Subject of the Acclaimed Book "Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See" and CEO of Sendero Group

Program Title: Crashing Through: There's Always a Way

Mike May has spent his life crashing through any and all barriers in his way. Blinded at age three, he defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing; joining the CIA; and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. Yet none of his extreme adventures tested him like the experimental surgery he undertook to restore his sight. The carefully constructed world that Mike May had built for 43 years was rocked in ways nobody could predict when he became one of only a handful of people in world history to regain vision from complete blindness. At the podium, Mike May's story, immortalized in the acclaimed book, Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and The Man Who Dared To See, is a stunningly heroic odyssey that was always fueled by his simple motto, "there's always a way."

Before his surgery, Mike May had honestly never yearned for vision. He was an accomplished inventor (from the world’s first laser turntable to portable GPS technology designed specifically for the blind and visually impaired -which received the Consumer Electronics Show "New Innovations Award" in 2004); athlete (setting the world speed skiing record of 65 mph for a blind person and winner of six international skiing medals); and businessman (starting up several successful business ventures; today he is CEO of Sendero Group). Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore May’s vision. It would allow him to drive, to read, to see his children’s faces. He began to contemplate an astonishing new world: Would he recognize himself in the mirror? Would his marriage survive? Would he still be Mike May?

The procedure was filled with risks, notably the fact that the medicine he’d have to take could cause deadly cancer. And even if the surgery worked, history was against him. Fewer than twenty cases were known to all of history which a person gained vision after a lifetime of blindness. Each of those people suffered from desperate, nearly unimaginable consequences... There were countless reasons not to take this risk, yet one compelling reason to move forward… it was the one risk that would truly give hope not just to him and his family but to millions affected by blindness.

Mike May's incredible life story is the basis of a movie written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Osanna and is currently in development for 20th Century Fox. He lives in California with his wife and children.