Dan Nevins – Recipient of the George C. Lang Award for Courage, the highest award bestowed by Wounded Warrior Project
Dan Nevins is a professional speaker who has been inspiring audiences around the world with his message of perseverance, resiliency, and hope for more than a decade.
A highly decorated soldier, Dan was severely injured during combat in Iraq in 2004 after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated beneath his vehicle. He lost both legs below the knee and lives with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the emotional wounds of war.
Dan credits Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) with his successful rehabilitation, which instilled a “can-do” attitude, positive outlook and passion for helping his fellow wounded warriors in him. He quickly became an advocate for the organization, inspiring both his peers and the public to create positive change for themselves and those around them, simply by sharing his powerful story. Dan’s charismatic personality and relatable, lively approach resonated with audiences of all shapes and sizes, and he soon found himself sharing his story with hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
In 2008, Dan received WWP’s highest honor, the George C. Lang Award for Courage, for his efforts on behalf of the organization. He went on to become the director of WWP’s Warriors Speak program, where he taught other wounded warriors and their caregivers how to share their stories with the public and serve as spokespeople for the organization, much as he had.
More recently, Dan discovered the life-changing power of yoga, which has enabled him to heal from the invisible wounds of war in a way that nothing else could. He quickly realized that other wounded warriors could benefit from yoga in the same way and knew he had to become an instructor. Dan became a Baptiste Yoga teacher in 2015, and now incorporates the notion of “yoga for every-body” into his speeches and classes, encouraging people from all walks of life – and veterans in particular – to take up the practice.
Word of Dan’s efforts spread quickly, and he has been invited to teach yoga throughout the world, from the White House in Washington, DC to the Africa Yoga Project in Nairobi, Kenya. Nowadays, when he’s not leading classes for hundreds of participants, Dan can usually be found sharing his passion for life, WWP, yoga and his fellow wounded warriors with the attendees of major events ranging from the Bank of America 500 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway to the Wisdom 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
However, Dan refuses to rest on his laurels and is continuously searching for new ways to help other veterans. In late 2015, he decided to take his advocacy work one step further and established the Yodha Foundation. Through the foundation, he is developing the Warrior Spirit Retreat, a non-profit that will empower warriors and their families to greater possibilities by providing them with new tools for healing from the invisible wounds of war. Set on a serene organic family farm in St. Augustine, Florida, the holistic retreat will offer a curriculum centered on yoga, mindfulness, and meditation, and will be free of charge to veterans and their families.