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. 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 Vehicle Dynamics Institute ) was roaming around those locations conducting training on a regular basis. Executives working in those areas were driving in two and sometimes three car motorcades. Lead and backup vehicles had shooters. So the question was raised, “Do you guys do shooting?”.
Our answer was a resounding NO.
But, at the time John Meyer was the director of Heckler & Koch (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 developed the “Firearms Deployment during Vehicle Operations” course. Like everything we do, the training was approached scientifically.
John and I looked at case studies of vehicle attacks and came up with a methodical approach to the training. The training 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. Students from all over the world attended, including many military and government units. My guess would be that it was one of the first high-risk driving programs.
John is still active – his company, Team One Network, conducts training programs all over the world.
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