The Climb Back
For: leadership groups, recovery and resilience events, working teams.
Audience leaves with: a grounded way to identify one next action without pretending the whole climb is finished.
Keynotes · Workshops · Panels · Podcasts
Plain truth for rooms doing hard work.
Ryan speaks from lived experience about service, fatherhood, responsibility, rebuilding and the small actions that help people return to connection.
A grounded voice
Not a victory speech.
Ryan is a father, U.S. Air Force TACP veteran, oilfield leader, traumatic brain injury survivor and author of Mountains, Monsters & Mercy.
His strongest conversations are not about defeating adversity. They are about what happens after survival—when the habits that kept a person moving begin to damage the people and places that matter.
He brings plain language, concrete stories and practical anchors. He does not provide medical, legal or therapeutic advice, and he does not force a clean trauma-to-triumph ending.
Best fit: audiences willing to hold strength and accountability in the same conversation.
Suggested talk directions
Choose the conversation your audience needs.
What Survival Does Not Teach You
For: veterans, first responders, high-pressure teams.
Audience leaves with: language for recognizing when useful armor has followed them into a room where it no longer helps.
Service After Service
For: veteran organizations, universities, workforce programs.
Audience leaves with: a way to translate discipline and service into connection, responsibility and a new contribution.
Fatherhood, Estrangement and Responsibility
For: family groups, churches, men’s groups, podcasts.
Audience leaves with: a distinction between asking for access and building a living record of changed behavior.
Building Again After Life Breaks Apart
For: businesses, schools, blue-collar workforces, faith communities.
Audience leaves with: four small practices for interrupting isolation and naming the next right action.
Technology That Helps Instead of Buries People
For: businesses, creator groups, operations teams.
Audience leaves with: a people-first test for deciding whether a tool removes human burden or simply adds more machinery.
Audience and format fit
Built for a real room, not a canned speech.
Audiences
- Veteran and first-responder organizations
- Businesses and leadership groups
- Schools and universities
- Churches and faith communities
- Blue-collar workforce audiences
- Fatherhood and family groups
Formats
- Keynote
- Workshop
- Panel
- Podcast or media interview
- Virtual conversation
- Book-club or group discussion
Planning notes
- Topics are adapted to the audience.
- Family details remain within published and approved boundaries.
- No speaking fee is published on this site.
- Travel, timing and format are discussed before confirmation.
Speaking and media inquiry
Tell us about the room.
Share the audience, purpose, date, location and format. Every meaningful inquiry returns to personal review.
For a podcast or interview, include the show name, audience, recording window and the conversation you want to have.