The photo and everything after
The keynote. April 19, 1995, the twenty years of silence that followed, and what it cost him before he asked for help.
Speaking
Most people carrying trauma look fine from the outside. Chris Fields did, for twenty years. He talks about the mask, what it cost him, and how he finally took it off.
The talks
Chris shapes each talk to the audience in front of him. Larger departments have booked him for several days of repeated sessions so every shift hears it: three sessions a day at the Los Angeles Fire Department, two a day in Sacramento.
The mask
Why the people everyone leans on are often the last to admit they are struggling, and what it costs them to keep performing strength at work and at home.
Where it started
Why the hardest years often trace back to something much older, and why naming it was the turning point in his recovery.
How to help someone who says they're fine
What Chris has learned as a peer team member with the Oklahoma First Responder Wellness Division: how to open the conversation, what to say, and what not to. Especially for family and friends watching someone they love fall apart.
Leading people who won't ask for help
For leaders in any organization. The culture that teaches people to stay quiet, what that silence costs, and what changes when leadership goes first. Taught annually at the OCFD L.E.A.D. Academy.
Who he speaks to
- First responders (fire, law enforcement, EMS and hospital trauma)
- Corporate audiences
- Military audiences, including the U.S. Navy SEALs and the U.S. Army
- The FBI Academy
- Wellness seminars, symposia and statewide conferences
- Banquets, galas and family nights
- Clinicians who treat first responders
What an organizer gets
- A speaker who has done the job, not a consultant describing it.
- A talk built around your people and what they are carrying right now.
- Peer support training grounded in critical incident stress management, not motivational language.
- A press kit, biography and photographs ready for your program.
Recent engagements
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Pepperdine University
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Kansas Law Enforcement Training Crisis Response and Resource Symposium
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Oklahoma Haz Mat Conference
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Leave No Victim Behind Virtual Conference
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Mid-Del Tinker 100 Club First Responder Banquet
Check a date
Tell him the room, the date and who will be sitting in it.