Eric Chester
It’s no secret today’s workforce is significantly different than it used to be. Driving this change is a new breed of employee coming into the job market with a different set of attitudes, values, and expectations. Threatened by a labor shortage that is impacting every industry, the future clearly belongs to those who can engage this new mindset and lead them to deliver better service and performance. No one has a better understanding of this new workforce than Eric Chester. He is a former teacher and a coach, an author of nine books, and the world’s foremost authority on the topic of school-to-work transition.
Look on the front lines of your business. Standing between you and your profits are those talented, weird-looking, impossible-
to-understand 16-to-24-year-olds. And if you’re not connecting with them, they are not connecting with your customers, and you are leaving all kinds of money on the table. In short, your front line is the key to your bottom line.
Eric Chester is the premier expert on Generation Why; in fact, he coined the term. Since 1986, Eric Chester has been speaking to, and working with Generation Why youth. He has personally addressed more than two million teenagers and is dialed-in to the mindset of this burgeoning generation. He frequently appears on national media (ABC News 20/20, MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN, etc.) to provide commentary on hose coming of age.
Eric is the Founder & President of Generation Why, Inc., a training and consulting firm offering insight, perspective and strategies to leading companies and organizations to help hem recruit, train, manage, motivate, and retain the very best of this new generation. His newest book Getting Them to Give a Damn - How to Get Your Front Line to Care About Your Bottom Line (Dearborn, 2005) is getting rave reviews and is a must read for business professionals.
Eric is a Certified Speaking Professional and a 2004 inductee into the CPAE International Speakers Hall of Fame, an honor
shared by less than 2% of all professional speakers in the world. His clients include Toys R Us, International Dairy Queen, Harley-Davidson, Arby’s, Wells Fargo, and Universal Studios Theme Parks.
Eric’s greatest depth of experience with Generation Why, though, comes from his critical role as father/stepfather to
four Gen Why youth now aged 19 to 24. He lives “in the trenches” each day, offering assistance to prepare his two
sons and two daughters for the changing world they are helping to mold.
Eric and his wife Lori live in Golden, Colorado.
