Executives #127: Bernie Swain - Author & Founder of the Washington Speakers Bureau

Today on Executive After Hours, I have a special guest announcer, Branson Kelley. Oh, and I am also interviewing Bernie Swain, found of the Washington Speakers Bureau. Bernie comes from simple, humble, and resilient stock. He is also the author of "What Made Me Who I Am." Bernie takes the stories of clients and creates short, easily digestible life lessons.    His mother, Patricia, grew up in central Virginia with her family who were farmers and lived off the land. She worked on her parents’ farm, hunted, fished and yet loved to fly; she befriended Charles Lindbergh and other aviators of her time. Bernie’s father lived with his single mother, five sisters, one brother and numerous relatives in a tiny two-room house – a bedroom and a room with a wood burning stove – in one of the poorest mining towns in West Virginia. When his mother, Swain’s grandmother, couldn’t take care of them he spent part of his childhood in the local orphanage. His parents eventually met and married.