Inc. Magazine – September 2019

78 ● INC. ● SEPTEMBER 2019● ● ● ● ● ●

Keith Walawender, CEO I was

just 17 when I joined the military. All

I wanted to do was be a Navy SEAL. I

did five years with SEAL Team 2 and

eight years with the Naval Special

Warfare Development Group. Even-

tually, I got injured in combat and

was medically retired in 2014.

I hurt my back in a heli copter

crash overseas. I can’t say anything

else about that crash.

Mike Biller, president and COO I

remember being 12 and riding bikes

with my friends. One kept saying

that becoming a Navy SEAL is impos-

sible—nobody can do it.

I was a little bit talky back then,

and I said, “I can do that. I can defi-

nitely do that.”

I was 17 when 9/11 happened, and

a kid came up to me and said, “That

means we’re going to war. You’re not

going in now, are you?” I said, “That’s

why I am doing this. I do want to go

to war. I do want to fight and kill bad

guys. That’s important to me.”

KW Mike and I were on the same

five-man DevGru team for years. He

ended up having a medical issue as

well, and got out around the same

time as I did.

In our previous life, we’d hosted

law enforcement agencies to teach

them some of our lessons learned. It

was very rewarding. That work was

the genesis of Tomahawk Strategic

Solutions. We also distribute equip-

ment—body armor, Night Vision,

flashlights. Anything we used in our

past career, we have become a vendor

for: This is vetted, this works. This is

the best stuff out there.

MB One of our first clients was

Jersey City, New Jersey. They

wanted us to assess their tactical

team—structure, equipment, every-

thing. We didn’t want to be the kind

of company that comes in, trains

a few officers for three days, and

leaves. We wanted to get our hands

on training your whole team—get

them inte grated with patrol officers,

work with the paramedics and fire-

fighters, set up a rescue task force—

and then test that.

We did that for Jersey City, and

then set up a full-blown training

exercise at Newport Centre mall

there, so they experienced all that

integration of different responding

authorities, and got to work face-

to-face with officers they wouldn’t

have unless a situation arose.

KW Sixteen months later—this past

January—there was a report of an

active shooter at Newport Centre.

It was gang violence up on the third

floor, in the food court. Law enforce-

ment came in using the training that

we’d set up for them, and the only

people injured were the instigators.

Everybody else was safely evacu-

ated. No loss of life. No stampedes.

MB When we talk to people about

active-threat scenarios, we can tell

them what it actually feels like to get

shot at—what it feels like to be the

person on the other side of the door.

All the spaces you deal with in an

active-threat scenario are basically

what we attacked when we were

SEALs. We mostly hire military

veterans and former law enforcement

officers—we have officers who were

the first responders to the Virginia

Tech shooting.

KW A lot of our work, for public- and

Keith Walawender and Mike Biller served with

one of the Navy SEALs’ most elite teams, the

Naval Special Warfare Development Group—also

known as SEAL Team 6 and DevGru—which

undertook the mission that killed Osama bin

Laden. After they left the SEALs, they recognized

their special-ops experience could be invaluable

to law enforcement groups and corporations,

and formed Tomahawk Strategic Solutions.

—AS TOLD TO TOM FOSTER