Speaker Spotlight
Most De-escalation Training Teaches You to Manage the Other Person. He Starts With You.
Drew Moldenhauer — Owner & Master Instructor, Blue Ethos Specialized Training · 17 Years in Law Enforcement · Co-Author on Situational Awareness · Adjunct Professor · Minneapolis
Almost every de-escalation session an organization buys is built around the other person. How to read them, what to say to them, which words set them off. It is useful, and it is also the second half of the problem.
Drew Moldenhauer teaches the first half. Seventeen years in law enforcement taught him that the person who most often escalates a tense situation is the one who is supposed to be calming it down, because their own heart rate got there before their training did.
His sessions start with self-de-escalation, which is the skill of managing your own state before you attempt to manage anyone else's. Everything after that, including his B-R-E-A-T-H-E technique for regaining control under pressure, is built on top of it.
Where the Material Came From
Drew spent seventeen years as a licensed police officer in Minnesota, which meant a career of walking into rooms where the temperature was already high and the outcome depended on what happened in the next ninety seconds. He is now the Owner and Master Instructor of Blue Ethos Specialized Training, where he builds that experience into training for organizations that will never wear a badge but face their own versions of the same moment.
The academic side runs alongside it rather than behind it. He holds a Master of Science in Public Safety Executive Leadership from St. Cloud State University, has taught as an adjunct professor at multiple institutions, and completed a year of full-time teaching at Bemidji State University. He co-authored How Smart Police Officers Use Situational Awareness to Improve Safety with Dr. Richard Gasaway, and his articles have run on Police1 and Officer.com.
That sequence is the whole argument. Situational awareness fails first when someone is flooded. Teamwork fails first when someone is flooded. A response plan that looked clean on paper falls apart because the person executing it could not think. Drew works on the condition underneath all three rather than treating them as separate training topics, which is why organizations tend to book him for a keynote and then come back for the workshops.
The Rooms He Fits
He works well for safety conferences and annual safety days, school and campus safety audiences, healthcare and clinic teams that absorb a steady volume of verbal aggression, manufacturing and trucking operations, and association and HR conferences looking for a session on teamwork that has real stakes behind it. His signature keynote, High Stakes Teamwork, is the version built for a general conference audience, and the three breakout topics go deeper for teams that need the tactical layer.
He is a weaker fit if what you want is an hour of inspiration with no homework. The law enforcement background reads as a straight motivational booking on paper, and that undersells him. The feedback that repeats is about the participation and the practice examples, which is a different compliment than an entertaining hour, and it means the session needs a room set up for people to actually work rather than sit.
He is also worth considering for the session most organizations never programme, which is the one after something has already happened. If you have had an incident and your people are back on shift with nothing offered to them, say so when you reach out, and we will tell you honestly whether a keynote is the right tool for that moment.
Drew lives in Minneapolis and is available for keynotes, breakouts, and half day and full day workshops.
Book Drew Moldenhauer
Available for keynotes and workshops on high stakes teamwork, situational awareness, de-escalation and active threat preparedness.