A Network of Former Federal Agents Dedicated to Community Safety
Accurate - Complete - Certified
937. 901. 1244
Training | Security Consulting | Investigations
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We are a veteran-owned Ohio company founded by violence prevention experts from the FBI and DoD that helps businesses, schools, and police departments prevent, respond, and recover from acts of violence and reduce risks associated with potentially catastrophic lawsuits. Our society is facing a serious and pervasive threat: The explosion of violence in businesses, schools, and our communities. Attacks from angry or frustrated employees, active shooters, and volatile personal relationships have increased risks to our personal safety and the obligations of leaders to provide safe spaces for employees, customers, and students.
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This video explains more about how we can help you protect your people and your business:
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Our workplace violence prevention and response training services were recently featured on WHIO Channel 7 after the unfortunate shooting incident at the DMAX manufacturing facility.
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We were honored to share our mission to help you protect your people and the business you have built. Our training programs provides physical protections for your people and reduce risks associated with potentially catastrophic lawsuits.
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Knowing how to react in the initial seconds of an active shooter attack can save your life and the lives of your family members and employees. Our state and federally recognized training programs, taught by former Special Agents from the FBI and DoD, help you protect what's most important to you.
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For decades we led national violence prevention programs for the FBI. Our group has seen firsthand the devastating impacts of targeted violence and active shooter attacks while serving at the World Trade Center, Shanksville, PA, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. These experiences impacted us greatly and motivated us to establish The Pohl Group to share our expertise and life-saving programs with you. We help you create safer spaces for employees and students and with state and federally recognized programs that also reduce financial risks associated with payouts from lawsuits, legal expenses and workers compensation.
We work collaboratively with corporations to avoid common pitfalls and provide safer workspaces through an assessment of current violence prevention programming, recommendations for improvement, and step-by-step guidance to help your organization implement a best-in-class violence prevention program. We work with schools to improve school safety though education specific training programs, physical security improvements, and training for behavioral threat assessment teams. We work with police leaders to identify, form, and accomplish training goals and improve professional development. We also work with law firms to conduct precise and comprehensive investigations.
Our President and Founder, Mark Pohl, is a Global War on Terrorism Medal Recipient (Iraq, Afghanistan) and Department of Homeland Security trained instructor for Active Threat Response and Emergency Medical Aid for Victims of Traumatic Injuries (TacMed). Mark has developed world wide connections through his work in countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Dubai, Jordan, Central America, and Europe. Our group is here to help your organization prevent, respond, and recover from acts of violence, build safer spaces for your people, and institute programs that reduce corporate liability risks.
A SAFE WORKPLACE IS A SOUND BUSINESS: The main goal of a violence prevention program is to prevent workplace injuries and deaths, and the suffering and financial hardship these events cause for workers, their families, and employers. Violence prevention programs also reduce costs by reducing injury payouts, litigation costs, improving employee retention, and increasing employee confidence in leadership priorities. We will help you avoid pitfalls and improve workplace safety through collaborative program building and training in three core areas: Prevention, Response, and Recovery.
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Our step-by step proactive approach includes working collaboratively with you to review your existing workplace safety program and making recommendations for improvement. We only recommend evidence-based tools that have been proven effective and that we have used in the field for decades. Our workplace violence experts from the FBI will tailor a violence prevention program specific to the needs of your organization and that will fit perfectly for your organizational objectives.
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All too often workplace violence prevention programs are reactive and start from an incident or injury that occurred in the workplace. Proactive approaches that prevent injuries before they happen are a far more effective in reducing injuries, costs and corporate risks. The idea is to begin with a basic program and simple goals and grow the program from there. Employers will find that implementing a violence prevention program results in many other benefits including employee engagement and trust in leadership priorities, improved employee retention, reduced costs of insurance premiums, improved continuity of business operations, and increased compliance with laws and regulations.
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Unfortunately violence in our country has become an epidemic and has permeated the workplace. The number of active shooter attacks has doubled in two years (2019-2021), with most attacks occurring in or near businesses. Casualties per attack are also on a dramatic rise, giving way to lawsuits seeking compensation for injuries, wrongful death, and the trauma suffered by survivors. OSHA has listed active shooter attacks as a recognized workplace hazard. Our dedicated violence prevention experts from the FBI help your organization build safe workspaces that safe lives, reduce payouts, and lower corporate liability risks through program implementation, state and federally recognized training programs taught by subject matter experts from the FBI, and speakers for your events.
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We help your organization with state and federally recognized training programs that help create safer spaces while also lowering risks associated with corporate liability. All of our training programs are compliant with recognized national standards, approved by state and professional associations, and are taught by subject matter experts from the FBI and DoD. Our trainers have decades of experience training for the FBI in corporate environments, schools, police departments, federal agencies, and international organizations.
We provide your organization with training in the 3 core areas of organizational safety: Prevention, Response, and Recovery. We deliver these training programs to you through in-person sessions at your facility and on your schedule to save your organization time and travel costs. We can also help you identify what programs might work best to accomplish your organizational goals and set a training agenda. We deliver training as stand alone courses or as part of a comprehensive violence prevention program.
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We Are Honored To Share Feedback From Our Partners:
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" The training provided by Mark and The Pohl Group has been the best training the district has had pertaining to safety preparedness. Instead of feeling helpless, staff members now feel empowered. I would recommend all schools consider inviting The Pohl Group to provide the training. His team's vast experience and scenario-based training provides another layer of preparedness."
~John Stephens, Superintendent, Arcanum-Butler Local Schools
" The training provided by The Pohl Group to Vandalia-Butler was extremely impressive. Their team’s government-level knowledge was clear in their presentation and evidenced by their varying experiences. During their time at Vandalia-Butler, Mark and Ken delivered to a mixed audience of counselors, principals, safety and security officers, special education supervisors, and district directors. They did a fantastic job of pointing out the significance of each person’s role in any potentially dangerous situation that may pose any level of danger to a student, group of students, or building. Our principals are anxious to have them return to conduct similar trainings at the building level for their staff.
~Lisa Hildebrand, Director of Pupil Personnel, Vandalia-Butler City Schools
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" The Program was outstanding! With 30 years of law enforcement experience, it was one of the most useful courses that I have taken."
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" The Best Training I Have Had Since the Academy. "
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Disrupting Pathways to Violence™,
Threat Assessment Team Training
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We are an approved Ohio School Safety Center (OSSC) Threat Assessment Training Provider that helps your school or organization implement and train behavioral threat assessment teams. Our experts have conducted hundreds of threat assessments for the FBI and have hands on practical experience in helping organizations train and implement effective threat assessment programs that work. This training program helps you prevent violence before it occurs by knowing the signs and indicators that are highly correlated to violent acts. We will help you pick up on indicators such as concerning behaviors, communications, and life stressors and develop proactive intervention strategies to disrupts lifestyle pathways that often lead to violence. It every active shooter event, the perpetrator displayed signs of concerning disfunction that precipitated the attack. Threat assessment teams that know the indicators and who are trained to evaluate and intervene provide your organization with a tangible and effective method of preventing violence in before in happens.
Our experts from the FBI have decades of experience and have conducted hundreds of threat assessments that helped keep our communities and businesses safe. The training you will receive is based upon the most recent information available from the FBI Behavioral Threat Assessment Center (BTAC) and U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC). We teach you how threat assessments work and provide you with time to conduct simulated threat assessments during tabletop exercises so your team can practice conducting before having to conduct a live assessment. Our experts work collaboratively with all stakeholders including security teams, safety managers, mental health professionals and leadership. We can help you disrupt persons who may be on a pathway to violence and get help for those who need it. Some important benefits include:
We bring training directly to your organization, saving valuable time for your staff
Program implementation and support with direct access to our experts
We provide a free workshops to include everyone in the process
Grant money may be available to help you pay for the cost of this training (inquire for details)
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Resiliency, Wellness and Self-Care Training
We provide your organization with federally recognized wellness and self-help strategies that reduce workplace and personal stress and improve employee retention, morale, and resiliency. We also help your organization implement peer-support and EAP programming that helps employees through highly stressful periods and guides employees how and where to get additional help and services.
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De-Escalation Training
Helps you de-escalate potentially dangerous situations through active listening. We can help you deal with people who have become emotional or angry in the workplace, especially related to disciplinary or termination meetings. We also help you understand how to deal with persons in crisis by teaching you to interpret communications and proven methods of response that creates behavioral change and safer outcomes. We provide instructors from the FBI who served as crisis negotiators and who have successfully used this de-escalation model in the field for decades.
SURVIVE ™
Active Shooter Response & Emergency Medical Aid (TacMed)
Active Shooter Response Training
Dramatically improves workplace safety by teaching your employees and safety teams how to properly respond to emergency situations and reduces injuries, deaths, and risks associated with corporate liability. We provide federally recognized Department of Homeland Security (DHS) response procedures, taught by subject matter experts and certified instructors from the FBI and DoD. SURVIVE training inspires the confidence to act and reduces hesitancy through education and training.
Emergency Medical Aid for Victims of Trauma (TacMed) Training
Provides your organization with the capability to utilize a U.S. Military developed medical program to treat the 3 primary causes of death from traumatic injuries in the workplace, until help arrives. The U.S. Military developed this program to address a specific problem: deaths that were occurring from serious but treatable injuries. This program helps your organization reduce deaths from serious workplace injuries and active shooter attacks through the the knowledge an equipment needed to provide immediate interim medical intervention. This program improves survival rates by bridging the critical gap in time between injury and treatment by medical professionals. We teach you not only HOW to administer aid but also WHEN within the context of an active emergency. Whether used during an active shooter incident or serious workplace injury, this life-saving program improves survival rates by 50% (NASEM 2016) by addressing the 3 primary causes of death from traumatic injuries (not just bleeding), until help arrives.
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Click here to learn more about our SURVIVE™ training program.
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High-Performance Police Training
Policing has become a difficult profession for many of our nation's heroes. We provide you with U.S. Military developed and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trained instruction so that you can be certain you are receiving the best training available. Our Police training programs are evidence-based and delivered by federally trained instructors with decades of real world experience and extensive training backgrounds training U.S. Military, international law enforcement, federal law enforcement agencies, local police, university police, teachers, and community organizations. We help you improve the skills and capabilities of your officers and improves their physical, mental, and emotional health through training programs designed specifically for them.
Watch This Video
"How Tactical Medicine Creates Safer Spaces"
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We understand your need for relevant, entertaining, and educational speakers for your events. Whether a large conference or small gathering, our subject matter experts are proud to present on topics that help benefit your event with these important and timely presentations:​
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The Explosion of Violence in America and Evidence-Based Tools That Keep Our Businesses, Schools, & Communities Safe (approved for CE credit):
This presentation has been provided to a wide variety of audiences including the Ohio Attorney General's Law Enforcement Conference, Ohio Department of Public Safety, The FBI National Academy Associates, the Department of Justice, and various corporate associations. Our violence prevention experts provide your organization with the latest statistics, trends, and motivations of active shooters and evidence-based tools that help keep your organization safe. This presentation includes a case study of the Oregon District Mass Shooting in 2019 to demonstrate how active shooter attacks develop and evidence-based tools to prevent them. We also provide your group with survival tips and a recorded interview of a survivor of the attack, only available through this presentation.
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First Fugitive Extradition from Iraq in U.S. History: The story of the first and historic extradition of a fugitive from Iraq to the United States in U.S. history. Insider details of the undercover operation that snared an international criminal and the 6 year cat an mouse game that ended in his capture in Iraq. The extradition almost didn't happen after a fight broke our onboard an Air Jordan commercial aircraft in Amman and the scrambling of an FBI aircraft that rescued the operation. This presentation has been provided for the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense.
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The Oregon District Shooting and tools that help organizations prevent, respond, and recover from acts of violence, a case study (approved for CLE credit):
This presentation features details of the Oregon District Shooting in Dayton, OH and an in-depth look at the perpetrator of this massacre. This case study utilizes the troubling background of the murderer and the many red flags that were present prior to the shooting to demonstrate how threat assessment capabilities can help organizations prevent violence. Originally produces videos of survivors of this attack are also featured and are only available through this presentation.