After surviving a near-fatal surfing accident, one probation officer’s journey from paralysis to completing an ultramarathon became a powerful metaphor for personal and professional purpose. This session will explore how a near-death experience, resilience, and rehabilitation became not just a story of survival, but a renewed call to serve—more intentionally, more humanely, and more powerfully as a probation officer. Drawing parallels between his physical recovery and the rehabilitative journeys of those probation serves, this session highlights how belief, accountability, and community are essential to transformation—on both sides of the justice system.

Speaker: Patrick Yalon, Deputy Probation Officer, San Francisco County Adult Probation Department