BRTC contracts with Proventus to train for crisis shooting responses

Children were dying and the police were not responding inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022. An 18-year-old gunman, Salvador Ramos, barricaded himself inside the school.

Responding officers were worried about the AR-15 Ramos was using to kill students and they waited an hour to engage him. During that time, 19 students and two adults were killed.

Proventus CEO Michael Stern told Talk Business & Politics he was stunned when he watched video of the attack. At one point, a responding officer stopped to put hand sanitizer on his hands even as shots rang out.

Stern said that failure of a response inspired him to form his company, Proventus. The company offers tactical training, leadership courses, safety and security assessments for schools, companies, law enforcement agencies and others.

“I had an epiphany in that moment … it was a failure. A catastrophic failure. Those officers lacked the proper training. I knew we could change that,” he said.

Stern, along with a team of former Navy SEALs developed courses to teach individuals and organizations how to respond in crisis situations. Last year, Proventus signed an agreement with Black River Technical College. “Heroic Leadership Courses: Harnessing the Navy SEAL Strategy for Workplace Excellence” are now offered at BRTC.

BRTC worked with Proventus throughout the summer of 2023 to form this leadership development series. What started as a pilot class became a five-hour connection event in which the Navy SEAL presenter, Stephen Barrett, connects professionals to personal experiences and lessons he learned while serving as commander master chief of SEAL Team 4. He helps professionals apply leadership techniques and become more self-aware through stories of his time as a leader and member of an elite team during a time of conflict.

“We are excited about this unique partnership with Proventus in order to bring their Heroic Leadership classes to businesses and industries. This collaboration showcases our commitment to providing our region with the Heroes & Craftsmen needed to excel and lead in today’s ever-changing world,” said BRTC President Dr. Martin Eggensperger.

Hospitals, churches, industrial businesses and others can enlist Proventus to create tailor made training for crisis situations, Stern said. Deescalating conflicts is taught as well, he added.

The company is building a 40,000-square-foot training facility in Jonesboro. Once completed, those in the programs will have a mix of live action scenarios and virtual reality as a part of their training.

For instance, one virtual reality training program can simulate the inside of a person’s home. The person can be trained how to react if someone tries to break in and it will look like the inside of their actual house, he said.

Proventus won’t just cater to Northeast Arkansas. The goal is to bring in people and organizations from throughout the region, Stern said.

“It’s going to be a destination site for the mid-South,” he said. “We want to bring people in from Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and other states to train at our facility.”

One of their goals is to form partnerships with cities to help train local law enforcement. Officers receive training at the academy to become police officers, but there is often a gap or lapse in training once they are on the job, he said.

The company has already had a training session with about 80 Jonesboro police officers.

“Our goal is to close that gap,” he said.

Stern was living in Virginia when he was encouraged to bring Proventus to Jonesboro. One of the reasons he decided to headquarter the company in Arkansas was he wanted to create the facility rapidly and Jonesboro was the right fit in that regard, he said.

Once the operation is fully up and running, Stern said they could have as many as 100 employees working for the company, and he believes the training courses offered could eventually lead to hundreds of security related jobs in the region.

After the facility opens, the company will be able to ramp its efforts, Stern said. To this point, he’s pleased with the work they’ve done.

“It’s been wildly successful,” he said.