Wayne Curtin first got involved fighting for motorcyclists' rights in 1983 as a member of Freedom of Road Riders (FORR), the state motorcyclists' rights organization in Missouri. There, he served as a tenacious volunteer lobbyist at the Missouri statehouse from 1985 to 1988.
In 1988, he went to work as vice president of government relations for the Motorcycle Riders Foundation (MRF), a national motorcyclists' rights group in Washington, D.C. He served on the AMA Board of Directors for three years beginning in 1992. He left the MRF in 1998 to pursue a master’s degree in public administration. He then joined the Harley-Davidson Motor Company in 2000, where he served first as manager and later as director of government affairs for more than eight years.
Rob Rasor, former AMA vice president for government relations, notes that Curtin "worked hard and he worked smart. Innumerable motorcyclists benefited from Wayne's leadership and expertise on Capitol Hill."
Before fighting for motorcyclists' rights, Curtin was an engineer and training supervisor in the nuclear power industry.