Ryan McDermott

Ryan McDermott is an Iraq War veteran and West Point graduate who has lived in two high-pressure worlds: infantry leadership and Wall Street. Commissioned as an Infantry Officer in 2000, he earned the Ranger Tab and led a hybrid infantry-armor platoon in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, receiving the Bronze Star medal. He later returned home to the quieter battles of PTSD, marriage and fatherhood - then faced another reckoning during the Lehman Brothers collapse and 2008 financial crisis.

His memoir, Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet, is a multiple award-winning work, earning the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal, the Illumination Book Awards Gold Medal, finalist honors in two categories from the Chanticleer International Book Awards, a 9.5/10 critics score from the BookLife Prize, and was also named a finalist in the Feathered Quill Book Awards.

McDermott writes and speaks about resilience, responsibility, and the hard road back to what matters most.