Mike Neufeldt on the job at Harley-Davidson company headquarters in Milwaukee.

Former National
Goodwill Ambassador
receives MDA’s top award

by Amy Labbe

As a 6-year-old in the first grade, Mike Neufeldt used an orange “PONY” scooter to keep up with classmates on the playground and in gym class. After attending an MDA Harley-Davidson event, where one of the drivers gave him some decals, Neufeldt

proudly plastered the company’s bar and shield on the back of his ride, and when kids inevitably asked if Harley-Davidson had made his scooter, Neufeldt told them “yes.”

Some might say it was prophetic, or perhaps written in the stars, but more than 20 years later, the New Berlin, Wis., resident works for the famed motorcycle manufacturer as a communications specialist at company headquarters in Milwaukee; there he assists in the set-up and training for various

dealer Web sites.

There’s another event in Neufeldt’s life, though, that also seems as if it always was meant to be. This year, Neufeldt, who has Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, was selected as MDA’s 2008 Robert Ross National Personal Achievement Award recipient.

The award, announced during the national broadcast of the 2007 Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon recognizing the accomplishments and community service of people with any of the neuromuscular diseases MDA covers.

This year the award was renamed in honor of Robert Ross, MDA’s longtime chief executive, who died in June 2006.

Neufeldt, who turns 30 Dec. 17, is the first PAA recipient who also was an MDA National Goodwill Ambassador as a child and, as it happens, his selection coincides with the 20th anniversary of his first term in the national ambassador role.