Panama City, 2015: School Owners at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center

In March 2015 a martial arts mastermind group toured the U.S. Navy’s diving and salvage school and heard from its commanding officer.

In March 2015 a group of martial arts, BJJ and MMA school owners met in Panama City, Florida, for a mastermind meeting run for members of the coaching programme now known as Martial Arts Wealth Mastery. The meeting opened on the Friday morning with a tour of the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center, led by its commanding officer, Commander Hung Cao.

The NDSTC trains every U.S. military diver. It is a school whose failure modes are not commercial, and whose instructional standard is therefore set somewhere other than customer satisfaction. For an audience of instructors who sell a curriculum to families, that contrast was the value of the morning: a look at how an institution teaches a skill where the consequence of teaching it badly is not a cancelled membership.

Commander Cao also delivered an address on leadership and perseverance, drawing on his own history — he left Vietnam as a child in 1975 and went on to the U.S. Naval Academy and a career as a naval officer. The remainder of the meeting covered marketing, advertising, enrollment, instruction and staff development.

What attendees recorded at the time

“We began Friday morning with a tour of the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center led by Commander Hung Cao. Commander Cao is an incredible example of Leadership, Perseverance, and Honor. There is no way to listen to this man and not come away challenged to improve your own Management, Discipline, and Leadership skills. … One example: I walked into an elementary that Monday morning and left 2 hours later with a seminar at the end of this month, a summer program and booked for the entire next school year.”

Thomas Wright, Wright’s ATA Martial Arts, Memphis, Tennessee

Video testimonials were also recorded at the meeting from school owners including Paul Gruschow, Paul Prendergast, Ram De Pena and Rob Atalick. Those recordings are held privately and are not published here.

Testimonials are reproduced as written at the time. The coaching programme was then operating under an earlier name and is now Martial Arts Wealth Mastery. Subjects quoted were members of the programme.

Published by Martial Arts Professional as part of the industry-history record. This was a member event of the coaching programme now known as Martial Arts Wealth Mastery.