The Opening Keynote will begin with a procession from the Wisconsin EMS Honor Guard, followed by a quick introduction to the Conference from our Executive Director, Alan DeYoung. He will give some important updates and notes regarding the schedule, events, and the expo hall. Then, we will hear from our opening keynote speaker, Cody Spaulding - The Salty Paramedic. Read the description of the keynote below:

First responders spend their careers taking care of everyone else—but somewhere between the missed holidays, sleepless nights, traumatic calls, dark humor, overtime, and constant pressure of the job, it can become easy to forget to take care of themselves.

Don’t Lose Yourself is an honest, relatable, and often humorous look at mental health and identity in the fire and EMS professions. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience as a firefighter/paramedic, Cody Spaulding—better known as The Salty Paramedic—explores how the job can slowly change the way first responders think, feel, communicate, and connect with the people around them.

Rather than approaching mental health solely from a clinical perspective, Cody speaks from the perspective of someone who has lived the culture, sat at the kitchen table, worked the long shifts, and experienced difficult calls.