The Speaker
Dynamic
Engaging
Motivational
Jeff Gaura is a dynamic and engaging speaker with a passion to educate and empower others professionally, personally or even nutritionally. His nearly 10 years of teaching in public schools have led him to develop a conversational and engaging presentation style that he easily pivots to best suit his audience.
Jeff’s diverse personal and professional life includes living the Himalaya for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, starting multiple corporations, and earning spots on TeamUSA nearly 10 times. This gives him an unparalleled breadth of experiences to draw from, as well as a unique ability to relate well to a variety of personalities and cultures.
Team USA
Jeff is a member of TeamUSA and races internationally in the sport of Duathlon. A Duathlon consists of two running and one biking portions. Jeff has competed in nearly 10 ITU sanctioned Duathlon World Championships, at all distances. He trains for and races annually in the US National Duathlon Championships. He earned the title of King of the Mountain in 2015 in the Grand Master's category, given to the fastest uphill climber. He loves running and cycling with his sons, and he coaches others who share is passion.
Jeff’s success as an athlete is particularly striking considering he only started training and competing in 2013. Jeff was a natural athlete as a child. However, his parents’ fears over potential injuries caused them to keep him out of sports throughout his childhood. Therefore, Jeff didn’t know how much athletic ability he had until he started bicycling for fun at the age of 47. Within several months, he had qualified for Nationals, and earned a spot on TeamUSA. His training has changed his entire life, and that of his family; particularly in the areas of nutrition and time management.
Topic Themes: Taking ordinary to extraordinary, Nutrition and Faith, Discipline and hard work—and the latency between effort and results, Overcoming family mistakes, It’s never too late to try again.
The Nepal Project
After serving in the Himalaya with the Peace Corps for two years, Jeff discovered his passion project. He has spent the last 30+ years improving education opportunities for residents of the Dang Valley of Nepal. He raised funds to build or maintain 4 schools, outfit them with computers, install solar panels to ensure power and helped to provide victims with clean drinking water after the devastating earthquakes of 2015. He helped fund scholarships so students could attend school, both in Nepal and the US.
The Nepal Project is currently funding Montessori training, working with another non-government organization to provide onsite training Jeff plans an annual return visit to take people to remote parts of the Himalayas on hiking and ultra-running events as well as visit Dang and the work The Nepal Project is doing there to better the lives of its residents.
Topic Themes: Social Justice, The importance of education, Merging your professional, personal and ministerial Life.
Entrepreneur and Business Leader
Jeff’s professional path is a wide and varied one. Academically, he is 21 credits short of a PhD in Theoretical Physics. He spent 2 years serving in the Peace Corps, followed by 6 years teaching in New York City’s Public Schools, North Carolina and South Carolina. Following that, Jeff embraced the growing possibilities of a future in technology services. He began working for a Charlotte area technology company before starting his own company in 2007. Jeff holds professional certifications from Cisco, Microsoft and Citrix Systems, (MSCE, MCT, CCSP, CCA, CCNP).
As president, Jeff sets the vision for the company and oversees the sales, engineering and marketing divisions of the company. Part of his vision-setting includes an emphasis on continuing education, which Jeff exemplifies by keeping his professional certifications up to date.
Topic Themes: Technology trends including: big data, security, hacking: real world impact and usage, Unified Communications, Mobile work style.
