Announcing 2025 Trailer Expo Keynote Speakers
One of the top reasons to attend the National Association of Trailer Manufacturers’ (NATM) inaugural Trailer Expo is the exceptional education. The NATM Trailer Expo will offer attendees over 10 hours of education through top-notch keynote speakers, two tracks of industry-led workshops, peer-learning roundtable discussions, and quick hit demos and trainings. With an emphasis on content targeted at top level professionals in the trailer dealer industry, the educational offerings will present the best in the industry for leading trailer dealer executives. All the education is being planned by your peers in the dealer industry, with the NATM Dealer Committee leading the planning process for all the Trailer Expo education.
With that in mind, NATM has booked two phenomenal keynote speakers for the event, taking place Sept. 16-18, 2025, in Oklahoma City!
Mike Staver, Leadership Coach
Session Topic: How to Build a High-Performance Culture
Mike Staver is the author of "Leadership Isn't for Cowards" and an internationally respected speaker, author, and coach. Staver takes noisy, often complex, leadership content and makes it immediately useful, digestible, and entertaining. In all Staver's work, the goal is simple - helping leaders perform better and live better lives. To accomplish this, he uses counterintuitive perspectives, a storytelling style, and entertaining delivery that makes the often-challenging realities of work and life easier to absorb and put into practice.
Staver has degrees in business administration and counseling psychology. He is a certified speaking professional, and in 2022, was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame. Companies from Federal Express and Miracle Ear to Leading Real Estate Companies of the World and the Mayo Clinic have repeatedly invited him to contribute to the development of their leaders. Staver architected a training program ranked No. 1 by Training Magazine on their 2018 Training Top 125 list, which recognizes organizations with the most successful learning and development programs in the world. That same program joined the Training Magazine Hall of Fame in 2019.
In the last 30 years, Staver has influenced over 200,000 people in ways that have not only transformed thinking and action but improved results. His message is grounded in the belief that leadership is about influence regardless of position, title, or power.
There's more, but frankly while all of that took a lot of work the real work has been hard earned over the last 30 years in the trenches of businesses from health care to high-end security and guiding clients through a multitude of business struggles. Staver has seen it all and has taken those experiences and used them to help others build better lives and careers.
During Mike Staver’s session, How to Build a High-Performance Culture, participants will learn:
• How to identify and apply their core values to their leadership
• How to align their behavior with what they say they believe
• How to be powerfully influential regardless of level of authority
• How to build accountability and improve efficiency
• How to Build a High-Performance Culture
Dr. Christopher Kuehl, Economist
Session Topics: Trends and Forecasts for the US Domestic Economy: Macro and Micro Views
Chris Kuehl (pronounced Keel, like the bottom of a boat) is Managing Director of Armada Corporate Intelligence and one of the co-founders of the company in 1999. He has worked with a wide variety of private clients and professional associations in the last 24 years. He is the economic analyst for the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association and writes their bi-weekly publication, Fabrinomics, which details the impact of economic trends on the manufacturer. He also serves as economic analyst for CPA societies, banker’s organizations, construction associations and a wide variety of industrial groups.
Kuehl is a writer and editor for the Flagship, distributed all over the world by business organizations and he is a writer and analyst for the Strategic Intelligence System. He makes over 100 presentations each year to business and industry associations in the U.S. and overseas. He serves as a resource for the media and for many trade publications.
Kuehl has a doctorate in political economics and advanced degrees in Soviet studies and Asian studies and was a professor of international economics and finance for over 15 years prior to starting Armada, teaching in Russia, Estonia, Hungary, Singapore, and Taiwan.
During Kuehl’s sessions, he will provide a very current assessment of the U.S. economy at the time of the presentation and a forward-looking analysis of trends to watch. The title and content changes based on current events and is curated for the trailer dealer industry.
