Steve May, a 31-year-old scientist and graduate student in racing in the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program, joins the staff of Harness Tracks of America on a full time basis today

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May has a fascinating and wide-ranging background. He holds an Associates of Applied Science degree from Amarillo College in Texas, where he was class president; a Bachelor of Biological Science degree from Ohio State in Columbus, where he was involved in research in the department of molecular virology, immunology and molecular genetics; and is completing his graduate work at the RTIP, including pursuing expanded studies in the legal environment of business under HTA’s general counsel Paul Estok, who teaches at the U. of A.

May has maintained a high grade point average at the school while working full time evenings as a certified surgical technologist at the University of Arizona Medical Center, one of the major hospitals in the southwest and Southern Arizona’s only Level One trauma center. He held the same position earlier at the Grant Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio; Kettering Memorial in Dayton, Ohio; and at the famed Parkland Memorial in Dallas, Texas, where president John F. Kennedy died.

During the racing season Steve worked as a licensed racing official at Rillito Park in Tucson, where he was Clerk of Scales and performed other racing duties. As part of his work toward a Master’s Degree at Arizona’s school of racing, May worked closely with the HTA’s late Brody Johnson on a number of projects, including a trailblazing independent study on racino legislation recently distributed to HTA track executives.

May was an invited panelist and speaker at the fifth Racing Congress conducted by Harness Tracks of America and the Thoroughbred Racing Associations in Las Vegas last March, and at the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States Winter meeting in Scottsdale, AZ, last January.

(HTA)