AMERICA’S LEADERSHIP BROADCASTER™
Meet Rich “Trigger” Bontrager
Leadership Communication Strategist • Keynote Speaker • Active Broadcaster
Rich “Trigger” Bontrager helps leaders and organizations communicate with greater clarity, confidence, credibility, and human connection—through every conversation, camera, and stage.
For more than 35 years, his career has spanned professional broadcasting, sports play-by-play, interview hosting, producing, voice-over, keynote speaking, executive coaching, and media consulting. Today, he brings the preparation, presence, storytelling, and audience-awareness disciplines of broadcasting to the communication challenges modern leaders face.
Rich “Trigger” Bontrager calling a football game.
“The voice I once struggled to release became the voice I built my life’s work around.”
— Rich “Trigger” Bontrager
Stutter to Broadcaster
The Voice That Once Struggled to Be Heard Became His Life’s Work
Long before audiences knew him as “Trigger,” Rich Bontrager was a young man learning to navigate life with a severe stutter. Speaking could be difficult, unpredictable, and deeply personal. Yet the very thing that might have kept him away from a microphone ultimately helped lead him toward one.
Rather than allowing his stutter to determine the limits of his future, Rich learned how preparation, intention, presence, and human connection could make communication stronger. He went on to build a professional broadcasting career spanning more than 35 years—including sports play-by-play, interviews, talk shows, producing, voice-over, and live media.
That experience shaped more than his voice. It shaped how he understands every leader who has struggled to communicate under pressure, appear confident without becoming artificial, or connect with people when the words do not come easily.
Today, Rich does not teach communication as a collection of performance tricks. He teaches leaders how to communicate from a place of authenticity, empathy, preparation, and trust—because he has spent a lifetime learning what it means to find your voice and use it in service of others.
Professional Broadcasting
For more than 35 years, Rich has worked across professional broadcasting, live media, sports play-by-play, talk shows, producing, and voice-over. That experience taught him how to prepare thoroughly, think clearly under pressure, and communicate so an audience stays engaged.
More Than 35 Years Inside the Communication Moments That Matter
Rich’s leadership communication work is grounded in decades of experience communicating when attention, timing, clarity, credibility, and audience connection matter. Each part of his career contributes to the broadcaster’s perspective he now brings to leaders, teams, and organizations.
EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE METHOD
Interviewing & Storytelling
As an interviewer and host, Rich has learned that meaningful communication begins with curiosity, listening, and human connection. He helps leaders move beyond delivering information to create conversations and stories people understand, remember, and trust.
Keynotes, Coaching & Consulting
Rich has worked with audiences, leaders, speakers, entrepreneurs, and organizations to strengthen messages, executive presence, presentations, interviews, and on-camera communication. His approach is practical, personal, and built for immediate application.
Leadership Communication
Today, Rich combines broadcasting discipline with leadership strategy through Lead Through The Lens™ and the H.E.A.R.T. Method™. He helps leaders communicate with greater clarity, confidence, authentic authority, trust, and human connection—on camera and in person.
Every Leader Is Now a Broadcaster
Today’s leaders communicate through boardrooms, conference stages, video meetings, livestreams, podcasts, media interviews, and company-wide broadcasts. Every message sends a signal—and every signal shapes clarity, credibility, connection, and trust.
Rich’s work is built around a simple belief: leaders can learn from the disciplines professional broadcasters use to prepare, capture attention, communicate under pressure, and create a genuine connection with people they may never meet face to face.
Lead Through
The Lens™
Lead Through The Lens™ is Rich Bontrager’s leadership communication philosophy for a camera-first, media-driven world. It teaches leaders to apply the preparation, presence, audience awareness, clarity, and human connection of professional broadcasting to every conversation, camera, and stage.
Technology can amplify communication. Humanity creates connections.
The H.E.A.R.T. Method™
The H.E.A.R.T. Method™ is Rich’s proprietary framework for helping leaders connect to the heart—not only the head—and communicate in ways that strengthen confidence, credibility, trust, and action.
H — Human Connection
E — Emotional Intention
A — Authentic Authority
R — Relatable Story
T — Trust Through the Lens
Bring Broadcast-Level Communication to Your Leaders
Whether you are planning a keynote, preparing executives for high-stakes communication, strengthening your team’s trust, or helping leaders connect more effectively through the camera, Trigger will help you identify the right next step
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Based in the Washington, DC area, Rich works with leaders and organizations across the United States and internationally.
READY TO CONNECT?