PRESENTATIONS, SPEECHES & PUBLICATIONS
David has authored numerous articles and company publications.
He frequently speaks before academic institutions and philanthropic organization
EDUCATION & LEADERSHIP
- IMPACT: Changing Lives, Careers, and Communities. David talks about the importance of investing in your community in the Miami Law Magazine’s Winter 2018 issue.
- Leadership and Trust: An Interview with David Humphreys. Read More Here.
- Ethics at work: On creating a corporate culture of honesty, trust, and responsibility. Read Compliance & Ethics Professional interview here.
- Developing “Citizens.” Read David’s comments on the occasion of the dedication of Humphreys Hall.
- What does it take to be a good leader? It starts with trust. Read David’s speech on Leadership at Missouri Southern State University here.
RIGHT TO WORK
- “No one should have to pay dues to get or keep a job—unless they want to. That is what Right-to-Work means.” Read more of David’s Joplin Regional Business Journal article..
- “Voluntary Association is, at first glance, a very simple idea: the relationships we have are, and should be, entered into voluntarily—without any kind of coercion or threat of force.” Read more here.
The Regulatory State
- The impact of legal and regulatory constraints on business. Watch David’s speech to the Federalist Society at the University of Missouri School of Law.
IN THE NEWS
Springfield News-Leader profile
October 2017:
“I’ve always felt a sense of responsibility … to support important causes,” Humphreys said in the statement. “We all have a duty to help each other and make life better in our communities.”
Humphreys’ statement offered up some surprisingly personal clues about the socially reserved executive:
— He once belonged to the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization normally associated with liberal causes.
— He considers himself a libertarian “with no allegiance to a particular party” and seems more in line with Democrats on some social issues.
— His grandfather worked as a butcher and a railroad laborer who came out of a hard-earned retirement to save an investment he had made in a roofing company. He founded TAMKO, the company Humphreys now runs, at age 69.
“Affluence is not a tradition on either side of my family,” Humphreys said. His father worked part time as a fingerprint file clerk at the FBI to put himself through his freshman year at George Washington University. He eventually finished college in Kansas, after a stint in the Marines during which he sent part of his paycheck home to help put his brother through college.
Humphreys said his charitable instincts came from his grandfather, “who often gave money and food to families in need, particularly during the Great Depression.” And his political leanings, he said, “were influenced greatly by my parents’ evolution from Eisenhower Republicans to committed libertarians.”
Before he took over the family business, Humphreys worked as a corporate tax lawyer in New York and Paris — after interning in the public defender’s office in Miami, Florida. He said that early job, along with his ACLU membership, shaped his concerns about an overbearing government because it gave him “firsthand insights into violations of personal liberty.”
Those beliefs extend to social issues.
“I support gay rights,” Humphreys told the News-Leader. “I support drug legalization in principle though I believe we need to see how legalization in places like Colorado evolves as we consider it as a policy issue. I do not like the idea of abortion but nevertheless I support a woman’s right to choose.”
But Humphreys is really motivated by what he sees as government restraints on the economy and his business — and what others see as consumer and worker protections.