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. 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, well known for his involvement in Air Force human factors flight safety education. John has piloted a wide variety of jet aircraft, including most of Boeing's line and the Air Force C-141, and has logged over 13,000 hours of flight time in his commercial airline and Air Force careers. John flies his own turbine aircraft, was a veteran Boeing 737 Captain for Alaska Airlines, and 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.

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

John is the nationally-known author of 17 major books, five non-fiction: Splash of Colors, Blind Trust, On Shaky Ground, and What Goes Up, (all published by William Morrow), and Golden Boy (Eakin Press, 2003); plus 12 fiction bestsellers: Final Approach (Crown, 1990) NTSB investigator Joe Wallingford faces his own personal crises as he works through conflicts and cover-ups to arrive at the true cause of an airline disaster); Scorpion Strike (Crown, 1992) A military techno-thriller set after the first Gulf War); Phoenix Rising (Crown, 1994) A gripping novel of international airline finance and treachery); Pandora's Clock (Doubleday, 1995) A major New York Times Bestseller about a race against time with a doomsday virus threatening the world.; Medusa's Child (Doubleday, 1997) An edge-of-your-seat thriller about five people trapped aboard a cargo jet loaded with a ticking nuclear bomb which could destroy all the computers in North America.; The Last Hostage (Doubleday, 1998) An aggrieved father/airline captain hijacks his own airliner to force prosecution of the man he thinks killed his daughter, and rookie FBI negotiator Kat Bronsky has to try to talk him down to save over 130 lives - including her own.; Blackout (Putnam, 2000) FBI Special Agent Kat Bronsky is back and fighting for her life and the lives of seven survivors of a terrorist-caused accident; Headwind (Putnam, 2001) A real-life version of the Pinochet extradition case targeting a beloved ex-President of the U.S.; Turbulence (Putnam, 2002) Disgusted passengers of a poorly run airline stage an airborne revolt at the wrong moment); Skyhook (Putnam, 2003) A "Black" Air Force project is threatened by sabotage as an airline captain fights to regain his license and discover what knocked his private airplane out of the sky over the Gulf of Alaska.; Fire Flight (Simon & Schuster, 2003) Two national parks are burning, but the aircraft needed to douse the fires are falling apart, and veteran pilot Clark Maxwell is faced with trying to find out why, and who's cheating, before more deaths occur.; Saving Cascadia (Simon & Schuster, 2005) As the Northwest corridor implodes in the aftermath of a devastating series of earthquakes, and a tsunami of near-apocalyptic proportions approaches, so begins the quest to rescue hundreds of stranded vacationers and islanders. Pandora's Clock and Medusa's Child both aired as major, successful two-part mini-series on television.

John J. Nance is one of America's most dynamic professional speakers, presenting entertaining and pivotal programs on teamwork, risk management, motivation, coping with competition, and other topics to a wide variety of audiences, including business corporations and healthcare professionals. He is a pace-setting and well-known international advocate of using the lessons from the recent revolution in aviation safety to equally revolutionize the patient safety performance of hospitals, doctors, nurses, and all of healthcare.

John is a founding board member and is on the executive committee of the National Patient Safety Foundation. He lives in Tacoma, Washington.

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