About Stephen Martin :

In college, Stephen Hawley Martin was editor-in-chief of the yearbook, an all-conference center on the varsity football team, cartoonist for the college newspaper, and rush chairman of his fraternity.

After graduation, he went to work for a major northeast advertising agency and in just 18 months was handling that firm’s largest account, USAirways.

Six years later he went into business with his brother, David, and The Martin Agency was formed. Recently named the USA’s top advertising agency by ADWEEK magazine, the firm now boasts such clients as GEICO (gecko and caveman), Pizza Hut, and Wal-Mart.

A prolific and gifted writer, for several years Martin penned a weekly online column for Virginia Business magazine called Insights on Excellence. More significantly, he has written or edited more than a dozen books, several of which have won top book industry awards. He is, for example, the only three-time winner of the Writer’s Digest Book Award, having won twice for fiction and once for nonfiction. He has also won a first prize for fiction from Independent Publisher and a first prize for nonfiction from USA Book News.

Steve also has a passion for delving into and unraveling life’s mysteries. Until recently he was host of an Internet radio show that on average attracted 30,000 listeners per episode entitled The Truth About Life. In this capacity he interviewed dozens of scientists and researchers into reincarnation, parapsychology and New Science, and he produced two books as a result: THE TRUTH: What You Must Know Before December 21, 2012, released in 2008, and his 2009 release, The Science of Life After Death: New Research Shows Human Consciousness Lives On.

Steve now works as editor and publisher of The Oaklea Press Inc., a book publishing firm with more than 40 titles in print, but he has not stopped writing.  A new novel by Steve, a whodunit set in an advertising agency called Dead Man of the Year, will be released on July 1, 2010.

Steve and his wife of 23 years live in central Virginia with two school age children and one more headed to college this fall. In 2005, he was tapped for membership in the Omicron Delta Kappa leadership fraternity by the University of Richmond chapter. Steve has also been listed for a number of years in Who’s Who in the Media and Communications and in Who’s Who Worldwide.

Steve Martin Speaker Topics

Business Management:

How to Get Twice as Much Done with Half as Much Staff
Companies in just about every sector of the economy have cut payroll, forcing many managers to work longer hours to take up the slack. But the truth is, that often doesn’t have to be. In this talk, Martin shows how a combination of the latest process management techniques coupled with Toyota style management principles can lead to getting things done without doing it yourself.

How to Get Breakthrough Advertising with Half the Effort and Even Less Cost
A study by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) shows Toyota’s product development engineers are four times more productive on average than those who work for the typical western company. The reason is a totally different approach to developing new products. Martin tells how this amazingly simple system can be adapted for use in developing breakthrough advertising for your company.

Writing & Editing:

The Best Kept Secret Behind Every Compelling Novel or Film
Some of the best novelists of all time have used it and don’t even know it. But those who consistently turn out best-selling novels and top box office screenplays certainly do. Martin reveals the underlying secret that makes you wish that page-turner you’re racing through would never end.

Parapsychology & New Science:

Four Compelling Reasons to Believe in Life After Death
Studies were initiated at Duke University in the 1930s and at the University of Virginia in 1961. Evidence was added by University of California physics professor, Raymond Chiao, in the mid 1990s and by professor Stephen Braude of the University of Maryland in the early 2000s. The case was made even more compelling by Dr. Julie Beischel of the Windbridge Institute in 2008. But little has been reported about this in the mainstream media because the findings refute the conventional scientific view of life and death. In this talk, Martin lets you in on the secret.

Why Some Children Remember Past Lives but Most of Them Don’t
An ongoing study at the University of Virginia has collected more than 2600 cases of children who remember past lives for which the past life remembered has been identified and cataloged. Yet most children do not spontaneously recall prior lives. There’s an interesting reason for this, and Martin reveals it.

December 21, 2012 – Should We Fear This Date?
The ancient Maya believed the world as they knew it would end on 12/21/12. This seems to be supported by a host of other prophecies, ranging from the I CHING of ancient China to the Hopi Indians and Nostradamus, to the twentieth century’s most famous psychic, Edgar Cayce. But is there anything to it? And if so, what do we need to know to survive?  

The Strange Truth Your Children’s Grand Children Will Learn in School
A new picture of reality is emerging as a result of a plethora of scientific discoveries and research findings in recent years. So far, strict adherents to conventional scientific tenets have been successful at beating back these findings and maintaining the status quo, but a pattern has emerged that has become increasingly difficult to refute. Pressure is building for the truth to be recognized, and it’s only a matter of time before the new worldview Martin reveals in this talk becomes widely accepted.

The Truth About Communicating with the Dead
Beginning almost 3000 years ago when King Saul spoke to the deceased prophet Samuel with the help of the Witch of Endor, and continuing today with TV psychic John Edwards, some have claimed to be able to communicate with the dead. But is there anything to this? Steve reports on scientifically constructed, quintuple bind experiments, the findings of which may surprise you.

History:

What Really Caused the 1692 Salem Witch Hysteria
As a direct descendant of Susannah North Martin, hanged as a witch on July 19, 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, Steve often wondered when growing up and well into adulthood about the true cause of the hysteria that led to so many deaths. So he delved into the historical record, including the depositions of the accused and the witnesses, as well as trial testimony transcripts, and learned that the conventional view, as reflected in such works as The Crucible by Arthur Miller, does not square with the facts. Steve will fill you in on what few people know: what really happened at Salem.