Team Members
Paul Pawela
Retired from the Military -10(TH) Special Forces Group (ABN)
Military H Instructor Identifier & SOCOM Hand to Hand Combat Instructor
Former Team Leader and Tactical Trainer QRF for Counter Terrorism
Previously worked with all Special Operations forces which included US Army
1ST Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta Force and the United States Seal Team Six.
Graduate of three different police academies and served as a Police Officer in Three Different States
Over 40 years of Martial Arts Experience – Certified Instructor in Jeet Kune Do & Kali and the American Warrior Free Fighting System
Recognized as one of the top knife Instructors in the Country.
William Stasak
Bill is an avid firearms user and shoots in various shooting leagues from pistol to three-gun competitions.
He is a National Rifle Association (NRA) Benefactor Life Member and lifetime United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) Member.
He is a certified Glock armorer and a gunsmith. Bill also is a United States Concealed Carry Association (USCCA) Certified Instructor, NRA Certified Instructor, conducts Refuse to Be a Victim Seminars, and is a Chief Range Safety Officer. He holds an Ultimate Training Munitions (UTM) Certification and teaches self-defense force on force classes. Bill is always trying to hone his skills, so he continues to learn from other instructors in the art of firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and every aspect of self-defense he can. Not being a native Floridian, he is originally from the mid-west, where he grew up hunting and fishing. Bill has opened and still operates multiple companies, including an IT and Telecommunications company based in Des Moines Iowa, and this firearms company in Merritt Island, Florida.
Jason Brooks
Jason Brooks has been training in martial arts since 1977 as an understudy of Grandmaster John Natividad. Jason currently has four different black belts in the styles of Tang Soo Do, Karate-Do, Bushinkai Ninjutsu, and Krav Haganah. Jason has been inducted into the Universal Martial Arts Hall of Fame as well as the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame. Jason’s rich martial arts background led him to join the United States Marine Corps, where he would come to serve as the lead instructor in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program for his unit, 2D Recon Battalion. Jason trained over 300 Recon Marines in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. and 3500 active-duty Marines, Sailors and reserve forces in all aspects of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare. In 2005, Jason was medically retired from the Marine Corps due to the injuries he sustained during combat operations in Iraq. In 2017, Jason started working at CRI Counter Terrorism Training School as the veteran outreach coordinator, and recruiter, then eventually became a lead instructor for their tactical training programs. Additionally, Jason is an adjunct instructor for the National Association of Chief of Police and trains police officers in advance officer survival.
Byron Brooks
Byron Brooks is an Army combat Veteran and former government security contractor. He specialized in working on government projects in austere locations in conflict zones across the globe. He has been deemed a subject matter expert in high threat environment security work by the U.S. State Department. Not only does he have experience working in high threat environments, he was an instructor at a Special Operations Compound in the Middle East where he taught and assessed others for select overseas government positions. Byron brings years of operational real-world experience with him to the team.
Pablo Martinez
Engineer with the US human lunar space program with experience in mechanical, electrical, and pyrotechnics systems.
Trained in the martial arts, fencing, firearms, tactical medical, home defense, vehicle defense, active shooter response, knife/counter-knife, weapons retention and disarming, realistic self-defense, force-on-force – including UTM, pistol, and carbine instructor development, and others. Always a student, continue acquiring more knowledge and develop skills.
Skilled as an integrated thinker able to bring together multidisciplinary concepts and ideas into comprehensive solutions to complex projects and problems. Prior military experience was with aircraft maintenance instead of firearms. All these skills have been acquired through training with some of the best in the business. That experience is beneficial to relate these concepts to civilian students better.
Sherry Myers
Sherry is a Florida native who has been shooting since the age of four. She completed college in the Northwest at both Eastern Washington University, and Gonzaga University. In 2013 she came back to her home state and started a church gun group which quickly evolved into her instructing its members. She launched “Shooting With Sherry” in 2016, through which she continually provides firearm instruction to men, women and children. She has also trained individual ROTC, Army, and LEO rookies to successfully complete their qualifications. Along with being NRA and USCCA certified, she has received various professional training; some of which include Massad Ayoob MAG-40, Sig Sauer Instructor, and Shannon Smith Shooting, prior to training with and joining Assault Counter Tactics.
She was a guest instructor for a special Big Daddy Unlimited private instruction event, and appeared on BDU’s “The Gun Show”. She has twice been a radio guest on Flagler based, “The Joe Mullins Show” and more recently has been featured in “American Shooting Journal”, as well as “Armed Lifestyles Magazine”.