David -- the answer to your question is yes. Yes I sometimes travel with the speaker, and yes I wish I had the opportunity to do it more. I've had the recent good fortune of working with a speaker who actually brings the subject up on his own -- he thinks it's a good idea.

Unfortunately, I only have the opportunity to hear our CEO deliver one of my speeches at our annual employee awards banquet. But this last one, he botched the Employee of the Year's name so badly that no one came forward. He tried it again and finally a guy stood up and said feebly, "I THINK that's me." It was a nightmare. Perhaps if I wrote for an eloquent speaker I'd push for more...but given the speaker I'll stick with our current arrangement.

P.S. I did write out the name phonetically for him - but to no avail.

That's hilarious, Eye-Lean!

Wow, Eilieen. We likely all have a mispronounced name story or two, but that one really takes the cake...
In my shop, we have a standing invitation from our guy to come hear him speak whenever we can. Most of the time we only follow through on that when he is speaking in town (there is little desire to have the writers ring up hefty travel bills). However, when he is speaking in town we always make a point of trying to get to the event -- usually he doesn't even know we're there because we just slip in at the back of the room.

Imagine being trapped in a tin can at 30,000 feet with a wounded grizzly. That's the experience I had once travelling to a speaking venue with a CEO, who made a habit of not paying attention to his speeches until the night before he delivered them. We finished the speech at 7.00 a.m. the morning he was to deliver it...at 9.00 a.m., after a horrifying night of yelling, foot stomping and generally evil mayhem as the chief completely rewrote the speech and the A/V show throughout the night. I like seeing my speakers deliver their addresses....most of the time. But not this time.