John Nance Biography

John J. Nance, a native Texan who grew up in Dallas, holds a Bachelor's Degree from SMU and a Juris Doctor from SMU School of Law, and is a licensed attorney in Texas. Named Distinguished Alumni of SMU for 2002, he is also a decorated Air Force pilot veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield, and a Lt. Colonel in the USAF Reserve. Nance is well-known for his involvement in Air Force human factors flight safety education, and as one of the civilian pioneers of Crew Resource Management (CRM). He has piloted a wide variety of jet aircraft, including most of Boeing's line and the Air Force C-141, and has logged over 15,000 hours of flight time in his commercial airline and Air Force careers. He served as a Boeing 737 Captain for Alaska Airlines and a flight officer for Braniff International Airlines. Nance is an internationally recognized air safety analyst and advocate, best known to North American television audiences as Aviation Analyst for ABC World News and Aviation Editor for Good Morning America.

Nance has made numerous appearances on national shows such as Larry King Live, PBS Hour with Jim Lehrer, Oprah, NPR, Nova, the Today Show, and many others. His editorials have been published in newspapers nationwide, including the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has long been listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, and Who's Who Among Emerging Leaders in America.

He has authored 22 major books, including "Why Hospitals Should Fly," which won the James A. Hamilton ACHE Book of the Year in 2009, and its sequel, "Charting the Course," co-authored with Kathleen Bartholomew. His novels "Pandora's Clock" and "Medusa's Child" were adapted into successful television mini-series.

Nance is one of America's most dynamic professional speakers, presenting on topics such as teamwork, risk management, motivation, coping with competition, and healthcare reform. He and Kathleen Bartholomew (co-author and healthcare expert) deliver vital programs on Quality and Patient Safety to hospital boards, physicians, and hospital management nationally and internationally. He is a pioneering advocate of applying the lessons from aviation safety to revolutionize patient safety and performance in healthcare.

Nance is a founding board member and on the executive committee of the National Patient Safety Foundation. He resides in Friday Harbor, Washington and continues to be a key thought leader in American Healthcare, focusing on patient safety and healthcare reform. His work emphasizes the importance of transforming healthcare into a system that prioritizes patient safety and team collaboration, advocating for significant cultural and clinical changes within healthcare institutions to improve overall outcomes and patient safety.

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Speaker profile last updated by AAE Talent Team on 08/20/2025.

John Nance Speaking Topics

  • The Lessons Learned

    In the aftermath of the international healthcare emergency caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic, few if any hospitals large or small have escaped having to deal with major systemic stress. In most cases, in addition to unleashing major unexpected financial challenges, the seismic challenges to clinical staff and all support services has spawned untold examples of how people rose to the occasion (or didn't), and how bedrock procedures and strategies were changed on the fly (and in some cases abandoned) to get the job done. All of this occurred against the backdrop of a massively challenged, frightened, and often polarized civilian population whose lack of collective knowledge and understanding of the factual science often made the hospital's job infinitely more difficult. There has been created, in other words, a major anthology in terms of how your institution dealt with all aspects of the Covid-19 challenge. Moreover, every salient aspect of that anthology (including the clinical, scientific, procedural, human, and financial history) holds untold lessons. Those lessons, if captured and examined appropriately, will light the way to far more realistic systemic and professional knowledge of how high reliability, just culture, patient safety, and the highest level of care are really achieved, especially in your institution!

  • Survival and Leadership in the Healthcare Revolution

    For: All Leaders involved in healthcare, and specifically Hospital/Clinic/Healthcare System C-Suite Chiefs, Directors, Staff Vice Presidents, Managers, Department Heads (Clinical and Non-Clinical), Medical Executive Members, and Members of the Board of Directors/Trustees.

    This wide-ranging and comprehensive full-day (8 hours) of dynamic training and coaching for healthcare leaders of all levels consists of a carefully selected mix of energized didactic lectures, Socratic discussion, highly-relevant and challenging exercises, and enterprise coaching for immediate improvement of safety, quality, communication, and teamwork creation.

    Encapsulated in the curriculum are the same presentation elements and voluminous takeaway techniques that have been so highly effective in John Nance’s bi-annual segments in the Intermountain ATP Course in Salt Lake City, as well as his twice yearly segments in the Leadership Series conducted by Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

    John Nance’s background in law, system safety and human factors, national broadcasting and journalism

    • in addition to his quarter century in medicine

    • inform a wide range of useful insights regarding both the serious risks and potential remedies for being unprepared to respond appropriately to sentinel events.

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John Nance Videos

John Nance Near Miss

John Nance Near Miss

John Nance is a world-class speaker, consultant and best selling author who brings a rich diversity of professional training and background to ...

Why Humans Can’t Be Perfect | John Nance | TEDxSanJuanIsland

Why Humans Can’t Be Perfect | John Nance | TEDxSanJuanIsland

John J. Nance exposes a dirty little (universal) secret:  As humans, we expect ourselves to perform perfectly 100% of the time in our personal and...

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  • What topics does John Nance speak about?

  • Where does John Nance travel from?

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John Nance is a keynote speaker and industry expert who speaks on a wide range of topics such as The Lessons Learned, Survival and Leadership in the Healthcare Revolution , Survival and Leadership in the Healthcare Revolution – ½ Day, Surviving the Affordable Care Act Earthquake: How to Incite the Changes You Need — In Time!, The Bottom-Line Benefits of Team Leadership Training: Proven Pathway to Minimizing Errors & Maximizing Quality and The Medical-Legal Mess & How It Kills Patients. The estimated speaking fee range to book John Nance for your event is $10,000 - $20,000. John Nance generally travels from Seattle, WA, USA and can be booked for (private) corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. Similar motivational celebrity speakers are Jason Young, Afterburner, Carey Lohrenz, Garrison Wynn and Mike Abrashoff. Contact All American Speakers for ratings, reviews, videos and information on scheduling John Nance for an upcoming live or virtual event.

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