A young – very young - me in the Middle East my guess around mid 80’s
In the late 80’s and early 90’s South America in general and Colombia in particular was not someplace you took the wife and kids for a vacation, and the Middle East was its usual pit of a place. Other than soccer Vehicle Attacks were the national pastime. The old Scotti School (like the present day Tony Scotti’s Vehicle Dynamics Institute) was roaming around those locations conducting training on a regular basis.
A young – very young – John demonstrating shooting stuff
Executives working in those areas were driving in two and sometimes three car motorcades. Lead and backup vehicles had shooters, so the question came up “Do you guys do shooting”. Our answer was a resounding NO. But at the time John Meyer was the director of H&K Training, and happened to be an old friend, John and I first met in 1985. To meet the needs of the market John and I got together, and put together the “Firearms Deployment during Vehicle Operations”. Like everything we do it was approached scientifically. John and I looked over case studies of vehicle attacks, and came up with a methodical approach to the training.
- Around 25 years later – John and I at the VDI reception during ASIS
This is an article about the program that appeared in SWAT Magazine in 1995.
Swat Article 1 Swat Article 2 Swat Article 3
The course was offered at the Police Training Facility in Lakeland Florida. At that time it was one of the few training areas where you could safely do driving and shooting. The courses took off with students from all over the world attending, including many military and government units. My guess would be that it was one of the first high risk driving programs.
- John working during the Firearms Deployment During Vehicle Operations – my guess early 90’s
John is still active – his company Team One Network conducts training programs all over the world.
The Pit again my guess early 90’s
These are some articles John has written:
http://www.teamonenetwork.com/articles/paranoid10.pdf
http://www.teamonenetwork.com/articles/IALEFIRealisticArticleWCover2.pdf
It was great spending time with John at the VDI reception during the ASIS Convention – we are exploring ways of conducting joint training programs – who knows we may even revive the “Firearms Deployment during Vehicle Operations” training program.