South Council Luncheon Speaker
TJ Ward

TJ Ward is the North Florida Director of Advocacy for Project Opioid, a state-wide collaborative focused on gathering top leaders across all sectors of Florida’s communities to confront the overdose crisis. TJ’s focus is helping save and transform the greatest number of lives possible in the Jacksonville area by developing a coalition, implementing a regional overdose initiative, and conducting high level advocacy for vulnerable populations.
TJ has spent over 25 years of his professional life in the nonprofit sector, where he helped start and grow two large organizations from the ground up. Having spent ten of those years in educational leadership, and another 13 years as a faith leader, TJ attributes much of his success to genuinely caring for people and learning to communicate effectively with others while pointing them to a preferred future.
TJ holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Arts from Maranatha Baptist University and a Master of Science degree in Management and Administration from Nova Southeastern University. He is also a member of the Florida ATLAS State Advisory Committee, a multi-sector convening of key stakeholders organized by Florida Blue, New Directions Behavioral Health, and Shatterproof.