Instructor vetting

Training Training and Tactics
1

There used to be a thread on this site somewhere that I cant seem to find about vetting specifically the number of guys who claim to be instructors from Blackwater.

Anyone know where that is ?

And if not any info on:

Matt Breen
3T Instructor

Matt Breen is a retired Law Enforcement officer with more than 25 years experience and 20 years as a SWAT operator. Through his career he has gravitated towards the Special Operations field. Matt has worked extensively in the K-9 arena as a handler, assistant trainer and lead trainer. He is a certified K-9 trainer and evaluator by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and has trained hundreds of K-9 teams across the State and Country.
Matt started his LEO career as a Deputy Sheriff with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. He held the positions of Patrol Deputy, K-9 handler, Assistant K-9 trainer, SWAT team Operator and an Operator in the Close Protection Unit. Matt was trained in Close Protection by the US State Department and the US Secret Service.
In 1999 Matt served with the United Nations Mission KOSOVO and served in a war torn country conducting Close Protection Operations for the U.N. He worked as an Operator, Team Leader and second in command of a 75 man protection unit. Matt was trained by the Northern Ireland Special Operations Unit and conducted selection and training for the CPU unit in Kosovo. He has also conducted Close Protection Operations in the Middle East working for a private company as an independent contractor.
[b]Upon retiring, Matt worked as the Lead Weapons instructor with H&K at the BLACKWATER Training facility in Moyock North Carolina. [/b]He continues to further his tactical education and hand picks all his own instructors and employees based on ability, experience and tactical knowledge bringing real world operators to the forefront of today’s security and training.
Matt worked with John in Afghanistan training thousands of members of the Afghan Border Police.
Matt finished his LEO career with the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office where he held the positions of Patrol Deputy, K-9 handler and Lead K-9 trainer. He also worked in the Special Operations unit as a SWAT team Operator, Team Leader, retired as the Lead firearms instructor. Matt holds a wide range of Instructor certifications and Special Operations skills.
2

hes on linkedin, you can view his profile there if it helps.

3

If it helps…

BW had a lot of instructors rotating in and out during the mid 2000’s. So, it is quite possible to have a lot of folks rightfully claim that they were BW instructors (even if it was for short period).

4

The way I read that sentence, he was an instructor at BW, not for BW. Did HK have instructors train there?

Seems like he is a cop who worked for a municipality that had what I’m assuming is a part time SWAT team. With the level of instructors that are out there today, I’d have to have a pretty good reason to give this guy money for training. Just my opinion.

Or were you looking to train your dog? Seems like he has some experience doing that.

5

BW had / has a core group of full time Open Enrollment Instructors that did not rotate in or out of that position. The full time cadre were from time to time augmented by specific part time instructors that worked directly under the full time instructor. Only OE instructors trained Military, LE and civilian personnel attending training at the Moyock facility.

During my time there, BW and HK had a short training engagement and conducted training on behalf of HK.

I am not familiar with the name Matt Breen, however he could have been the custodian of the HK weapons fleet as per HK protocols.

6

Folks,

Hello - my name is John Brown. I am the owner of 3 Rivers Tactical Training Solutions, Inc. - a small training company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is from my website - www.3riverstraining.com - that Shawn.L copied and pasted the paragraph above pertaining to Matt Breen. We offer a lot of firearms classes around the Pittsburgh area. I am not Paul Howe, Larry Vickers, Kyle Defoor, Jason Falla, Pat McNamara, Pat Rogers or Kyle Lamb - and I don’t pretend to be. I don’t know everything about everything - I know a little bit about a little bit.

I am a veteran of the U.S. Navy. No, I was absolutely nothing close to a SEAL. I have 16 years of law enforcement experience, including 7 years as a Federal Air Marshal. I also worked for two years for Blackwater / USTC from June of 2009 - June of 2011. I was on the IRI contract in Afghanistan for a brief period of time. I spent the remaining time I was in Afghanistan as an Instructor training the Afghanistan Border Police, primarily as a firearms instructor.

I’ve been a firearms instructor since 1997. I’ve been through about a half dozen instructor school and probably three times that many as a student. I was also a Firearms and Tactics instructor during my time as a Federal Air Marshal. I’m also an armorer for the Glock, M16/M4/AR15, Mossberg shotgun, 240B, M249, and PKM weapons systems.

Matt Breen and I worked for BW / USTC together for two years in Afghanistan on the Afghanistan Border Police (ABP) contract. Matt also worked at Blackwater for a year from 2006 - 2007. During 2006 - 2007 Matt was employed by HK and was, for lack of a better term, stationed at Moyock as the HK representative at Blackwater.

Matt is a great guy, a great shooter, and one of the absolute best firearms instructors I’ve ever been around.

Jason Falla - Matt is one of the guys involved in the BW / HK training arrangement that you mentioned.

I know and understand that there are some guys in the firearms / tactical training community who embellish, exaggerate, and sometimes even completely falsify their backgrounds and resume. I can absolutely assure all of you that Matt Breen’s credentials and resume are 100% legit and completely verifiable, as are mine.

Shawn.L and I have discussed this offline.

If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, and by all means - come on out to a class some time.

John

www.3riverstraining.com

7

Anyone else done anything with these fella’s?
Not to far from me so myself and some buddies are curious

8

I have observed, or audited might be a better term, portions of 2 carbine classes that 3 Rivers Tactical has conducted. I didn’t participate in the classes as a student, I happened to be at the range when they were teaching. I observed for a total of about 3 hours.

I would have no reservations in characterizing what I saw as competent and current instruction.

9

Thanks for the input

10

Going off of what you found, it looks like he was an operator that operated on a lot of operations.

11

He’s an operator’s operator.

All kidding aside, I’m not implying that this guy is a phony or a bad trainer. In their defense, the classes are priced well below a KD, LAV, etc.

12

Guys what he wrote is true:
He did work for H&K as a Lead Firearms Instructor. One of the locations he worked at was Blackwater Moyock NC. He was NOT a Blackwater Firearms Instructor.
If he is a good or bad firearms Instructor is up to the product he can produce.
Looey.

13

I can see the reason someone is asking about instructors… one of my old 1 SGs has a web site with a load of BS on his background training duty and otherwise. I ran across it by accident trying to locate some of the guys I served with in a few units. I was suprised to find out that the unit was some “tier 1” Ranger/SF unit… that he was the 1SG of and then the list of all of the Mil Schools he went to. The company is selling “tactical gear” and designed by him and the other co-owner. They both listed about 25-30 schools each in different order.

14

Matt was the HK liason for our place back in the day. What he’s saying is correct. He worked for HK, not BW. But supported their program on our facility.

15

Thanks for the info guys !