Reply #9: Tier 1 Group

[starroute]

Tier 1 Group, which is owned by Cerberus, runs a tactical training center in Arkansas. Their official webiste (http://www.t1g.com/) doesn't tell you much beyond a listing of their facilities and training courses, but the best explanation of their history I found last year was at a gun-related discussion board. Basically, they're operating out of a facility that was formerly owned by the Olive Group (a well-connected British security firm) but have added modifications and improvements since they acquired it in 2009.

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1639396

The facility located in Crawfordsville Arkansas started off decades ago as OMNI Explosives. Then Tactical EXPLOSIVE Entry School (T.E.E.S.) took over the small parcel of land from OMNI. OMNI moved down the road and T.E.E.S. built their brand. A few years ago Olive Group North America bought T.E.E.S. & the site. They also bought the surrounding property so they could build a site for their new company Olive Security Training Center or O.S.T.C. . OSTC ran their operations with some good results until a number of things happened in the industry & overseas that saw a majority of the business dry up overnight. O.S.T.C. site improvements were put on hold and the facility was put on the market.

While O.S.T.C. was building their brand & site T1G was brought into the industry by its founder & retired Marine Steve Reichert. Reichert wanted to build his facility in NC, however after 3 years of working on multiple land development projects the O.S.T.C. site was for sale. By then T1G had a great reputation in the SOF community even without a facility. T1G acquitted the assets of O.S.T.C. in 2009 and immediately started site improvements & modifications to meet the demands of their SOF clientele. Also in 2009 T1G started a new brand strictly dedicated to civilian and law enforcement called High Caliber Training or HCT. T1G handles all DoD training and HCT Civ/LE.

The sentence I put in bold is of particular interest to me, because I suspect that this kind of training of police officers in what is essentially a military context (and Tier 1 isn't the only facility that offers it) may be partly responsible for the militarization of civilian law enforcement that we're seeing in the suppression of OWS.

The Arkansas facility, by the way, is notable for having a replica of an Afghan village on-site for training purposes. This was there in the Olive Group days but has apparent been upgraded since.