At the Podium

 

 

 

Thank you for hosting, Mark, nice job! Mark brought us Kevin Burkhart, an inspirational speaker whose message was about "doing things others say you cannot do." Kevin is a partner at "Gentleman Scholar" distillery, an avid endurance athlete, and advocate for Parkinson's disease. His world changed in 1999 when he learned his father had Parkinson's disease. Mark and his father found great support within the Parkinson's community, and Kevin became a board member of the National Parkinson's Foundation so that he could give back and create awareness of the disease. Kevin decided to pair his love of skydiving with fundraising efforts, completing "100 Perfect Jumps For Parkinson's" in one day in July, 1999, generating buzz and raising money. Two years later he completed 150 jumps in a day, and had his sights set on 300 jumps when a horrific snowmobiling injury turned his life upside down.  After a long and painful recovery that included multiple surgeries, Kevin faced depression and hopelessness, a nonfunctional left arm, and the prospect of a life robbed of the active things he loved to do. Despite the skepticism of others, he fought back, using ingenuity, invention and tenacity to create adaptive technologies and processes to allow him to return to the sports he loves. Kevin now inspires the world around him with his story and his participation in scuba, triathlon, snowboarding, motorcycling, Nordic and water skiing, and a return to skydiving. In 2013, just one year after the accident, he triumphantly completed "151 Imperfect Jumps for Parkinson's". As Kevin says, "it always seems impossible till it's done."