OWNER’S PROFILE “Even though I can’t move my arms and legs, through teams of incredible people and with assistive technology, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot.” SCOTT ROBINSON 40 NetJets
and C4 vertebrae and was told that if he made it through the week on a ventilator, he’d spend the rest of his life, which was estimated at two to fi ve years, in a nursing home. He had a wife, two kids under three, and refused to give up on a fulfi lling life. Instead, he got a second opinion, enrolled in intensive therapy, and though he is a quadriplegic, he considers himself blessed. “I was always disappointed not to be able to play basketball or teach my kids how to drive, but that sacrifi ce translated to them being really switched on and compassionate and setting goals and making things happen,” Schmidt refl ects. “Even though I can’t move my arms and legs, through teams of incredible people and with assistive technology, I’ve been able to accomplish a lot.” Including continuing to contribute to his passion for racing—and helping others like him. Not a year after his accident, Schmidt started his own racing team, Sam Schmidt Motorsports, inspired by tetraplegic Formula One team owner Sir Frank Williams. It has become the most successful team in the history of the Firestone Indy Lights Series, winning seven series championships. In 2011, Schmidt established a full-time IndyCar team that has won the Indy 500 Pole Position twice, secured seven victories, and fi nished third in point standings twice. But that wasn’t nearly enough for this Type-A personality. In 2000, he established the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation, which was rebranded as Conquer Paralysis Now (CPN) in 2015. His foundation funds research, provides grants to organizations for the disabled, and encourages people to fi nd their passion and continue to pursue their dreams. In December 2018, CPN funded the Las Vegasbased DRIVEN NeuroRecovery Center, an 8,000-square-foot space that provides activitybased therapy for anyone with a neurological disorder. “It’s basically a boot camp for people with disabilities,” he says. “We have a gait trainer from Switzerland, zero-gravity treadmills, but also access to licensed marriage and family counselors.” The mental impact of people with neurological disabilities is under-reported, Schmidt insists, and he wants to help people like him thrive. “People with stroke, Parkinson’s, or spinal or brain injuries get kicked out of facilities by insurance companies very quickly and sent home, which results in an 85% divorce rate and high but undocumented suicide rate.” People have no idea what they are capable of until they become more independent, he says, and that’s what DRIVEN and CPN aim to do. Schmidt believes that, through his facilities— which he’s hoping to expand into 30 different communities—he can take depressed, disabled people and make them valuable members of society. “I believe we can help hundreds of thousands of people,” he insists. To do all this, the 58-year-old needs to travel—not quite the 150 days a year he was doing when he was a pro race-car driver, but still more than your average road warrior. In 2020, when the pandemic made travel for a quadriplegic near-impossible, he invested in a NetJets Ownership. Now he uses it all the time. “The fl exibility, the timeliness, the adjustment of calendar schedule, all the reasons why people normally fl y private, are the same for me, even now that we are back to relatively normal,” he says. Flying privately gives back this philanthropist some much-needed time—it takes Schmidt more than 2.5 hours to get ready in the morning; plus, his schedule and special needs can be too complicated for commercial airlines to accommodate. “Next week I go from Vegas to Los Angeles to Tampa to Vegas, so for a couple of those legs, I’ll fl y private. Nothing is spontaneous for me, and NetJets helps with that.” Of course, he still likes to drive fast. In 2014, Schmidt drove again for the fi rst time: a Corvette Stingray re-engineered by Arrow Electronics that he steered to speeds over 100 miles per hour around the Indianapolis 500 Oval. The last car he received was a McLaren 720S Spider that turns when his head turns and accelerates when he blows through a straw. “I really love driving the car, but the unforeseen benefi ts are that when people see me fl y by, it helps inspire them to accomplish great things,” he says. An injury didn’t steal his drive, it pushed him to overcome the odds. “I don’t know whether it was my dad, my work ethic, or the way I was raised that pushes me every day,” Schmidt admits. “A lot is probably the athletic component. Athletes aren’t like, ‘Will I get over this?’ No. There is a switch that goes on that says, ‘Well, I am not going to not recover, so just tell me how to fi x this.’ ” And he’s fi xing himself bit by bit every single day. ON THE RISE For the 2016 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, Schmidt drove this modified Corvette Z06. NetJets 41
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