Braxton McCoy has over a decade of public speaking experience and has engaged a wide variety of audiences, including Fortune 500 executives, military members, rehabilitation centers, and NBA, MLB, and NFL players and executives. He is unmistakably humble, raw, compassionate, and humorous; his powerful story and frank methods of introducing these values stay with audience members long after the ovation has come to an end.

In 2006, Sgt. Braxton McCoy (Ret.), while performing a security detail outside of Ramadi, Iraq, was severely wounded by a suicide bomber. Both his legs and arms were broken in multiple places, his spine was fractured, he had a number of fractured ribs, there was bleeding in the brain, and he had a severed medial nerve in his right hand. What followed was over two dozen surgeries and nearly a decade of physical therapy and rehabilitation.

It was during his long-term recovery that Sgt. McCoy twice served as a National Advocate for the Army Wounded Warrior Program and twice as a Veterans’ Advocate for the Coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans in the District of Columbia. Those four years as an advocate were focused on getting veterans back to work as a meaningful way to outflank Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

In 2013, Sgt. McCoy started the Warrior Employment Project, a non-profit designed to connect veteran families in need with CEOs and CIOs. The non-profit had the dual purpose of leading veterans to employment as well as working with these families to solve immediate financial problems impeding their progress.

In 2018, he ceased running that non-profit initiative and now spends his time training horses and writing and speaking about what it takes to overcome the challenges that life inevitably sends our way. When he is not working, you can find Sgt. McCoy interacting with the horses he loves, climbing mountains to reach the best hunting and fishing in America’s backcountry, teaching others to hunt and fish, or competing in endurance races.

As a result of his service, he has been awarded several medals, including an Army Commendation Medal with V Device for exceptionally valorous achievement in combat and a Purple Heart.