Carly Posey

I am a national advocate for school safety. Two of my four children were inside Sandy Hook Elementary School when an armed man entered the building on December 14, 2012. Both of my children survived, but the lessons learned were significant. The lack of preparedness within the community to respond to such an incident left a lasting impression. I was determined to work toward safer schools.

Today, as Mission Director for the “I Love U Guys” Foundation, I travel the country sharing my story to promote school safety and preparedness. I hope that my experiences as a parent and a community member provide a compelling case study for the need to prepare for the unthinkable. Prior to joining the “I Love U Guys” Foundation, I served as the Executive Director for the Safe2Tell Nonprofit and as Program Director for Anderson Software.

Lieutenant Jason C. Redman, Naval Officer, US Naval SEAL

Retired Navy SEAL Jason “Jay” Redman is the author of The Trident, capturing a 21-year career and journey in leadership serving with the US Navy SEAL Teams. He has taken those lessons learned and is now sharing his motivational message with companies, teams, churches, and individuals across the globe through motivational speaking, workshops, personal coaching, and business consulting. His message of leadership, teamwork, the Overcome Mindset, and surviving life ambushes by “Getting off the X” resonates with companies and individuals alike. Jason has been requested and spoken for professional sports teams, schools, and Fortune 100 and 500 companies such as NASCAR, the NFL, MLB, McDonalds, Dell, and has been mentioned on major news networks and business publications such as the Wall Street Journal along with various other leadership blogs and forums.

Peter Lazzara, NREMT-P, BS.

Pete is a, 32 year veteran in EMS and is a highly decorated Paramedic Field Chief with the Chicago Fire Department. As a former teacher at a large all boys’ Catholic High School, Pete brings years of classroom experience to his presentations. Pete served for six years as EMS coordinator at Children’s Memorial Hospital of Chicago where he gained outstanding experience in the field of pediatrics. He also has several years of critical care transport experiences as a flight medic with Loyola University Medical Center’s LifeStar Aeromedical Program. He is the founder and President of EMSed, an educational company specializing in EMS educational concepts. He has received several awards for his work in the area of EMS including the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Ron W. Lee, MD Memorial Award for “Excellence in Pediatric Care”, the Illinois Department of Child and Family Service’s “Program Excellence Award” and West Suburban Hospital’s “Paramedic of the Year”. In May,2010, Peter was awarded the Chicago Fire Department’s “EMS Educator of Year” award. He is a nationally recognized speaker and annually presents at EMS conferences nationwide.

Lt. Troy Siewert (ret.)

Lt. Troy Siewert (ret.) is a nationally certified law enforcement instructor in mental health awareness and crisis response.

He is a certified Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Coordinator, CIT officer, Crisis Intervention Specialist, Anger Management Specialist, and an FBI-trained crisis negotiator. Troy also holds a master’s degree in criminal social justice from Lewis University.

In 2018 Troy played an integral role in updating the International Association of Chiefs of Police model policy for “Responding to Persons Affected by Mental Illness or in Crisis” and in 2021 he was selected as CIT International’s CIT Coordinator of the Year.

Troy continues to train law enforcement, hospital security, and college security officers to effectively resolve mental health crisis incidents through his training company, Insightful Crisis Response, LLC. He also sits on the Board of Directors for NAMI South Suburbs of Chicago.

Mike Caplan

Mike Caplan is a Chicago television meteorologist with more than three decades of experience forecasting weather ranging from tornadoes, to hurricanes, to blizzards, to deadly heatwaves and even a few nice days in between. Mike is a Chicagoland native and has spent nearly a quarter of a century on local news in his home town. After graduating Illinois State University with a degree in Mass Communications he completed his meteorology training at Mississippi State University. Besides being a recognizable face on TV, Mike has also carved out a strong presence on social media where his reports from Studio C (his home) dominate the internet audience when severe weather threatens. When he’s not on camera he’s behind it. Mike and his wife own Caplan Studios Photography and enjoy creating beautiful images of people as well as nature. Mike is also passionate about pets and features adoptable dogs and cats each week on his broadcasts through a program he developed thirty years ago called Perfect Pets. He and his wife have three dogs of their own-including two that they adopted through Perfect Pets.

Kevin Sears

Kevin Sears started his career as a Firefighter in the south suburbs of Chicago in 1994. He is currently a career Battalion Chief for the McHenry Township Fire Protection District in Illinois and works as a Territory Manager for Genesis Rescue Systems. Kevin is an instructor at several teaching institutions and is the Program Coordinator of the Chicagoland Heavy Rescue Academy, a flagship-class that introduces experienced rescuers to tactics that will help make successful outcomes at special entrapment incidents.

William D. Hampton, DO, FACOEP

Dr. Hampton is a full-time emergency physician and has been board certified since 2007. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Clinical Assistant Professor of Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, Midwestern University. In addition to his busy lecture schedule, he completes around 600 hours of continuing medical education (CME) annually himself.

Dr. Hampton lectures nationally and internationally on a variety of emergency medicine topics for diverse audiences including the Emergency Nurses’ Association Annual & Leadership Conferences, the Canadian National Emergency Nurse’s Association Annual Conference, the Society for Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant’s Annual Conference, American College of Emergency Physician’s Scientific Assembly, the University of Calgary Urgent Care Conference, and the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physician’s Spring Seminar. He has lectured in California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

In his free time, Dr. Hampton enjoys performing with the Manitowoc Symphony Orchestra and teaches a weekly yoga class at Holy Family’s Wellness Center. He is married with four children, the oldest: 25 and the youngest: 7-year-old twins.

Nikolai Arendovich

Nikolai Arendovich is the current Emergency Department Physician at St Josephs Medical Center in Joliet. Previously he completed an EMS fellow at the medical college of Wisconsin working directly with the Milwaukee Office of Emergency Management, Flight for Life, and the Kenosha Fire Department focusing on pre-hospital education, protocol development as well as quality improvement. He completed myhisemergency medicine training at the Washington University at St Louis.

Andrew Agos, MD

Andrew Agos, MD is a trauma critical care surgery specialist in Evanston, IL and has over 29 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated from Rosalind Franklin University Of Medicine Science/The Chicago Medical School in 1993 and completed his residency and fellowship at University of Illinois Metropolitan Group Hospitals in 1999. He is on staff at the Northshore University Health System Hospitals and an Associate Clinical Professor for the University of Chicago Department of Surgery.

Katie Goodman

Katie Goodman is an award-winning comedian, author and international speaker. Katie’s work in comedy has amassed over 3 million online views. She can be seen on Showtime, “Impractical Jokers,” and, more often than she would admit, in line getting a mocha latte with extra, extra whipped cream.

Katie literally wrote the book on using improv comedy to improve your life. Her show “Broad Comedy” plays Off Broadway and tours nationally. Her love for self-help and comedy lands her career somewhere in between Tina Fey and Deepak Chopra. Her work has been celebrated by Arianna Huffington, Comedy Central, Leslie Stahl, Time Out New York, and her Pilates teacher in Brooklyn who says she is “getting better.”

Steven S. Smith

Steven S. Smith is the Co-Founder and President of Guardian Defense. Steve authored and developed his first program in 2013 upon noticing an absence of training for teachers to know what to do in the event of a threat on campus. Working directly with schools and studying various school tragedies such as the Beslan school hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia-Alaina, Russia and the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, Steve knew he had the tools and skills to develop a program that would make an impact in the community.

Since 2013, Steve and his team of instructors have taught the Active Threat Response Program (ATRP) for Schools to staff at elementary, middle, and high schools; pre-schools; and religious education centers. Steve and Guardian Defense Instructor, Carmelo Colon, Jr. created a similar model for the workplace that includes a workplace violence prevention piece. To date, tens of thousands of employees have been trained.