At S.T.A.R.T., training is tailored specifically to your needs and led by some of the finest, most experienced instructors in the world in advanced field operations—fieldcraft, tradecraft, and streetcraft—in all operational environments and profiles. Never a “cookie-cutter” class; everything is geared to the needs of the client and individuals/teams to be trained. These two statements guide every aspect of our training solutions at S.T.A.R.T. Whether it’s designing a simple skills-refreshers training event for shooting and driving or developing an entire training program to teach a range of skills to novices, we at S.T.A.R.T. work with the client to design the very best course—one that exceeds all expectations.

We often place teams in urban environments in situations where individuals must operate safely and survive to ensure mission success. Knowing how to operate in culturally-diverse settings represents a real challenge. Our “streetcraft” training is world class—it provides needed skill sets to live and work-isolated, avoiding many mistakes that the uninitiated often fall into. It moves from basic arrival skills—clearing customs & passport control, changing money, moving gear, taxi or other transportation selection, hotel or other safesite selection, restaurant survival, and more—to more specialized operational skills. We have skilled operators with hundreds of years of global deployment experience to guide trained individuals through these skills. Whether the most basic training is needed, the need to sharpen your existing skills, or need to learn enhanced operational skills, S.T.A.R.T. can do it with our flexible, “building-block” approach to training.

Often operators must deploy to locations outside of their experience—from a climate and weather perspective—i.e., hot weather guys going to the mountains of Afghanistan. S.T.A.R.T. offers the best in fieldcraft training, whether it be mountain, desert, or other unique environment requirements.

One of the most significant challenges for advanced field operations—especially semi-permissive or denied areas—is surveillance detection. Many urban areas are packed with people and the widest variety of transportation, such as cars, carts, bicycles, human-powered taxis, etc.The challenges of spotting surveillance—both mobile and fixed—are enormous. S.T.A.R.T. can help you prepare for this challenge, from the most basic training to advanced operational skills. Similarly, teams in the field receive mission requirements to conduct surveillance, or to provide counter-surveillance for themselves or other deployed teams.These two additional skill sets can also be provided, including both basic and advanced technology use.

Every operator agrees—more firearms training is needed, despite the high emphasis already placed on this training by many units. S.T.A.R.T. can give you basic fire arms instruction—perhaps on weapons you believe you may encounter but which are not currently available to you.We can give you as many rounds as you need. S.T.A.R.T. inserts you into real-life scenarios, based on actual attack profiles—then trains you how to survive these attacks. Moreover, our Team provides these profiles in ways many USG/DoD ranges cannot—shooting through glass, from inside vehicles, in close proximity to other operators. We don’t just duplicate what you get at home station (although we can offer that if requested), we add to that training in innovative, world-class ways, that parallel contemporary, operational lessons learned. For the specialized client, we can add to firearms instruction with close-in combatives instruction—training one doesn’t need until one needs it, then it’s too late to get it.

The best operators and teams always know and understand their limits. One of the most obvious training techniques that often falls short has always been advanced driving. S.T.A.R.T. offers the basics of evasive driving—not precision or high-speed driving—but rather, simple tactics, techniques, and procedures to get yourself and your team “off the X” to survive and complete your mission.We can also teach more advanced driving skills, which incorporate attack profiles and reaction to these dangerous situations. S.T.A.R.T. driving training incorporates live fire from moving vehicles, stationary vehicles, and allows for shooting from a vehicle’s interior, and through glass.These techniques have proven vitally important to team survivability in many cases, yet virtually no other training entity, and never a DoD firing range, allows for this type of emerging, critical mission training.

Living in an austere environment—and many global urban environments can be austere despite high population density—represents a tough survival and operational challenge for many individuals and teams. S.T.A.R.T. can help you position yourself and your team for these challenges, ensuring you are able to focus on the mission first. From safehouse selection to escape and evasion planning and execution, to passing border crossing points, to surviving interrogation and confinement—we have a wide variety of blocks of instruction to enhance operational survivability. Our job is to keep you and your team “in the box”—to survive tough interrogation techniques, and hone your survival skills, either as an individual or as a team member, confined or isolated. Just ask us for more, and we can provide it!
Although not universally recognized, executing escape and evasion may require a rather unorthodox skill set. For example, S.T.A.R.T. provides surreptitious entry basic and advanced skills.While not for everyone or every team, operations in some environments demand at least basic skills in this area. Ask S.T.A.R.T. to review your mission profile, and we may determine that these skills would enhance your team’s operational success, and then provide those skills to you.
Running clandestine field operations is strictly limited by the USG and must be officially sanctioned, with highly-skilled field HUMINT operators. However, the demands of ratline development for E&E may demand some skills in agent development that does not reach the accepted threshold of clandestine agent recruitment. S.T.A.R.T. offers skills training in asset/informant handling for precisely those situations.