While I am out at Scout Camp this week with Tac Mite, Tactical Fanboy has been delivering the mail, and it’s seemed like Christmas season. So lets all give him a hand for making SSD happen these past (and next) few days!
Hip, Hip, Huzzah!
Hip, Hip, Huzzah!
Hip, Hip, Huzzah!
Job Description: International Sales Manager (Canada, Latin America, and Far East)
Elite Defense is currently looking for a qualified individual who is interested in joining a growing company in the field of military, defense, and law enforcement supply to assist in its international sales department. This individual should be a self-starter, motivated, and be at ease working within the military and law enforcement industries. This individual should be comfortable accomplishing major corporate goals and responsibilities with minimal direct supervision. The territory this individual will be assigned is Canada, Latin America, and the Far East.
Responsibilities:
-Maintain continued product line expertise and operational knowledge.
-Manage current customer base relationship by phone, email, and skype.
-Contact customer base once every two weeks, at minimum, via the above communications methods to ensure they are taken care of.
-Expand current customer base in areas where needed.
-Increase sales in territory of responsibility with current product base.
-Leverage current sales channels to improve sales of other product lines.
-Coordinate with purchasing agents (both internal and external) for delivery of materials needed for customer orders.
-Follow company guidelines for international sales procedures.
-Adhere to company policies outlined in the employee handbook.
-Provide post-sales support and follow up with customers.
-Prepare weekly sales report on activities for president and vice president.
-Travel to company HQ on a quarterly basis, at minimum.
Activities:
-International Travel – This position requires a moderate amount of international travel for trade show attendance and product demonstration/training (a minimum of four shows or events per year).
-Domestic Travel – This position will occasionally require attendance at product manufacturer training events or vendor meetings within the USA.
-Bi-Annual Export Training – Individual will be required to learn about and understand export control regulations which impact their position and how they accomplish their responsibilities while abiding by all US export laws.
-Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work – Individual will develop specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work without direct supervision.
-Performing Administrative Activities – Individual will perform day-to-day administrative tasks such as maintaining information files and processing paperwork.
-Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships – Individual will develop constructive and cooperative working relationships with others, and maintaining them over time.
-Documenting/Recording Information – Individual will enter, transcribe, record, store, or maintain information in written or electronic form.
Required Skills:
-Professional communication – The sales manager shall possess the ability to communicate in oral and written formats in a professional manner. This is critical in dealing with both the customer and colleagues at Elite.
-Professional representation and appearance – The sales manager will act and appear professionally as a representative of the company when working with customers and staff, alike (for example: tradeshow attendance, corporate meetings, etc.).
-Computer skills – The sales manager should have an average understanding of the Microsoft Office suite and be able to produce documents, spreadsheets, and presentations without direct instruction.
Preferred Skills (but not essential to the position):
-Spanish language ability – Individual should have the ability to communicate in Spanish with customers who speak it as their primary language.
-Military Service Experience – Individual should have served in the US Military in order to develop an understanding of Elite’s customer base and product market/product knowledge.
Send resumes or questions the info@elitedefense.com attn: Brett Westcott.
Damage Industries has just released the AK-47 Modular Forearm Assembly MkIII. The MkIII is constructed of high-strength aluminum with an aerospace alloy gas block insert, and features a Mil-A-8625 hardcoat anodized protective finish. It’s designed to fit most AK-47 and AK-74 variants with stamped or milled receivers and installs easily; it replaces only the standard handguard and gas tube, and the mounting hardware is included. Comes with 2 detachable side-mounting Mil-Std 1913 Rails (1 non-QD & 1 QD) which can be mounted in various positions on either side of the forearm. The total weight is only 4 to 6 ounces, depending on the type of forearm & gas tube replaced.
damageusa.com/product/ak-47-modular-forearm-assembly-mkiii
While SSD is not a political blog, I thought that our readers might enjoy this simple tool to help examine their political beliefs. The Advocates For Self Government’s “The World’s Smallest Political Quiz” examines beliefs in personal liberty and economic issues to determine the participant’s political beliefs. With only 10 questions, it doesn’t look at every issue, and certainly not in any detail but it does give a general sense of where you fit in. Mine seemed to be in the right ball park. Enjoy!
Thanks to RYP for the find!
ITW Nexus has partnered up with AustriAlpin to produce the GT Cobra buckle series. The GT Cobra buckles are constructed from 100% polymer, are designed for superior crush resistance vs traditional SR buckles, and tensile loads up to 500lbs. They’re non-conductive, non-corrosive, and function in temperatures ranging from -40F to 140F (270F short term). The GT Cobra buckles come in three styles: non-adjust, single adjust, and dual adjust. All models are interchangeable, which allows for the use of various webbing sizes. The GT Cobra buckles be available in the following colors: Tan499, Black, CB498, Foliage Green, with other colors available by special request. The 1.75″ buckle in Black is shipping to master distributors now; all other buckles will follow later this month into September.
Wow, it’s late July already, where in the hell does the time go? I hope all of you are having a great summer with your families and are enjoying the warm weather.
Today lets discuss “Mindset”. In my first article, “Thoughts on Readiness” I explained some training observations, my training methodology, and creating/utilizing the pyramid of readiness. The second step up the pyramid is mindset. Training for the mind is imperative to your state of readiness, but how do you train the mind? Unfortunately the only thing that I have found that works for me in most cases is good old-fashioned suffering. I break suffering into 3 facets; environmental, physical, and psychological.
Environmental stress is always present in everything we do and I could get way out into the weeds on this and break this down into several sub characters but for the sake of simplicity lets categorize this as weather. Get outside and train in all environmental conditions. This allows your mind to acclimate as your body does to varying spectrums of weather. It also allows you to identify short falls in your gear. I remember on my second tour in Iraq we rotated in country in June and it was the seventh circle of hell hot. I knew when we got of off the plane and I walked past the still running jet engine and through the jet blast only to feel the air get hotter that we were all fucked. We had just flown in from San Diego were it was 85 degrees and as I walked to retrieve my ruck and wait for ground movement instructions I checked my Suunto and it read 113 degrees and this was at 10pm! Early within the first week we conducted our first foot patrol. It was high noon when we departed our COP and the temperature was 127 degrees. We did a 12k movement in full combat gear. My kit weighed 62 pounds and I was running light compared to some of the other Marines. Most of the patrol was uneventful, however about halfway through I stopped sweating after sucking down an entire 70 oz camel back. I knew I was in trouble and it was going to be a serious test of man hood to not become a heat casualty. Two thirds of the way through the patrol, the whole squad was nearly out of water. We were sharing the last two quart canteen, passing it back and forth during a short security halt. At that moment we started taking small bursts of AK fire. We reacted accordingly and nothing really happened, it was ineffective harassment fire just to let us know that we were under observation and definitely in bad guy country. The stress from contact combined with the heat and gear caused me and four other Marines to go down as heat casualties. We were CASEVAC’d back to our COP and I ended up getting an IV bag or two. It was an embarrassing moment for me to collapse on the patrol as the senior NCO, but I learned some valuable lessons that day. First and foremost was the importance of acclimation, and being properly acclimated. It was bad leadership on our commands behalf to have us launch a patrol in that kind of heat after being in country for 3 days. The second was proper nutrition. We all drank copious amounts of water that afternoon and all night prior to the mission, but none of us ate much and had no salt tabs, nor any type of electrolyte replacement. I am convinced most of us over hydrated and washed out all of our body’s salt. Since that day extreme heat hasn’t ever bothered me that much, I have friends and family in Phoenix, Arizona and whenever I visit I make sure I get a couple good long runs in and we always get a day of shooting in 100 plus degree heat.
Currently I live in the mountains of Western Wyoming and we have snow 8 months of the year with average temps in January around -20 degrees. It’s so cold that when March rolls around and temps climb up to the 30’s you often see the locals in t-shirts shoveling their drive way.
The second facet is physical, primarily in an endurance capacity I started running ultra marathons and fast packing long distances and nothing teaches you more about yourself and mental tenacity than running 30-60 miles or hiking 80 miles in 2 days. In the past I believed running those distances was crazy, and now it would appear I have become one of the insane. Learning how to push through physical pain, blisters, muscle fatigue, ruck sores, and chaffing for long periods builds great tolerances. Like those days when it’s thirty degrees and I am rocking a t-shirt to shovel snow off the drive way, now a 10-13 mile run is an easy average workout. Where as 3 years ago I thought running a half marathon was a big deal. Through endurance training you also get the psychological stress, your mind tires as your body does and you have to fight yourself to stay focused. I have literally had to pep talk myself through sections of races to make it and finish.
As with environmental stress, psychological stress has many other variables too. I mentioned in my first article about the master class shooter who was a CrossFit stud but threw up at the sight of blood. He is actually a friend of mine, I took him pig hunting once and I shot a nice hog in the head with a 7.62 at 120 yards. When we walked up on the hog and rolled him over. The hog’s brains fell out accompanied by some blood spray. He took one look at this visceral sight and began vomiting. I stopped and stared at him with what I can only imagine was a very disapproving look on my face. Inquisitively I asked, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” “It’s the blood, it makes me sick” he replied. I unsheathed my knife and handed it to him, I made him cape the animal, cut out the tenderloins and back straps. We barbecued and happily consumed those that night. He puked and dry heaved his way through it, but he persevered and overcame a personal psychological stress. Later that night after we had eaten over beers he thanked me for making him sack up and face a mental failure point.
I have been hunting big and small game since I was a kid. When you look at what hunting is, there is no better type of mindset training. It combines all the facets together. Grab a ruck with your gear, optics and weapons and head off into the backcountry. You hike for miles and spend days climbing mountains. Utilizing field craft to track and locate your prey, and then you experience the adrenaline rush and deal with the mental aspects of killing, while practicing marksmanship under stress. Lastly you cape and quarter the animal and hike it out. Frankly big game backcountry hunting provides a level of mindset training that is unparalleled.
So in closing I will tell you, in the end your only limitation is yourself. Learn to face and break through your failure points, learn to be comfortable at being uncomfortable. Challenge and push ones self to be better, or learn something new everyday. The “Moment of Truth” can come anywhere at any time. Will you be ready?
Until next time………
Brian Bishop served for 8 years as an active duty Infantry NCO in the United States Marine Corps. After being honorably discharged he served an additional 5 years as a defense contractor in support of DEA and USASOC counter narcotics/FID operations. Brian has completed several combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is currently the CEO of Orion Design Group, a leading industry design firm and the chief instructor of Orion Applications, a training group specializing in, weapons and tactics training solutions.
In this photo from the Huffington Post, Russian President Vladimir Putin sports (Hyperstealth Developed) Optifade Open Country camouflage during a recent fishing trip.
The garment, manufactured by Sitka Gear, is pretty high end stuff.
If you aren’t following Soldier Systems Daily on Instagram, you aren’t getting the full experience. We use Instagram to share photos of where we are and what we are doing. It might be something that isn’t worth a full article or the content might not be quite right for the site. Additionally, we attend numerous trade shows and industry events throughout the year and something may catch the eye that we want to share with you. Generally, these images won’t make it to the website or even Facebook.
If you haven’t been sharing our Instagram experience, then here are a few random images that you have missed.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Don’t miss out. Follow us on Instagram and join the conversation.
