Fighting, Firearms, and Fanny Packs with Greg Thompson, founder of Special Operations Combatives Program

Greg Thompson, founder of Special Operations Combatives Program, shares his thoughts on developing the combatives program and designing products for defense.  If you have ever wondered what it means to “stir the pot” this episode is for you.  

Transcript

Ron Dan  00:00

Hey Aaron, when I say stir the pot, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you?

Aaron Silvestain  00:03

Probably a witch, Halloween.  What are you thinking?

Ron Dan  00:07

Well, our next guest, Greg Thompson, he’s the founder of the Special Operations Combatives Program. He's using a different type of steel than your standard kitchen utensil and he's getting it inside to stir the pot.

Aaron Silvestain  00:19

Shall we head into the briefing room? 

Ron Dan  00:20

Let's go.

Music 00:21

Ron Dan  00:33

Welcome to the Vertx Briefing Room.  I’m your host Ron, joining me today is Aaron from Vertx and the great Greg Thompson, who's the founder of the Special Operations Combatives Program. And Greg, if I understand it correctly, the SOCP was the first efficiently designated combatives program for all US Army Special Operations Forces, and is now the standard program for fighting in full combat body armor across all services and even some federal agencies.

Greg Thompson 01:01

Yes, in March 2010, it became a program of record for all special forces. And then it just kind of expanded since then, right now we’re working with a lot of key units directly under JSOC. And have been actually prior to that.  I kind of helped the development of the program. But every special operations unit has a SOCP instructor. And now we're branched out to the Air Force MARSOC and other Navy entities as well.

Ron Dan  01:29

So Greg, if you could tell some of our listeners a little bit about your background, who is Greg Thompson? And how did the SOCP come about?

Greg Thompson 01:35

Like a lot of guys, I started off in the martial arts at and early age, around eight or nine, sort of doing traditional martial arts and ended up playing college football. But while I was doing these sports, you know, played three sports all the time, I was still doing martial arts training. And then after I got out with my undergrad, I started graduate school at NC State in industrial design, product development.  It is a three year graduate program, pretty aggressive program. But while I was there, I really got into a lot of Thai boxing and developing my striking game a little bit. And while I was there, too, I competed in a lot of design competitions. My first year there, I won the National Housing competition for an actual trashcan design. So I was always a product designer slash martial artists from the time I was little. So if you came up to me when, when I'm wearing my gi, and they're like, Greg, what are you going to do when you grow up? And I would say, “I'm going to be an inventor”. And I was always tinkering and making stuff. Then I was scrapping and fighting and studying martial arts. So went on to grad school started doing a lot of Thai boxing. And then I watched the first UFC and I was like, Man, that's the missing link, because I was always integrating wrestling and integrating a lot of stuff together. But I was like I've got to do that. We started a little bit of a club. There was a guy, Tom Garner, he had a gym in Hillsborough where we would do some of the jujitsu training after we'd work out and he knew a guy who was actually a sheriff in Texas and his son was Norm Hooten. Norm Hooten, if you know the movie Black Hawk Down. This is my safety Hoot. This is the real Norm Hooten, right? Norm came, and he was actually a white belt at the time, and he was showing me jiu jitsu and I was working with him on some strike, and it's a little bit of wrestling, and we became good friends. And I would float to Fort Bragg and we would train a little bit outside of his unit, one of his teams went on a trip to Torrance, California. That was where the Gracie Academy was at the time with Royce there. And it was back in the olden days. He told me he's going on a trip and he invited me to go and meet his team there. Then ended up getting my blue belt, came back and started running one of the first Gracie jujitsu networks on the east coast at that time.  Once I started doing that, I was still doing my Thai boxing and I really liked the strike and understood the aspects of both and my wrestling. As I graduated from college with my master's degree in industrial design, I got a job with a company. I still was doing my job and then running this gym, and then I was brought into Norm’s unit. When 911 hit, that January after that I was in Artesia, New Mexico.  I was hired by SAIC to help develop the combative portion and work with the combative portion for the air marshals. So we spent several months developing curriculum for that we were fighting with handguns and knives and it was an adjustment for me because I came at everything more from an martial arts MMA approach and then having to think about the use of force and how was applied weapon systems, multiple assailants fighting in these confined spaces, you know, you can't just shoot and stab everybody.  And then you have to be able to think tactically on your use of force and make good judgment decisions and cultivate inside of teaching techniques, cultivate decision making process and cultivating that as well as the physical ability to perform the techniques. You don't have a good tactic to manage your stress and make good decisions. No matter how great of a fighter you are, what tools you have, your a liability. For me that was the biggest switch. We developed some TTPs that worked really well in the aircraft, but a lot of that got pushed to the wayside. They wanted a certain number of air marshals in the sky. So around March, April, they hand picked a bunch of us.  There was a certain part where they had to go through that. They said, “hey, just have to make sure everybody goes to this training”. So they walked in one day, it was like picking kickball. They're like, okay, we'll take this guy and Greg and this guy, and everybody else can leave. And I was just sitting like, okay, I'm glad I got a job. After that started winding down. I just became an Air Marshal, I was offered a position to take over the training at the Atlanta hub, and I was gonna fly for a year and come back. And then when I went back to Bragg, I was offered a position to help with a student Cadre and then five days a week job was for me and another guy. So I that was my dream job. So right after that I got a place in Fort Bragg and started doing that full time.  Me and my guys were martial artists teaching but we were role players. So it'd be Greg put on this impact suit, go over here, we're going to create what's going to happen and you're going to be the opposing force. By being a role player, you get to learn so much, because you see what mistakes people make, at our levels, some of the baddest that you know, they'll come in and crush it and sometimes you make a mistake. You just learn so much, so fast. I was a student the whole time, you know?  When I'm a role player back then you just kept your mouth shut. It's not like I'm gonna tell somebody, you should have came through the door like this. Because you know, I'm not an operator, I'm not going to try to act like an operator.

Ron Dan  06:24

You said you weren't an operator. But prior to working for SAIC, did you have much experience with firearms and tactics, and that sort of things like edge weapons, combat, firearms, combat, anything like that, or was that all learned?

Greg Thompson 06:37

Edge weapon, techniques and stick and blade I was doing from the martial arts perspective.  Firearms I did from more of a flat range understanding of shooting.  I really liked shooting.  When I did work with SAIC, I'd go to the range with some of the guys and they'd give us ammunition and they would teach me how to hold the weapon system a little bit better how to properly do stuff. So I'd have really good training right away, and then even you know, even been at the unit, they had somebody, Rob Latham or somebody would come in, and I remember, Rob would always invite me out to the range and say, “Greg, come out and shoot” and I say, “Rob come out on the mat”. And then one day, I'm like, I got some free time, I'm gonna go out to the range and shoot with Rob. And then when I walked out there, there was a bunch of really good shooting operators out there, and they turn around and they looked at me, and I felt like that white belt with one stripe showing up to train with the advanced black belt.  You end up learning a lot. For me, the advantage of it was I didn't have a bias. So when I would train with these different units, or different squadrons that had a different way of doing something, I just would learn what they would know. And I would show up with an empty bowl and just show me.  You know what I mean? So that way, when you'd have to juggle a decision making, you would have a better understanding of, you didn't carry the baggage of doing it your way. That's true in design and developing martial arts programs as well. People carry their own baggage from whatever system they came with. They've tried to find ways to fit that square peg in that round hole, because that's what they're good at. And then you have to just flush all that and focus on the needs of the end user. Guys would start to do or work on something or have a mission or a task and I would say “Hey, you know, 15 years ago, John's unit did this something similar. You may want to go ask him”. Who? You know, that guy up on the third floor, you know, the cubicle over here. You mean that’d  fat guy? I'm like that old fat guy is a freakin stone killer. He knows his stuff. You better go talk to him. You know, steering people in the right direction is the way to go. Understanding a finger on the pulse, for understanding different needs of different end users from martial arts programs to combat programs, the development of products.  That’s always helped me with developing products like Vertx, a lot of the stuff that they're doing is being able to keep your finger on the pulse. You can have a guy that's a freakin stud. Like he's very smart and comes up with good stuff but at some point he's not up to date on what's going on. And what I'm blessed with is because of the program in the combative field, I know what's going on right now. Not just on the military side, but the federal side, all the different units that we are working with there. So what issues are they running into? Then from a combative standpoint, we are constantly readjusting what we teach. The SOCP program is an ever evolving program for that. But even when I do custom programs for units where hey, Greg, we needed to come in for three or four days and help us or we reevaluate what they're doing because a lot of times these programs become stagnant. And they'll have people teaching form that don't want to evolve. I call them squatters. You have a combative squatter, he protects what he's got. And he shoots down everything else that would help them make them better. He doesn't train anymore, and it kind of flush some of those guys out on the combatives side.

Ron Dan  09:48

Greg, you have your master's in industrial design. I think you have total of six patents now, and some of my favorite products that you have are some of the Benchmade blades that you've come out with over the years. And including the SOCP Rescue Tool, which I think is something everybody should have that as a piece of their kit, can you tell us a little bit about how do you approach creating and designing new products? I know keeping your finger on the pulse is a key component to that. But you've come out with some of the most innovative designs in our industry over the past 20 years. How do you go about that process?

Greg Thompson 10:22

To develop something worthwhile, there has to be a need for it. And you have to identify the need. When I do focus in on a product, say for Vertx or even my knife the dagger, I identified the need for creating space early on. When I came back from working with EMR. So to work with the units, I will tell the guys, hey, whenever you get tackled and getting up going to the ground, you know get to an edge weapon, if you can’t immediately if you're in a full kit or you have a lot of people around you, I can't make you good enough with jujitsu in nanoseconds. When gunfights only last in nanoseconds, you know, you've got to win the scramble, if you get stuck there, did that edge weapon create that space, right?  Prioritize your use of force, create that space get to a bigger tool. So when I designed the dagger, I actually started with what's called a rail guard, where it would come off the front of your rail system of your hand and you'd click it, create space and pull somebody off your gun and I even had a 3D Model made of it. And it looked real cool. And I remember running it through that process. You know, cuz everybody liked the concept. This is a lesson learned. People can like the concept and you go down that road, but then you have to ask the hard questions. You had it right now what would you do with it? Here it is, what would you do with it right now? What would you pay for it?  One of the guys was looking at me and going, well, I like it, but I wouldn't put it on my rifle. Because I've got my optics, I got all this other stuff. Then run through the testing. And instinctively, you're gonna use your hand to create space, your support hand, as opposed to then going back to the long gun. But what's nice about that was when I brought it back to the body, I didn't look at it as a knife. The problem is what so many people do and even with this, when this first came out, people were wanting to shorten the sheath of it, they're wanting to do all these different things. So making it a knife again, in the sense of a knife that's going to be used, I'm like, no, this is a tool to create space. This is a knife that you can conceal, it's designed to be concealed, it slides behind the other pouches covered up, right, when I need to create space, I can scoop it with either hand, right, I can stick it in you, stir the pot, I can go outside collar tie up, touch the tonsils, stir the pot.  I can plunge it all the way through to the handle corkscrew and bring it back out. So now I'm going six and a half inch deep into the subclavian for a quick bleed out. But you still have to target key spots, because just because you put a piece of steel in somebody doesn't mean they're gonna move the way you want them to move because they're under stress. So as soon as you stick them, you got to get them off. And you know, use the steel to get to the lead because people don't die fast enough with a knife. Now you can take the windpipe out. And a lot of times we'll focus on touching the tonsils because I can hit all these arteries really quick and sever tendons and make this work. But you're still laying or you don't even know you got stabbed. But if you scoop it out, hit those spots, push them off, hand guns out. And you're creating space to get ready for the number two guy. Think about that. And in doing that it solved a lot of problems for us because we would take the knife and we'd run it through different scenarios. I can get to it with either hands. So now even when I create a space here, I can still transition to the handgun and still hold the handgun and fire with it either in the working hand or the support hand. Change magazines with it, you know, in certain ways you may have to adjust, but it's not designed for that. I heard people when it first came out, Oh, if you're holding it here and you change a magazine, you stab yourself in the hand and like yes, if you're an idiot you will. But when people would say negative stuff, at first, I would be like aggravated then I just laughed.  They’re not in the receiving mode. And that person didn't need to know how to use it anyway. And what's also helped because it allowed me to get ahead of my competitors so much more because people really didn't understand. And part of the reason why I really wanted to link up with Benchmade too, is they were designed to shoot the way I wanted it to designed for a price point that I wanted to be at. So the dagger is pretty much designed to fit here. Now we're carrying it above or below the waistline, to get quick deployment, keep it slightly angled at the hip. So it's not impeding and digging in into you if you sit down at the crease of your hip, and then you can scoop it out with your thumb or your pointer finger depending on which way that you currently have a whole system for that. That's great space. But you know what really brought it home to me, even when I was playing with it as being a role player. I remember this female. We were training some females to do some stuff. She was pulling protection for somebody that was in a meeting and I was an impact suit. This female she's like 105 pounds and I've been training them for weeks.  Every class we'd end up rolling, whether they'd fight to get their knife or gun and create space, but I want to make her wait before she goes in there and pulls support. So when she started into the room, I shoved her up into the wall and pinned a handgun down and then I started switch hands to go for her support hand because I knew when training she might scoot for the dagger, but before I could get my hand over there to it she scooped a dagger out with her left hand. It was the red trainer. She freakin started hacking me, hit me all in the back, actually in the head. And I had a helmet on that wasn't one of the helmet designs that we have nowadays. And it was hitting me right in the seam, right? I thought man I can’t, I went to cover up like that she'd double post off, a pistol came out, she put several rounds in my chest. And I was pulling that I thought I was gonna need stitches, right. But it was I was like, yeah, that's freaking awesome because she was able to pull it out in a time and break space with me in a way that I know that would work. You see what I mean? It's one thing to train people and give them a false sense of what they can do. They need to know where the pitfalls are.  I want them to, what I call baby lion it, it means play fight with it. Don't hurt each other, and let them feel what's going on. Because it's real world, people die. When I see martial artists or other combative people pitching a bunch of stuff. It's like, hey, it sounds good. But you got to run it through its paces. Just like a product, you know, you're designing a product, you got to run it through its paces. And there's what we think in this sterile environment, when you throw it out there to the guys who use it, it's gonna come back tore up and then you got to make the changes. By going through the design schools that I went through from undergrad and designers, I would spend months and the whole class would rip it apart, they would attack it. So I learned to attack my own stuff, whatever I have, don't think everything that I've designed that I haven't thought about every question that somebody else is going to do because I can easily set my feelings aside and look at something that I like, pretend it's not mine, and just rip it apart, make notes of it, and then go back at it and address what needs to be addressed. So in product development, a lot of people don't do that. But sometimes, you know, you want to get feedback from people. But sometimes you don't always get good feedback. Like even the dagger, I had a really respectful operator, when I showed him a prototype, because my prototype was cheesy when I showed it to him was anything looking like this, it was just a circle with a piece of metal rundown that I kind of played with. And he goes, oh, Greg, I don't really get it. I thought, man, am I going down the wrong track? But I kept playing with and I got positive feedback, when guys would see it and I would share it with my students inside of the problem that it's solving. And I present it and I can look at the classroom. And I can see the look in their eyes like, hey, when is that coming out? Where can I get one? Then you know you're on the right track.

Aaron Silvestain  16:59

Greg you talked a little bit earlier about being able to work with various different units and things of that nature, as you're learning your skill set by yourself. How did that involvement with those various different groups influence the SOCP program as a whole? I mean, does it give you a little bit of a broader reach than what a standard Army guy, or a Navy guy, or Air Force guy? Do they appreciate that? How did that creation of that program go with individual units?

Greg Thompson 17:24

The development of the program actually came from developing a student program for a highly respected unit.  That same thing it's in the SOCP program was vetted that way, but what you have to understand too, is just because a tier one unit is doing it this way doesn't mean it's the best thing for you. It doesn't matter if you can perform that technique better than that operator can, it still doesn't mean it's the best technique for you. So you have to adjust that based on that. So a lot of it came down to primarily an assaulter base curriculum based on door entries and what's called cuffing prisoner handling and dealing with threat. Two of the biggest problems that the SOCP saw was in the way we develop our scenario based training for judgment decisions and a standardization of cuffing prisoner handling for all special forces that really work with all units. It’s not so much a great technique for shooting and stabbing or anything like that. It's the methodology approach from the door kick inside so many units and still to this day, they will just practice coming in shooting paper, knocking it down, and everything's great because you shot this, but the problem of it is, the hardest thing is that person you can't shoot but he's not listened to you to get down on the ground. Screw you. And then when you go to handle them, they may fight or they may lure you into opposing threats or something else. And then when they start fighting, are you going to drop something to go help your buddy, drop a spot that you have to pull security on. You're going to die. So when you start integrating that you learn a few techniques to deal with, we have a handful of things you get really good at and start drilling that in because one thing that I learned when I came back from working with Air Marshalls and I had these students, right? These guys were smarter than me more athletic than me. I could show them one or two things and within a few minutes, they're doing it perfect. And I'm like I'm an awesome instructor. Look at these guys are killing it. They memorize a ton of techniques on short memory, right? Short memory crushed it, and everybody left singing Kumbaya, we're freaking great, no, you're great. And then six months later, one of these guys came back. And we're doing some of the sustainment training that we were doing. And he couldn't remember a basic move that he should know. And now I get this guy is smarter than me, more athletic than me. He looks at me, as an honest guy he goes well, I just I don't remember. So there's a difference between an acclamation to a technique and an exposure and there's a difference between knowing the technique. You have to define that. I do think in certain systems it's important to show them a bridge and other answers but the sad thing of it is the product you create when you develop a program is based on time and their understanding and each individual's ability to digest the situation based on what they have. So when you go to train a unit, a tier one asset, you can expect a lot more in a shorter period of time because their aptitude. Now, if you go to the big Army, and you're dealing with somebody that may have just barely gotten in the Army, and they don't even want to be in your class, they hate combatives, right? Now you're dealing with a struggle to make that guy, what are you going to motivate that guy to do? And what can he really perform six months later, when he least expects it to happen? And that's where you have to integrate a tactical understanding of things as well as a technique. What people need to really understand too is when we define the basics, what are your basics of combatives? And people would say, well, let's learn to escape them out a good rate and those are your basics if you're end users developing a fighter that's focused on a one on one approach. Now, when you have to fight with guns, and knives, and cuff people and do this, what you will most likely do becomes your basics, right? So if you ask these units that I'll go and try, and I'll say, ?Hey, what are the most common combat situations that your units have been in the last five years?”, and the scratch their head, well, we came in the door, and a guy hit us here and another guy was there, like, okay, we're gonna start solving those problems first, because those are your basics. Now you have your foundational, basic movements, but your tasks specific basics need to be defined, and that's based on each unit, because each unit will engage somebody in a different way. Are you plain clothes, and you're coming up interviewing somebody, or you are state highway patrol, and you're pulling people over on the side of the road by yourself, or you're a sheriff showing up to a domestic, all these things are going to be different. So there, POI will be developed a little bit later. Now there are certain things in our clinch fighting metrics that we created that will fit all those templates. But how much time do I have to train a guy? You know, I did a course for the big Army a while back, they had to do some CQB. It was a bomb tech unit, they had a hard time really understanding why I was working on certain snap down stick outs, handling people with a long gun with a lot of just really wanting to get in there just beat each other up. Which I appreciate that, you know as I run an MMA gym today, but that's not going to help. That's not their basic. So only until we ran through the scenarios that it really clicked for me, when I helped the big Army, they were one general vote in 2009 for being totally dismantled, the big Army was, and they reached out to a bunch of people and I shared our cuffing methodology, our post frame hooks, some of our contact rear and I said the real focus for you guys needs to be cuffing, prisoner handling, and how to deal with people. And then I also recommended crowd control. Because everybody's kicking the doors right now, somebody has to be the support element outside even when they are hitting that structure. And then also understanding what the climate change is slowly going to become that you're going to have to deal with people in that less than lethal way.  SOCP is not the end all be all. SOCP is going to bridge the gap between foundational traditional training and the unique needs of the Special Operations soldier.  What are their needs? So what's changing now? We've always done low viz stuff, but over the last five years I've integrated conceal carry more into the core. So you show up the first day, one of the first things you're going to end up doing is a double post clearing with one hand transition to your hand gun, engaging that threat. Look around, elbows in, move to concealment and cover because you're teaching guys how to operate in plain clothes. Why are we doing it with one hand? Well, most the time of the range, they've always cleared cloth with two hands. Okay, that's great, but more often in combatives, you're going to be tied up with a guy over hook, under hook and you're going to foul that clearing the cloth with that one hand because you support hands tied up or you're flipping over furniture and open up a door and having to come out. And the reason I know that wasn’t, it dawned on me because I created the scenarios and watched guys, that were way better shots than I am, clear cloth hundreds of times more than I have, start getting all twisted up in their cloth. So we have methodologies for clearing malfunctions with your support hand cloth and everything like that, but it evolved from doing this scenario. And then that’s something I'm teaching day one, although that's not necessarily my lane.  I’ll explain it to them say, “Hey, look, we're going to the combative lane clearing cloth with your handgun. It's going to be something that's going to happen when you're in here. I don't want you having bad habits. So every time you transition to your handgun, you're going to make sure it's clear. And if it's not clear and it gets wrapped up in your cloth, you got to work through it with one hand just the way you started.”

Aaron Silvestain  24:23

Does that evolution into more plainclothes approach in plainclothes training? Is that what led you to develop something like the SOCP sling with Vertx?  Ron talked about some of his favorite products that you've developed, I am a little bit biased, but I think the SOCP Sling is one of the best products on the market right now. Can you talk about how the evolution of the design process and what made you come up with that?

Greg Thompson 24:46

Absolutely. Linking it to your phone and having a phone there where you can track other people and being able to afford to do that, there’s technology out there where if you have a sling pack here, you can fold this down and have your phone right here. You can flip it down and track and see where everybody else is at when you're doing an assault on something. If you come into a structure, and I don't know where everybody's at, and you're in plainclothes it’s to easy to engage the wrong person, that that was part of it. But also, don’t share this, but I ran with a fanny pack a lot. I love a fanny pack. And before this was even developed, I would rock a fanny pack.  Especially on vacation, and my son would be like, dad what are you doing with that fanny pack? I'm like, son, I'm 50 years old, I don't really care if somebody don't like the fact that I have a fanny pack on. I've got all my stuff right here. I can dig through it, I can wear it this way if you want to, I can wear it this way. It's whatever. But I also realized that there was some limitations with just the straps. So with this, you can run it with a strap, but it has clips. So if I have another bag, I can clip it to that bag. And now I've got all my stuff right here and a bag that I may be running with. If I'm at the airport, and I say, “Hey, son, daughter, wife, watch my bag”. I still may pull this and take my main stuff with me, right, and I can clip it on me or just carry it on having all right there. Plus, there's hidden compartments for your dagger. Also, you can unzip it here, there's a pocket on the bottom where you can stuff stuff here, but I can reverse that pocket andnd I could put a full size water bottle in here from hiking. Or if I acquire a handgun in there, or want to put something in there last minute, I can acquire a tool from somebody else. Because a lot of people don't realize it too is, if you do take a weapon system from somebody, you may not want to leave it there. But you don't want to just start shoving a bunch of stuff in your pants either. So having that ability is nice plus, there's another little compartment here and this little loadout.  This you can load out with stuff, I could drop this and have escape and evade stuff in here, or key thumb drives or medical or whatever. Or I can roll up a piece of lead. Like if I'm going to hit somebody with a piece of lead, I like to have about eight ounces. But if it's just a few coins in here, and you're going to strike somebody with you're just going to piss them off. So don't waste your time. But you could load this out with an eight ounce fish weighting and some coins and having the back end. Probably not your phone and I can have a right here and pull it off. And I can cause some damage to somebody with that when it's set up properly. But a lot of times with this here, it's not just for a coin roll, but it's also for escape and evade. So I may ditch everything and just grab this and shove it and Velcro it down another spot in your pants or something like that, where you have other information or other tools that you may need to have in it as well. So a lot of people don't understand that. But you know, the front here you can unvelcro it here and then use the light or even record stuff. So here, this is a clear plastic so my phone could be in here, I could hit record and now I'm recording everything around me and utilize it that way as well. I'm pretty excited about it, we've got a large one coming out too. So it's going to be a full size fanny pack it can hold a full size, you know Glock in it as well. I've got a lot of products coming out though that's going to really be cool. Pay attention to Vertx that's coming out and then several other things are coming as well. And then with Benchmade and Shot Show in January here I've got another knife coming out. A fixed blade design for the regular soldier, it's gonna rock some people. A lot of new features in that as well.

Ron Dan  28:08

Well, Greg, I warned you at the beginning, we have towards the end of the podcast what's called the Lightning Round of questions. And so we have four questions we ask everybody.  I’m going to throw in a bonus fifth question to you. And I need you just answer as quickly as you possibly can with whatever first comes to mind for you. What are the three pieces of gear that you always want with you?

Greg Thompson 28:36

I like my blade, I like my phone. Normally, I like some kind of Leatherman tool or maybe a light with me, you know, a light source. But a lot of times just using my phone honestly. I don't like to carry too much stuff on me. But oh, actually, I got this device on my wrist right here that I designed here that's with me. And that's for another time. I always have that with me, it serves a lot of purposes.

Ron Dan  29:00

Now, let's say you are on a desert island, you have a choice of one movie, one album of music or a book. Which one of those do you want? And which one of those specifically do you want with you?

Greg Thompson 29:12

Obviously, I would need a way to watch the movie, right? 

Ron Dan  29:16

Yeah, you would have that. 

Greg Thompson 29:17

Okay, so then I would have a lot of tools. So if I got a movie, then that means I'd have a monitor, I would have a lot of stuff. So I probably go with that because it gave me a lot of accessories that I may not have had, you know what I mean? But because I could do a lot with a monitor and some things creatively to help me get off that island. I guess my mind just went that way.

Ron Dan  29:37

You're an industrial designer, buddy. That was the most practical of all the answers we received for sure.

Aaron Silvestain  29:42

Do you ave a specific movie you would pick? Probably Lion King or something like that?

Greg Thompson 29:47

Yeah. I mean, you know, there's so many good movies out there. I have to give that some thought.

Ron Dan  29:52

What's the best concert that you've ever been to?

Greg Thompson 29:55

The most memorable one I've been to was Joan Jett and the Blackhearts when I was 20 years old,  when I was a bouncer. It was all alcohol out there and I was asked to guard the stage. And back in Durham, North Carolina at the time, she was doing it out by this pool area, and Hells Angels were real bad around there. This biker crawls up on the front of the stage, and I'm guarding the steps on one side and this older guy was AN experienced, bounceR, like, this is my first day as a bouncer, where he wouldn't go up there, he looked at me and shook his head, and I'm like, alright, screw it, you know, cuz he didn't want to grab this big biker. So I went up on the stage with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. And I'm walking to this guy, and he'd grabbed Joan Jett from behind, and he's circling, he's kind of doing this grinding motion like that, waving at his buddies, and they were screaming. So I walked up to him, and he saw me coming, he moves out of the way. And soon as he moves her arm, drag his other arm. So when he pulls her, I just grab his other. I'm behind them now and I walk him off to the edge of the stage. I didn't want to hurt him, because I knew that all these guys will come down and the whole place could get tore up. So I push this guy to the edge and I gave him a little bit of a push off the side of the stage, right? As soon as he hits the ground her manager runs up and punches this biker right in the face, boom, and then they hit the ground and they're rolling around and I'm going, and I'm looking as I'm grabbing him, I'm looking to see where those guys are.  Am I going to get a freakin boot in the side of the head or something? I reached down, I grabbed this guy underneath the neck and snapped him up. And I put my foot between the two and I pushed the other guy away and I actually turned my back so he couldn't hit the biker when they're rolling around to separate. I'm screaming at him to get back, get back, and instead of taking him out by the normal exit, there was a highway where her bus came in where the gate was. I looked up there, saw that gate, I didn't take him to the cops in the front. I took him to that back gate, opened it up and I said you need to leave and go this way or you're going to get arrested.  The cops are headed this way. So he looked at me and he looked over there, which there weren't any cops coming. And he just walked all the way back around, which is probably a mile all the way back around the gate.

Ron Dan  31:58

I want to know what's the hardest you've been hit and who delivered that hit to you?

Greg Thompson 32:02

Well, knock on wood I've never been knocked out that I remember. Playing football, though, I remember getting hit. I was a tailback and I got hit tackled and as I was falling, I had a dream. And then when I hit the ground, I woke up. And I'm thinking that was the one time I say I was knocked out. I can remember my boxing coach hit me one time so hard that the eye holes were here, right? And you had your ear holes here, right? He hit me so hard that the ear hole spun all the way around, and I was looking through the ear hole, you know what I mean? And even the guys are like, oh, and I'm in my whole head spun me all the way around. But I was still like, okay, because a lot of people don't realize your head gear really doesn't protect the shot, it is much more or less the cut. You know what I mean? So you're still going to eat a lot, but that one sticks out. And I don't know if it sticks out because I was hit hard and my head gear spun around on my head and everybody's like, dang, he tried to take your head off.

Ron Dan  33:00

Well, that's great. Well, Greg, I can't thank you enough for joining Aaron and I today on the Vertx Briefing Room. We look forward to the next time that we get a chance to do this with you and I look forward to next time I get a chance to hang out with you again in person.

Greg Thompson 33:13

Thanks, guys for having me. I really enjoyed hanging out with you guys. So reach out to me anytime.

Aaron Silvestain  33:18

Absolutely. Where can people find you online, Greg?

Greg Thompson 33:20

If you go to SOCP.info is the website and you get there's some info stuff there. If you'd click on that for more information, you can reach out to me, but even greg@socp.info you’ll be able to reach me more direct in an email, and then I've got this new thing that just came out for me. It's kind of new to me it is called Instagram. I got on it about a year and a half ago, SOCP_solutions. Sometimes I'll post some stuff on my channel but I try not to giveaway too much. But I'll have some Vertx stuff on there and I'm slowly putting stuff out. I don't like throwing a bunch of techniques out, too much stuff out to the public, mainly to my guys, but I'm starting to trickle stuff out there a little bit.

Aaron Silvestain  34:08

And if you listen closely, there might be a hint as to what product is coming out next between SOCP and Vertx so stay tuned. Appreciate it Greg, we will talk to you soon.

Music  34:19

Ron Dan  34:29

Aaron, what was the best part of that episode?

Aaron Silvestain  34:32

I think the most important thing we can all take away from that is you're never too masculine to wear a fanny pack. If Greg Thompson can do it while he's stirring the pot, which now we know isn't necessarily stirring chili. I think we can all take a little fanny pack on vacation with us.

Ron Dan  34:48

I couldn't agree more. I'm personally a big fan of the fanny pack lifestyle. Well thank you all for joining the Vertx Briefing Room. Make sure you check out the show notes at Vertx.com/podcasts. Be sure to like, subscribe and give us a review and experts who you would like to hear about on future episodes. So Aaron, you ready to live the fanny pack life with me?

Aaron Silvestain  35:08

Let's go buddy. Are we going down South Beach? 

Ron Dan  35:10

Let's do it.

Music  35:12