I started my law enforcement career in the United States Air Force in 1992 before being honorably discharged in 1996. I spent my first four years in civilian law enforcement with the Butte-Silver Bow Police Department in Butte, Montana. 

In 2001, my family and I relocated to Fort Collins, Colorado, where I spent the next 17 years serving with the Fort Collins Police Department in

a variety of roles. I was an entry specialist on the SWAT team, a School Resource Officer, in-service training coordinator, recruit academy coordinator, and my favorite task was serving as a lead defensive tactics instructor. 

It was here that my passion for coaching and building confidence in our officers, young and old, truly took hold. 

In 2003 I started supplementing my law enforcement training by attending Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) classes several times a week at a local gym. I loved the process of getting better at BJJ and immersed myself in the culture of it. I began looking for law enforcement specific BJJ options and there were not many. Thankfully, I found Shane Pitts and his Law Enforcement Ground Skills program.

Instructor:

Shane Pitts was one of north America’s first BJJ Black Belts and was running a successful BJJ school in Denver, Colorado. He was one of the first true mixed martial arts coaches, with a background in judo, wrestling, and striking to go along with his BJJ skills. 

He was preparing and coaching fighters from the very first Ultimate Fighting Championship event in 1993 and was involved in training multiple world championship level fighters. 

His law enforcement training courses felt a lot like a fight camp. Hard conditioning, lots of live grappling, and many realizations about what being in fighting shape was or was not. It was not uncommon to hear a student complaining about how hard Shane’s classes were years after attending one. 

Shane taught me the value of teaching real life skills that work for everyone. I saw the importance of knowing the why and how of the techniques. I learned how to build confidence in our law enforcement students by pushing them harder than most traditional classes would.

Teacher:

Al Brown was the lead instructor and creator of the Fort Collins Police Defensive Tactics system which was one of the first blended systems I had ever experienced. Here we were taught the best parts of numerous different disciplines that we would mesh to create a system that worked for our agency and community. 

Al taught me to be a teacher and how to apply adult learning principles to the skills being taught on the mat. He was professional in all manners of prepping for a course, creating student buy in, and in building a program that met the needs of the students through soliciting their feedback. 

It was here that I learned the importance of addressing the affective learning domain through open and honest communication. He showed me how to diagnose performance problems through conversation, creativity, and not simply by demanding more physical repetitions. 

Coach:

In 2012 my BJJ journey took me to Trials Mixed Martial Arts where I got to train with and learn from Ryan Schultz. 

He was one of the original members of the famed mixed martial arts gym, Team Quest, out of Oregon. Ryan trained alongside such legends as Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen, just to name a few.

Ryan was himself a former world champion and brought with him an intensity and passion for getting the absolute best out of every student. It was under his tutelage that I would compete in my mixed martials arts fights from 2014-2016. 

At the young age of 42, I wanted a challenge, and it was time to test myself. I needed to see if I could execute what I believed in when it mattered most. This process allowed me to find answers to questions I had been seeking. I was able to create community through charitable donations and found a passion to bring Ryan’s style of coaching to law enforcement professionals around the country. 

Team Hardy:

After teaching thousands of hours to Fort Collins Police Officers from 2006-2015, we launched our Coaches Certification Program in 2015, by hosting our first class back where my career started, in Butte, Montana. 

It was our mission to be different from all other training programs. We could coach officers to believe in themselves through hard work, real skills, and by applying proven adult learning techniques. 

Over the past seven years we have continued to evolve our skills but our commitment to our students remains the same.  Giving cops confidence to win!

Thank you for joining our community of coaches around the country.