He decided to stop waiting.
He doesn’t just tell stories. He gives people vocabulary for what they’ve been feeling.
Chad Kempel is a youth keynote speaker who talks to high school students about stress, belonging and what they carry. He holds an MA in Experimental Psychology, taught psychology and statistics at San Jose State University for five years, and set four Guinness World Records. Born in Hayward and raised in San Lorenzo and Castro Valley, he moved to the Boise area in 2019, where he and his wife are raising their seven kids, five of them quintuplets born at 27 weeks.
None of that was the plan. In high school there were days he walked the hallways alone, watching other kids gather in their usual spot with their usual people, hoping the bell would ring before anyone noticed he was by himself. He got slapped across the face in a locker room and froze. His grades were bad, and not because he couldn’t do the work. He just hadn’t decided to yet. Meanwhile classmates were disappearing into things they couldn’t climb out of. One died of an overdose. One was shot and killed. One was paralyzed.
Read the locker room story: Why You Freeze Under Pressure →
He knows what it’s like to sit in a gym during an assembly and be sure none of it applies to you.
Wrestling changed that. He signed up and spent four years learning that when the whistle blows, the only thing that matters is who put in more work. He fixed his grades to stay on the team, and somewhere in there he figured out the power had been in his hands the whole time. He went on to a BA in psychology, then the master’s, then five years teaching at San Jose State.
Read about his Bay Area roots: Youth Speaker in California →
For five of those years he also volunteered inside San Quentin State Prison, teaching math. He went because the road into that place starts earlier than most people think, and the men in that classroom were proof that the window to change direction never fully closes. He counseled kids with social and learning disabilities at Quest Therapeutic Camps and coached Special Olympics athletes. For a stretch he slept in his car between two jobs and washed up in gas station sinks so he could keep teaching.
Read the San Quentin story: When Will I Ever Use This? →
See the full resume: What’s on LinkedIn →
He and his wife lost twin boys who lived less than an hour. To get through it he ran 100 miles without stopping, 31.5 hours, from his childhood home outside Oakland down through San Jose and back up to the Golden Gate Bridge, past every landmark of his life.
Then the quintuplets came, at 27 weeks, each under three pounds, with little chance of making it. All five came home after 73 days in the NICU. He went on to push them in a stroller to four Guinness World Records over four years. That stroller is in the Guinness World Records museum in Copenhagen now. Photos of the records, the certificates and the stroller are on the photos page.
Rooms he’s already held
He’s new to school assemblies. He isn’t new to rooms that are hard to hold.
- Lecture halls at San Jose State: 974 students over five years, up to 125 in a section, rehired every semester
- A math classroom inside San Quentin State Prison, for five years
- Idaho State Correctional Institution, as a volunteer, earning the prison’s higher Level 2 clearance, 2023 to 2025
- Classrooms at Eagle High School in West Ada School District, as a substitute teacher
- Quest Therapeutic Camps, counseling kids with social and learning disabilities
- Special Olympics track and field, as a coach, 2013 to 2015
- Training rooms of about 20 peer support workers, twice a year, for 5 years
- Psychology conferences: 10 research presentations and posters, including 3 American Psychological Association national conventions
What students and colleagues said
From his teaching evaluations at San Jose State.
Mr. Kempel’s dedication to his students… is very much appreciated by our department.
Department chair, SJSU PsychologyI think what really contributed to engagement of the students was his ability to relate to the students.
Faculty peer observer, SJSUProfessor Kempel provided a space where we can discuss theories and methods without fear.
Student, Psychology of PersonalityProfessor Kempel was by far the most helpful teacher I have had.
Student, Elementary StatisticsShowed many examples for students to understand and also used clicker for students to participate, for those who were shy.
Student, Elementary Statistics
The Records
Background
The failure that proves the message
Chad didn’t set the marathon record on his first try. He missed it twice, once by 46 minutes and once by four. Seven days after the second miss he ran it again and set it. Those three lines are the whole talk.
Every one of those times is in a public race database. A student who looks him up after the assembly finds the same story he told them in the gym.
"One day it will all make sense."
Bring Chad to your school.
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