Richard McKeon Ph.D., MPH  has been engaged in international suicide prevention efforts since 2007 through IASP, through the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership (now Global Leadership Exchange), and through the International Zero Suicide and Crisis Now summits. He has served as the US representative to IASP and has been engaged in IASP’s Partnerships for Life efforts to promote the development of national strategies around the world. He also participated in the development of the World Health Organization’s first World Suicide Report. He served on the task forces that developed the 2012 and 2024 US National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.  

 In 2001, he was awarded an American Psychological Association Congressional Fellowship and worked in the US Senate for Sen. Paul Wellstone. He spent five years on the AAS Board as Clinical Division Director.  

 He has worked at SAMHSA in the US Department of Health and Human Services from 2003 through 2026, including serving for 12 years as Chief of the Suicide Prevention Branch. He oversaw development of the Garrett Lee Smith  Youth Suicide Prevention grant program, which has demonstrated reductions in youth suicide in funded counties, as well as the Campus Suicide Prevention program, the Zero Suicide grants, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, and the Native Connections program. He has worked with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline since its inception in 2005, including establishing the foundation for 988 as the national suicide prevention number. In 2008, he was appointed by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the Secretary of Defense in 2009 to the task force on suicide prevention among veterans and military service members. He was instrumental in establishing the  National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention in 2010. 

In 2023, he was awarded the AAS Dublin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Suicide Prevention.  He was honored for his lifetime contribution to crisis care at the Crisis Now III Global Summit in Amsterdam