For most of his career, David P. Otey has helped people communicate ideas that matter.
He has worked with scientists explaining discoveries, engineers making the case for new ideas, project leaders seeking buy-in, and professionals trying to turn expertise into understanding and action.
Along the way, he discovered this:
The right words matter. But connection has to come first.
Because before people will consider our ideas, respond to our evidence, or tell us what they really need, they need to believe that someone is listening.
David didn’t set out to become a professional speaker.
With a background in physics, engineering, and business, he spent the early part of his career in broadcast engineering.
The turning point came when David led an effort to train more than 10,000 broadcast news professionals on a new technology. He discovered that he was as interested in helping people learn, understand, and adapt as he had been in implementing the technology itself.
That experience helped move David from engineering the systems behind communication to a career spent studying, teaching, and coaching the craft of communication.
Then the conversation became personal.
For all the years David had spent teaching other people how to communicate, there was one message he found extraordinarily difficult to deliver himself:
“I’m not okay.”
Depression had gradually narrowed his world. Yet like many people who had learned to value independence, competence, and self-reliance, David kept trying to handle it on his own. Asking for help didn’t feel like strength. It felt like admitting that he wasn’t strong enough.
Eventually, he did ask for help. And in the process, he began to question some of the assumptions he had carried for years about what it means to be strong.
Then mental health became personal in another, even more frightening way when someone he loved attempted suicide.
Those experiences changed the questions David was asking.
Why can it be so difficult to tell someone we’re struggling? Why do capable, responsible people sometimes wait until they’re in crisis before asking for help? What makes one conversation feel unsafe—and another feel possible?
David began to see a connection between the work he had done throughout his career and the experiences that had changed his life.
Sometimes the most important message isn’t difficult because we don’t have the technology or know the right words. It’s difficult because we’re not sure it’s safe to say them.
And that realization changed the conversation David wanted to help people have.
Story, science, and lived experience come together.
David didn’t leave his earlier work behind when he began speaking about mental health. He brought it with him.
And his lived experience taught him something else:
Before people are ready for evidence, advice, or solutions, they often need to know that someone understands.
That is why David approaches difficult conversations with a simple principle:
Connection Before Content. Empathy Before Evidence.
It doesn’t mean that facts and evidence don’t matter. They do. But information is more likely to reach us when we first feel some connection to the person delivering it—and difficult conversations become more possible when people feel heard rather than judged.
David brings those elements together on stage: personal stories that make the ideas human, research that gives those stories context, and practical ideas people can carry back into their workplaces and lives.
David knows how to make a serious subject approachable.
The subject matter can be difficult. But that doesn’t mean the experience has to feel heavy.
David’s audiences laugh. They reflect. They participate. And sometimes a room full of people becomes remarkably quiet—not because the subject has overwhelmed them, but because what they’re hearing has connected in a surprising way.
David brings the skills of both a teacher and a storyteller to the stage. He can make research understandable without turning a keynote into a lecture. He uses humor without trivializing the subject. And he shares personal experiences not simply to tell his story, but to help audience members understand their own experiences differently.
The goal isn’t simply to move people in the moment. It’s to give them tools they can use after they leave the room.
That means ideas they can remember. Language they can use. Questions they can ask. And a greater willingness to notice when someone—including themselves—may need support.
For meeting planners and organizational leaders, that balance matters. Mental health is too important to treat casually, but a program about mental health doesn’t have to leave an audience feeling discouraged or emotionally drained.
David works to create an experience that is candid without being clinical, personal without being uncomfortable, and hopeful without pretending that these issues are simple.
When the message matters, experience matters.
David brings decades of experience in communication, education, and professional speaking to his work.
He holds master’s degrees in business administration and communication and began his career in technical and leadership roles in TV broadcasting. Since moving into speaking and training, he has worked with professionals and organizations across science, engineering, technology, project management, higher education, associations, and business.
But the credentials are not the point.
They are part of what allows David to walk into a room, understand the responsibility that comes with the microphone, and earn the trust of the people who gave it to him.
Some conversations are too important to leave to chance.
Every workplace includes people facing struggles their colleagues may never see. And every organization has a culture that influences whether those people speak up or stay silent, reach out or push on through.
David helps organizations create more of the conditions in which the right conversations can happen—through greater connection, greater understanding, and a broader definition of what it means to be strong.
If these are conversations your organization needs to have, David can help you begin them.