WizeFEST^® 2008 Speakers

Ross Shafer Veteran Comic/Author back for the 5th time as WizeFEST Emcee As his friend Jay Leno put it, "Finally a motivational speaker, without the speech!"  Ross Shafer didn’t start out as one of the country’s funniest motivational speakers though. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he was an All-Conference football player in high school and played four years of college football; graduating from the University of Puget Sound – a small NCAA Division II school where Shafer was often the player voted “most likely to be shaken up on the play.”

Ross won Showtime’s Comedy Laugh Off in 1983 and soon began to open shows for Dionne Warwick, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, Neil Sedaka and other famous people with good voices.

Within a year, he was hosting KING-TV’s weekly comedy/talk show, Almost Live. With Shafer at the helm, the show won 36 Emmy Awards and the IRIS award for the “Best Local Entertainment Series.”

Over the next several years, Shafer hosted a daily afternoon radio program, contributed to Dick Clark's TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes, hosted the USA Network’s game show, Love Me, Love Me Not, wrote and produced two comedy TV specials, and had a recurring role on the hit show 21 Jump Street. He moved on to become host of FOX’s flagship late night program, The Late Show, which competed against Johnny Carson and David Letterman. During this time, he continued to work on his stand-up act and regularly performed for the Improv, Comic Strip Live, The A List, and eventually moved on to a nightly entertainment magazine show, Days End, which he co-hosted with Matt Lauer and Spencer Christian. One of his most proud entertainment achievements was the successful run as host of New Match Game. The show still plays every morning on the Game Show Network.

Shafer is also a published author. He wrote Nobody Moved Your Cheese! - How to Ignore the Experts and Trust Your Gut, and his latest book, The Customer Shouts Back – 10 Things You Must Know If You Want Their Lifetime Loyalty, which is the culmination of his 11 years as a writer and producer of human resource training films. He recently founded the Customer Empathy Institute because he’s convinced the reason customer service hasn't improved is because we haven't tried to understand the customer's emotional state before, during, and after the transaction.