Doug Keil president of Trypod Communications, is the consummate
motivator.
Disabled when he was a young man of
14,
Doug has spent the better part of his life proving that the impossible
can happen.
By age 24, he had moved through a life of despair
to a life of an Olympic athlete, winning two gold medals in the slalom
and giant slalom ski events for the United States at the International
Olympic Games for the Disabled in Norway.
By age 25, he had founded Challenge
Alaska, a non-profit agency that provides recreational
opportunities for the disabled. Using Challenge Alaska, Keil seized the
opportunity to illustrate that, through participation, a disabled life
can be regenerated. Doug chaired the committee that raised more than $750,000 to fund
construction of Challenge Alaska's Sports, Recreation and Education
Center in Girdwood, Alaska, which has taught scores of disabled people
how to ski and enjoy outdoor recreation.
Keil has been named Handicapped
Alaskan of the Year and has won the Distinguished Handicapped
American Award. He was Chairman of the Anchorage Rotary's Handicap
Committee overseeing the delivery of wheelchairs to the Soviet Far
East. Doug served as the district Rotary Humanitarian Chairman in
1995. He carried the Olympic torch in 1996 on its travels en route to Atlanta
and has been honored by the Mayor of Anchorage in 1996, who deemed Dec.
17th 1996, Doug Keil Day.
Doug has been featured in many important
publications including The Congressional Record, The Anchorage Daily
News, The Anchorage Times, The Juneau Empire and more.
Born in 1954 in Beirut, Lebanon, Keil has
lived most of his life in Alaska. Keil now spends considerable time
undertaking more than a dozen speaking
engagements around the country every year in addition to his
duties on the Board of Challenge Alaska and his fulltime occupation as
Supervisor of Control Room Operations for General Communication, Inc. (GCI)
Cable and Entertainment.
