Greg FAUGHT, ITG 9
"Precision"
Greg Faught is a graduate of all four open enrollment training courses offered by the International Training Group™. He also serves as ITG®’s Subject Matter Expert on Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).
A 1982 Graduate of Lodi, California High School, Greg went on to serve in the California Army National Guard with the 76th Infantry Detachment as a Pathfinder (Airborne) from 1982-1987. He then served in the US Army Reserve from 1987-1988 with the 12th Special Forces Group (Airborne), also as a Pathfinder. After being honorably discharged from the service, he began his Law Enforcement (LE) career and has been serving the Stockton Police Department (PD) since 1990.
EOD / IED
Currently, as a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) certified Bomb Technician, Faught is a member of the Stockton California Police Department’s EOD Team and the San Joaquin County Metropolitan Bomb Squad. His duties include frequently serving as the Officer in Charge of the EOD response to explosive or potentially explosive related incidents. These situations often require Greg’s coordination between the Bomb Squad, Police Patrol, Fire Department, Fire HAZMAT, and Ambulance services.
Another of Greg’s duties is the planning, coordination, and conduct of numerous training events for the Metropolitan Bomb Squad. The subjects of his training courses have included: Explosives Safety & Destruction, IED Render Safe Procedures, and EOD Practical Exercises. He has also planned and conducted Explosives Recognition, IED Recognition, Vehicle Borne IED (VBIED) Demonstrations, and Explosives Safety training for over 400 Police Patrol, SWAT, Fire Department, and Executive Protection (EP) personnel, including many of the students of ITG®. He was responsible for the planning, production, and presentation of a training video on these subjects for “Roll Call” training to all Police Patrol personnel of the Stockton Police Department.
Pistol Competition
In addition to the precise nature of his IED/EOD work, Greg has also been quite successful at winning marksmanship trophies and medals by shooting more aggressively, faster, and certainly straighter than some serious, top notch competition. However, when meeting him, one is struck by his calm, quiet demeanor and the humility, almost embarrassment, with which he reluctantly begins discussing his impressive achievements. Nonetheless, once he is engaged in talking about shooting, tactics, and competition, Greg’s excitement becomes visible in his normally subdued body language and his passion is easily detectable in his speech.
“I earned individual Gold Medals on two separate occasions as a competitor in the ‘Police Action Pistol’ (combat pistol) event during the California Police Summer Games,” Greg said recently. It turns out that he medaled each time he participated individually, quite an achievement by itself, and also helped the Stockton PD Pistol Team earn team medals on a couple of occasions as well. But this is not the discussion that really gets Faught’s juices flowing. That does not happen until he discusses his greatest triumph.
Greg says, “The highest level I ever competed on was the ‘Law and Order Magazine’ National Tactical Invitational. I had to send a resume of my marksmanship competition record in to the organization and was eventually selected to go to Gunsite Training Center, which hosted the competition at their facility in Paulden, Arizona.” Greg competed with the Sig Sauer P226 9mm as his Duty Weapon and the Walther PPKS .380 as his Back-up. When the smoke had cleared after two strenuous days of competition, he was the high police participant, the “Top Cop” shooter.
He remembers that, “The competition was made up of ten scenarios; seven live fire courses and three force on force scenarios with simulated munitions. There was no gaming these courses.” Unlike any IPSC, USPSA, or other shooting competitions he had competed in previously, there was no prior knowledge of any of the courses of fire and no opportunity to rehearse. “It was more lifelike and reactionary than any other competition I had ever attended. Some of the courses had to be done with unfamiliar weapons and the scenarios included home invasion, room clearing by yourself, targets with clothes hung on them so you couldn’t see the scoring area, box targets with balloons, movers and shakers.”
ITG Training Courses
Over the course of his interview, there is one other topic of discussion that got Greg Faught moving excitedly and speaking passionately. That was his attendance at the Executive Protection Agents, Surveillance Detection, EP Handgun, and High Risk Environments (HRE) training courses taught by the International Training Group™.
“I don’t normally politic within the PD,” Greg says, “but I admit, I worked the angle to get into the ITG® Courses.” He was aware that ITG® conducted some of its programs in Stockton. He really was not certain what the training consisted of, but kept hearing a lot of good things from other cops about ITG® and what we were teaching. “With my background in LE, the Military, where I got to do a lot of pretty cool stuff, and shooting competitions I was very interested in getting involved,” he stated.
Once Greg learned that all ITG® Adjunct Instructors are ITG® Alumni, he also wondered if ITG® would eventually be interested in someone with a Bomb Squad/EOD background providing more robust training and demonstrations in the Explosives/IED/VBIED realm. As it turned out, Faught was such an impressive student that the discussion of his becoming an Adjunct Instructor just naturally developed.
What were his experiences as a student? He says, “My biggest hurdle during the Executive Protection Agent’s Training Course was changing focus from LE to EP in dealing with a threat. I had no problem recognizing an attack. The difficulty was with instantly providing the appropriate response to the attack from the EP perspective.”
One of the most difficult challenges in creating firearms training for personnel with a wide variety of backgrounds is to ensure that students with less experience are able to learn and improve at the same time those with more experience are continually challenged and engaged. Faught’s feedback on the EP Handgun Training Course proves that ITG® hits the mark. “The first day was an important review of all the Fundamentals of Pistol Marksmanship plus the four part draw, weapons presentation, and skills building. Then the second day was full of the movement, tactics, and EP specific skills that really tested those fundamentals. Finally, on the last day the Force on Force scenarios with UTM (Ultimate Training Munitions) made us utilize everything we had learned and make it work in a stressful and less than ideal environment.”
What did Greg like most about the ITG® HRE Course? “A lot of education followed by a great deal of skills building. From a learning perspective the Cover & Evacuate and Vehicle Down live fire drills really reinforced ‘getting off the X.’ Then, the two and four man Fire and Maneuver Courses…well…the truth of the matter is that you cannot do that kind of realistic training in most environments because it can be dangerous and most police officers are not trained to the level where you can safely do that drill…from the weapon handling skills, tactics, and weapon safety standpoints. But the students in the class had all been given enough thorough instruction on skills, tactics, and safety that they could handle it on all three levels. Because you can only go as fast as your slowest person, whether they are the most inexperienced or the least skilled, it is not often you would find a group where everybody in the group would be capable of performing at that level.”
ITG® believes this type of realistic training, designed to help every student who comes through our doors reach an attainable but demanding standard, is a huge differentiator between ITG® and many competitors. Others in this industry seem to believe that training should be a familiarization, allowing students to be exposed to concepts, skills, and tactics so they can feel good about themselves without being pushed to achieve a challenging standard. Unfortunately, some others use training as an attempt to get rid of every student who cannot meet the ultimate standard when he or she enters the door.
Greg sums up his feelings about his ITG® training experience this way, “The most important thing would be the skills building, because you have to walk before you can run. I think most schools, law enforcement and private sector alike, and I’ve been to a lot of them, do not focus enough on the fundamentals of shooting. As the ITG® instructors repeat over and over, it’s the fundamentals of marksmanship that will ultimately allow you to win the gunfight.”