Speakers

Mr. Ryan Hendrickson is a former Sergeant First Class U.S. Special Forces (Green Beret) engineer and the founder of the NGO, Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal. He served four years both in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force, before serving 14 years in the U.S. Army. During this time he completed six deployments to Afghanistan, as well as to Iraq and several South and Central American countries. He completed a final two deployments to Afghanistan as a military contractor, with his final being the U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021. Ryan's decorations include the Silver Star, four Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart, and an Army Commendation Medal with Valor.

During his first deployment to the country in 2010 he stepped on an IED while conducting Village Stability Operations where they trained and helped Afghan villagers to protect themselves from the Taliban, including counter-IED. He returned to Afghanistan for his second deployment after an 18-month rehabilitation process. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he founded Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal, which purchases demining equipment and detectors and trains Ukrainian sappers to help them tackle the enormous landmine contamination in their country. He is also an author and veterans' mental health advocate.