- Matt Roloff
- The Chris Burke Band
- Joyce Bender
- Governor Ted Strickland
(speakers subject to change)
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Thursday, April 16th
Matt Roloff is a salesman, entrepreneur, advocate for the rights of little people and father of four. A dreamer at heart, Matt is a consummate businessman who thrives on making his next deal.
For years, Matt was a huge success in the computer industry, selling systems software to Fortune 500 companies.
In 1999, Matt wrote and published Against Tall Odds, which chronicles his business and professional success in the face of enormous medical and social adversity. Matt used the proceeds from his work to create his dream home, a 34-acre farm outside Portland, Ore., called Roloff Farms.
As a child, Matt’s dwarfism often left him in the hospital, recuperating from painful surgeries on his legs. Missing out on the experiences of average children, Matt lay in his hospital bed, daydreaming of cowboys and Tom Sawyer. Now those dreams have become reality on Roloff Farms, which boasts a complete Western town, a pirate ship on a lake, a three-story tree house and a full-size medieval castle, to name a few.
Matt has established his own business, Direct Access Solutions, which focuses on mobility and accessibility products for little people. The key product is the Short Stature Accessibility Kit, a product marketed to hotel chains that provides the tools little people need for a safe hotel room stay. In the last year, Matt also accepted a job within the software sales industry that often has him traveling for business. The majority of his work is in North America.
The former president of Little People of America (LPA) – a social and advocacy group for little people – Matt remains active in the organization and recently attended the annual conference with his whole family in Milwaukee, Wis. Along with Amy, he is working to manage the LPA’s 50th anniversary national conference in 2007, in Seattle, Wash. Matt’s dwarfism is the result of the third most common cause of short stature, diastrophic dysplasia (one per 110,000 births), a condition that negatively affects bone and joint structure and leads to broad, short fingers. He walks with the aid of crutches and often gets around with a motorized scooter.
Matt’s parents, Ron and Peggy Roloff, reside only a few miles from the farm. They are average height, along with his sister Ruth, who lives in California. Matt has one little person brother, Sam. Matt has been married to Amy for 19 years.
Check out the Little People Big World web site to find out more about the Roloff family and their TV series on the Learning Channel
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/lpbw/lpbw.html
