The Tactical Pirate is a Veteran Owned Small Business
John Cello is the president and lead instructor at The Tactical Pirate.
John brings relevant experience to his classes. Unlike other instructors, he doesn’t instruct from theory, but rather from the practical application of weapon handling techniques that he has employed in the real world.
An NRA certified instructor and a retired member of the Georgia Army National Guard where he served as a Military Policeman, he has a long and varied training background including training civilians, law enforcement officers, Soldiers, and members of the Afghan National Police. John is also experienced in the real-world application of small arms tactics, techniques, and procedures.
He deployed to Iraq in ’08 where he served on the personal security detail for the Brigade Signal Shop at Camp Bucca. Deployed to Afghanistan in ’09 – ’10, he was assigned to a Police Mentoring Team in Kunduz Province working with the Afghan National Police as a trainer. John’s PMT team trained the Afghan Police on general police procedures with an emphasis on patrolling techniques and weapons employment.
After returning from Afghanistan, John was assigned to the Pre-Mobilization Training Assistance Element at Ft. Stewart, GA training units deploying to the Mideast on M9, M4\M16, M249, M240, M203, Mk19, and M2 weapons systems.
John’s second tour in Afghanistan in ’12 – ’13 had him assigned as a squad leader on the quick reaction force (QRF) at Camp Phoenix providing emergency response to the Kabul Base Cluster. For actions in this position, he was awarded the Bronze Star medal.
John is a former sworn law enforcement officer, having served in the patrol and criminal investigation divisions. He spent several years on a multi-agency narcotics task force in an undercover capacity. He was responsible for writing his agency’s documentation establishing a tactical team, wrote its first operational manual, and was on the first team.
John is an active competitor in IDPA, USPSA, 3 Gun Nation, and Steel Challenge matches.
Adjunct Instructors
Adjunct instructors utilized in training programs are serving, discharged, or retired military or law enforcement officers with relevant, actual experience.
Our Reach
The Tactical Pirate training team is capable of mobilizing to any CONUS location to assist military, law enforcement, or civilian groups with training. We can either deliver our standard courses or develop custom classes and courses of fire to address the specific needs of our clients. Due to the restrictive nature of their state gun laws, we do not conduct classes in CA, CO, CT, DC, HI, IL, MA, MD, NJ, NY, PA, or RI.
Other Instruction
We’re not all about guns. Off the range, we offer valuable training to companies of all sizes. Leveraging our owner’s experience and expertise in corporate management, we can help make yours a safer, better communicating, cohesive team.
Our DUNS# is 968875364
Our Cage Code is 6MC32
NAICS Codes 611699 and 611430
You can find scheduled classes and register for them at this link.
And why “The Tactical Pirate” you’re asking?
It stems from a military background. As you know, the Army has an acronym for everything. One of those is TTP, which stands for Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures. That’s the Army’s way of saying how they study what the enemy does, and what the Army is going to do to counter it. Sort of. And in essence, that’s what we teach in our classes. Tactics, techniques, and procedures. But that doesn’t really make for a snappy company name. So we ran different permutations of names using TTP. We finally settled on The Tactical Pirate, because it used the acronym, was memorable, and, well, who doesn’t like pirates? We’re not talking Somali coast pirates, but the romanticized ones that we used to think of when we heard the word pirate. Ergo, the name.
