As a board member, it's my privilege to spread the mission of Elite Meet and influence member engagement in the Greater Tampa Bay and Central Florida Region, helping to build the most robust professional network of SOF veterans.

𝗪𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀, 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲.In the face of constant change, businesses are still all about people and relationships at their core. We help you foster authenticity, trust, and collaboration in your organization to strengthen your culture and maximize performance.

Customized solutions that build badass teams to win against the dreaded status quo!As a Marine special operator, I spent the better part of over 13-years leading small teams. Aligning individual values toward a common goal. Creating environments of combined strengths for innovative problem-solving. To be interdependent. To accomplish the mission.At Southern Cross, we believe that small teams fostered with the right combination of collaboration and challenge are an organization's best chance for success. We can help you develop your teams to be talent-driven, engaged, empowered, and resilient. To become high-performing.We also provide online leadership development coaching services for those looking to invest in themselves as individuals or together as small groups.As a Marine instructor, I spent five years teaching, coaching, and mentoring the next breed of Marine special operators in dynamic and unconventional concepts as well as everyday life. To be better people. To be better teammates.Our vision is to build better leaders who build better teams who build better communities.Come be better with us!

Employers are particularly interested in the professional certifications of job applicants. Adding an RBLP™ certification to your LinkedIn profile and resume will make you more competitive in the eyes of employers and increase your earning potential. An RBLP™ certification says that you are ready to build resilient teams and lead them in a challenging environment.Resilience is more than just the ability to overcome adversity. Resilience is the ability to adapt and grow as a result of the adversity. Resilient teams are stronger together and they make organizational learning and change possible.Successful organizations bring processes and people together to accomplish goals. We manage process and we lead people. Functional certifications in project management, human resources management, facilities management, and information technology are about managing process. The RBLP™ certifications are the perfect complement to a functional certification.The Resilience-Building Leader Program is the credentialing body for the Resilience-Building Leadership Professional™ (RBLP™) series of leadership certifications.

Ever wondered what Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Marine Raiders, fighter pilots and other elite veterans do once they leave the military? They go job hunting, just like everybody else.Elite Meet, founded in 2017, is a 501(c)(3) organization that supports members of the various Special Operations communities as they transition from military service by connecting them with leaders in the business sector.A network-centric organization, Elite Meet promotes the extraordinary value and leadership experience of elite transitioning veterans to premier organizations through a series of conferences, events, and a digital community.As COO, I drove the strategic vision to improve our member experience by establishing new programs, evaluating and refining existing programs, and identifying opportunities for greater community engagement.

After nearly 13 years of serving in operational roles and deploying around the world, staff assignment finally found me. Truth be told, we really found each other. I knew this assignment would be my last as I was ready to transition and start the next chapter in a continuing career of service. However, there were areas I needed to tighten up and that required a broader look across the enterprise as a Senior Program Manager. In this role, I advised the Chief Executive Officer and senior staff on an all aspects of human capital and mission-critical resources identified for special assignment in varied, dynamic global environments.Additionally, I performed certain collateral responsibilities I have always loved to be associated with. First, I was able to teach, coach, and mentor the next generation of uniquely qualified Marine special operators destined for those special assignments mentioned above. Second, I helped guide the organization’s progress through experimentation and innovation initiatives to support my fellow Marine special operators in the environments of the future.Again, this is another metric-based assignment for which there are many quantitative successes that look good on a resumé. But ask me what I am most proud of during this time and it is this - After 20+ years as a United States Marine, I learned from, fought next to, and led some of the most impressive individuals you can imagine. I directed many and I emphatically impacted a good number of them. My reputation is sound, my integrity is intact and I know that the organization is being left in very capable, motivated hands.

Make no mistake, my experience at the schoolhouse was extremely rewarding and will be remembered as the time I feel I made the most impact during my special operations career.However, my experience as a Senior Team Lead was the epitome of what I believed special operations to be. In this role, I primarily led a small team of uniquely qualified Marine special operators fusing military information and operational requirements with US interagency partner programs from the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali.I designed, planned, and orchestrated over 50 special operations missions with coordinated end-states in pursuit of strategic objectives. While the missions were very tactical in nature, their outcomes were certainly not. My colleagues during this period remain some of the most impressive individuals I had the honor of serving with across the US government enterprise.The success I am most proud of during this time are the lasting friendships I have among former US and Malian colleagues as well as the Marine special operators I was extremely fortunate to be partnered with.

Three months after returning from Afghanistan, I received orders to our “schoolhouse.” I went over under the belief I would be working a specific course, but as with all things “Semper Gumby,” (Always Flexible) my position changed almost as soon as I showed up.I found myself positioned as one of four “Chiefs” responsible for the content and day-to-day operations within Marine Special Operations Command’s nine-month qualification course. The successes here were more metric-based than previous assignments and included the overhaul and programming of fresh content for progressing the phase from an 8-day training curriculum to 33 training days accumulating more than 400 hours of instruction. This shift introduced advanced concepts at a foundational-level increasing throughput in skill-sets by 500% each year. However, the two successes I am most proud of during the time-frame were my ability to shape the development of 160 Marine special operations candidates each year, many who are emerging as leaders in our command today. Additionally, a large percentage of the content I produced has stood the test of time and is still being taught to today’s candidates nearly eight years later.

As the Operations Manager of a special operations team, I was responsible for developing and managing the team's information requirements, synchronizing operations with near real-time intelligence, and supervising the team's information collection efforts. Sounds boring, right... Honestly, this role was one of my favorites over a 14-year career in special operations. Why? Because I was able to hone my skills for 10 of those months in villages across western Afghanistan. There's nothing like doing your job for real after month-upon-endless-month of training for it.I was hugely successful in this role in a must-succeed environment. My success then paved the way for my next stop as one of four Chief Instructors over our qualification course for Marine special operations candidates.

As I learned how to become a Marine special operator in this role, I also trained and evaluated my five-man team in the myriad of required mission-sets and directed their employment during multiple overseas endeavors. I supported higher-level planning and coordination efforts and oftentimes trained and advised foreign partners along the way.Developing relationships in this role was paramount. I worked with a veritable "who's who" of personalities and positions from those within my organization to many more with-out, always striving to be the definition of a "warrior-diplomat" personified.I experienced many successes during this period. I also experienced numerous failures which I learned from and became better from. However, again, the success I'm most proud of during this period was the development of my teammates and our 100% mission accomplishment without incident.

Due to a mixture of age, degree, drive, and unflappability, I was progressively promoted in front-line operational leadership roles during this time-frame. In these roles I led multiple teams in varied environments to include being accountable for developing and leading a team of 16 during an overseas, combat deployment to Fallujah, Iraq.While I experienced many intrinsic and extrinsic successes during this period, the success I'm most proud of was 100% mission accomplishment without incident.

In 2003 after an overwhelming urge for public service, I enlisted in America's 911 force. I was prior-service, 28 years old, a college graduate, and left a decent job. A unicorn and fish out of water among teammates. As Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." Mostly foolishness, little wisdom. Whether the moment was best or worst is a distant blur. Those formative years, however, were instrumental in leading me to who I am today and I still maintain friendships developed during them.