John Benham is author of Music Advocacy: Moving from Survival to Vision. His area of expertise is building, saving, and restoring music programs. His background includes over 40 years as a music teacher from elementary through university levels. In addition, he is the proprietor of his own music instrument repair business and has served two terms as a school board member. His personal knowledge and experience provide unique understanding to help you go before a school board and administration with language they understand and methods that work. He has taken his message from coast to coast in the United States and Canada. His methods are responsible for building, saving and restoring over $74 million in budgetary funds in music, leading to the restoration of over 1,000 teaching positions and the continuation of music programs for over 500,000 students. In addition to his work as consultant, he has been featured as a speaker at state conferences, and national conventions of the National Association for Music Education, the Canadian Music Educators Association, the Canadian Bandmasters Association, the American String Teachers Association, the National Association of Music Merchants (for the National Association of Band Instrument Manufacturers) and the National Association of School Music Dealers. He has been a member of the NAfME, ACDA and ASTA national advocacy committees. He is a primary contributor to "Counterpoint" and the "Music Advocates Toolkit" available at www.supportmusic.com. His successes in saving school music programs have been documented in the "Music Educators Journal", "Music, Inc.", the "Wind Instrument Retailer", and the "Instrumentalist". He is the recipient of the state and national “Distinguished Service Award” by the Minnesota Music Educators Association in 1994, and the Music Educators National Conference in 1998. In 2003 he was elected to the inaugural class as a Lowell Mason Fellow by MENC for his efforts in music advocacy. In 2010 the American String Teachers Association presented him with the National Advocacy Award. In 2012 he was awarded the National Citation from Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.