My name is Adam Netzel. I am a career Air Force intelligence officer with over 17 years time in service and more than 20 years experience as a public speaker, performer, trainer, and coach. Over the last couple decades, I have spoken in front of audiences ranging from just a few people to hundreds at all levels from new trainees to members of Congress. I have extensive experience taking dense, complicated, complex topics and turning them into digestible, approachable presentations. What’s more, I have trained and coached hundreds of others to do the same. I have a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in theater as well as a master’s in Data Analytics, giving me a unique blend of education that directly informed both my career and personal approach to public speaking.
I’ve been speaking in front of others as long as I can remember. I don’t recall a time in my life that I ever had stage fright or backed away from any kind of public speaking. I performed in theater from a young age, competed in impromptu speaking in high school, wrote and directed original productions in college, managed a dinner theater, and worked as a marketing expediter and project manager – all before starting my Air Force career. I spent my first four years as an aircraft maintainer before switching to intelligence, and it was there that I truly learned the art of training others to speak in public.
I learned a lot of hard lessons on how to be an effective trainer and mentor. I discovered effective methods for giving feedback, learned how to illustrate public speaking concepts so that others could understand them, and developed an numerous techniques to make public speaking an accessible, attainable skill for anyone from any walk of life. Thirteen years later, I have compiled all of those lessons into a book, set to be released on June 1, 2025. This website serves as both a tool to raise awareness for the book, but also to provide a platform to pass on many of the same lessons contained in my book – and much more that couldn’t fit between the pages.
I hope you find something of use on this site. Feel free to leave a comment on any post asking a question, or head over to r/PublicSpeaking where I am an active Redditor, going by the username sonobyte. Stay tuned to the site as I add sections providing slide deck templates, tutorials on designing presentations, tips for public speaking, body language, communication, and much more.