Terry Esau, Composer/Producer/Author/Bike-o-holic/Guitar-Giver. Terry, a certified bike-o-holic, started a non-profit in 2010 called Free Bikes 4 Kidz, and has given away over 120,000 bicycles to kids in need. He holds the Guinness World Record for most bikes collected in one day—nearly 10,000! FB4K is now active in 17 cities with a goal of being in 100 cities and 1,000,000 bikes given away in the next five years. Recently Terry co-founded a new non-profit, Free Guitars 4 Kids, where he hopes to duplicate the success he has had with bikes, putting old guitars in young hands. Details of program at www.fg4k.com
From small town punk, playing in a garage band with his Fender amp cranked to eleven—stomping on his wah-fuzz pedal, to becoming the Jingle King of Minneapolis, Terry has written and produced thousands of pieces of music for TV commercials…from Target to McDonalds, Pepsi to Perkins, Harleys to Hondas, and Golden Grahams to Billy Graham. After writing over 1000 commercials, scoring films, and writing for TV shows, he decided to take a break from the music biz and tried his hand at writing words. He wrote a book called Blue Collar God/White Collar God. (Thomas Nelson, 2001) He followed that with two more published books, Surprise Me, (Nav Press, 2005) and Be the Surprise (Nav Press, 2008). He recently finished his first novel, JE2US, to be released in the next year—hopefully.
Terry lives in Minneapolis, and when he’s not traveling and speaking, he’s hanging out at home with his wife, Mary, and riding his bike with his eight grandkids.