Please allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Craig MacFarlane and I believe that I have the potential to sell more Keurig Coffee makers and Green Mountain Coffee than any other spokesperson in America.  I’m sincere in this belief or I wouldn’t ask you to give me a minute of your time.  Let me explain.

I am most widely known as The World’s Most Celebrated Totally Blind Athlete. I won over 100 Gold Medals, many against sighted competition, as well as numerous national and world championships in multiple sports including wrestling, track and field, downhill snow skiing, water skiing, water ski jumping and golf.  I am also the only totally blind person in history to be signed to a contract as a professional athlete.  You can read about my story at www.findyourflame.com.

More significantly, I have spent the past 36 years as a Keynote Inspirational Speaker, which includes 18 years employed as International Goodwill Ambassador for a major U.S. financial planning firm.  Over that time, I have flown over 4,000,000 air miles and stayed in more than 5,000 hotel rooms all while travelling alone, without using a guide dog, dark glasses, a white cane, or a travelling companion. I am proud of my reputation for independence and self-reliance.  I work every day to walk my talk and have always said with pride that “I’ve never looked at my blindness as a handicap, rather, just a minor inconvenience.”

I discovered Keurig over a decade ago and it enhanced my independence in a way no other single item ever has.  My mother’s philosophy was “we didn’t know how to raise a blind kid, so we just raised a kid,” which meant I was involved in everything, including in the kitchen, where I learned to make pies, and muffins and my favorite, pancakes, which go great with coffee at my breakfast table.  The kitchen has always been a challenging environment for me, and I’ve had my share of successes and failures.  I do regularly empty our dishwasher single handedly, but I also must admit that I’ve had cooking adventures that resulted in visits from the fire department.