BTM134 - Nick Howland and Ryan Haczynski - Suicide Prevention with The Fire Watch Program

Behind The Mission

Show Summary

On this episode, we’re featuring a conversation about suicide prevention with representatives of The Fire Watch, a state-wide suicide prevention program in Florida that provides training to community members about how to identify and support service members and veterans who may be at risk for suicide. My guests today are Nick Howland, a Navy Veteran and CEO of The Fire Watch, and Ryan Haczynski, a suicide loss survivor and Citizen Watch Stander with The Fire Watch program.

About Today’s Guests

Nick Howland is Executive Director of The Fire Watch, Florida’s fight to end veteran suicide. Nick is a Navy veteran, defense industry executive, husband and father of two boys. After serving 4 years as a Naval Officer, Nick spent the next 20 years leading U.S. defense manufacturing businesses focused on protective products for soldiers, airmen and sailors, including body armor, life rafts and tactical boats. In late 2019, Nick helped found The Fire Watch, and in 2022, he was elected to the Jacksonville City Council, At Large Group 3, serving all of Duval County.

Ryan Haczynski is a former educator who spent two decades in the classroom impacting the lives of others. He now leads a small team as the Director of Protocol Relations at Lucky Friday Labs, a blockchain infrastructure provider in the Web3 industry. He has both former and current military members in his family, and serves as a Citizen Watch Stander with The Fire Watch organization.

Links Mentioned In This Episode

The Fire Watch Web Site

Watch Stander Training Program

PsychArmor Resource of the Week

This week’s PsychArmor resource of the week is the one of the many PsychArmor courses that support education related to suicide, the PsychArmor course Suicide in Military Members & Veterans. Dr. Craig Bryan provides an overview of military suicide statistics and explains unique factors that may be related to increased rates in military suicide.

You can find the course here: https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/suicide-in-military-members-and-veterans

This Episode Sponsored By:

This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystems specializing in military culture content PsychArmor offers an. Online e-learning laboratory that is free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations.

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Theme Music

Our theme music Don’t Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.

Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families. You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com