Keynote Speech

Joe Gibbs

Owner, Joe Gibbs Racing
Inductee, Pro Football Hall of Fame

A successful organization starts with its people.

This has long been the philosophy of Joe Gibbs. It helped carry him to three Super Bowl championships and the Pro Football Hall of Fame as head coach of the NFL’s Washington Redskins, and has been a defining principle behind building Joe Gibbs Racing into one of NASCAR’s most successful multi-team racing organizations.

It also guides Gibbs’ latest project: “Game Plan For Life”, which is the title of his New York Times Best Selling book. In putting together the book, Gibbs assembled an amazing team of 11 experts to respond to the issues a national survey revealed to be the most pressing in men’s lives.

JGR has experienced amazing success and growth since Gibbs founded the operation in 1991. Beginning its first season of racing in 1992 with just 18 crew members, JGR now employs close to 450 people. It has added the JGRMX motocross race operation. Despite this growth, the company remains defined by the principles of its founder: integrity, a relentless work ethic, determination, perseverance and team building.

Those principles have been the driving force behind JGR’s success, including more than 160 overall wins in NASCAR, three NASCAR Cup Series championships (2000, 2002 and 2005) and back-to-back NASCAR Nationwide Series Championships (2008 Owner’s Champions and 2009 Driver and Owner’s Champions).

Gibbs was applying character-based leadership long before he started his NASCAR organization. As head coach of the Washington Redskins, he led the franchise to three Super Bowl Championships (Super Bowl XVII, XXII, and XXVI) and was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1996.

He and his wife, Pat, currently reside near JGR’s Huntersville, N.C., headquarters and enjoy spending time with their eight grandchildren.