty was signed to end
World War II), moored next to the Arizona Memorial. I can help facilitate this
successful event for meeting planners.
I hope that when you think of booking a convention or meeting in Hawaii you will
seriously consider one of its “kama’aina” (long time resident).
Warm Aloha Nui Loa,
Jerry
www.SpeakersofHawaii.com
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Gerald Coffee:
Triumph from the Trials of War
In
February 1966, while flying a combat mission over North Vietnam, Gerald Coffee's
RA5-C reconnaissance jet was downed by enemy fire. He managed to parachute to
safety, but he was immediately captured. The American fighter pilot spent the
next seven years as a prisoner of war.
Over the years, Coffee parlayed the pain of his imprisonment
into something positive. In a poll of 150 corporate meeting planners conducted
by Successful Meetings magazine in the 1990's, the retired U.S. Navy captain was
named one of the top ten speakers in America. A member of the Speaker's Hall of
Fame, he spoke in 1992 to a crowd of 27,000 at a Future Farmers of America
convention, following former U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Miss America
Carolyn Sapp, who, coincidentally, also hailed from Hawai'i.
None of this was planned. "When I returned from Vietnam, I started receiving
requests from schools, churches, Rotary Clubs and other groups to talk about my
POW experience," Coffee says. "People were just curious. The feedback that I got
indicated that the credibility I had from surviving the experience allowed me to
say a lot of things that other people weren't saying, and if I failed to do it,
I would be blowing a very important responsibility."
Coffee became a full-time public speaker in 1984, after he
retired from active duty. He usually gives between sixty and eighty
presentations each year. "The challenge is to keep everything fresh and not
sound canned," he says. "But to be honest, I feel so deeply about the things
that I'm saying and the importance of the message that it still comes very
natural to me."
In his talks, Coffee shares the four aspects of faith that helped him endure his
incarceration in Vietnam: "Faith in myself, faith in one another, faith in my
country and faith in god. They worked for me in my prison environment (and)
they've continued to work for me since I returned home," he says. "Even better
that that, they can work for any of us. There really isn't anything
extraordinary about me."
While few people can fully fathom the atrocities that he
suffered in Vietnam, Coffee says, "At home, we're all POWs at one time or
another: 'Prisoners of Woe.' We find ourselves in various kinds of prisons,
whether they involve health, finance, work, relationships and so forth. As I'm
relating my experiences, I can see people in the audience doing the same thing
subconsciously, drawing from their own experiences.
"I try to bring people into every story, every experience. I know there are
heroes in each audience, and this is a hero, potentially, in every single person
there. I try to instill a renewal of people's faith in themselves. I don't
really consider myself to be a motivational speaker; in my mind, it goes beyond
that. It's a real labor of love. It's my mission. I have no intention of
retiring as long as people want to keep hearing me."
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