There are no hacks to personal safety. It’s about intentional living and prudent decision-making.
Coach, Mentor, Speaker, and Online Teacher
Gary Harrington works with families and individuals to enable them to navigate the threats of today’s world. He developed his system, The Power of Prudence, from his experiences on small teams and alone in hostile environments, as well as tours with a family, serving undercover in foreign countries. Gary’s martial skills were honed in the most demanding training and elite military units. His years of experience in wars and uncertain and chaotic environments taught him that the most crucial aspects of survival and success in life-threatening situations are knowledge, preparation, vigilance, and timely decision-making. The Power of Prudence includes physical skills to deal with unavoidable threats. The focus is on timeless principles and habits that enable anyone of any age or level of physical ability to overcome life-threatening peril.
Gary teaches group seminars and two-day workshops and coaches clients who are concerned about their safety. His clients include people from all walks of life, as well as corporations. His clients have used the training to survive situations while traveling or working abroad and in threatening situations at home.
Gary spent much of the last two years creating and producing an online course designed to come along beside parents to help them mentor their children and families in self-reliance, personal safety, and the tenets of The Power of Prudence. The Prudent Parenting Course helps parents navigate tricky subjects such as cyberbullying, peer pressure, and navigating conflicts. Gary teaches parents the core content and how to present the information to children in a fun, engaging, and not scary way.
We all became painfully aware of the risks encountered by adult children living away from home for the first time as we learned of the murder of four college students in Moscow, Idaho. As details of this tragic event became known, Gary looked at the housing situation as he did when setting up residences and safe houses on foreign soil. Realizing that both parents and students had no system of evaluating the safety pros and cons of a residence or establishing measures to follow for safety in a residence, Gary developed The College Residence Safety Checklist. It walks parents and students through evaluating any on or off-campus residence for safety and establishing measures to increase the safety and security of the student.
A humble start. Forged in elite units. Temprered in conflict.
- A humble start
- Forged in elite units
- Tempered in conflict
Gary’s experience is unique
Gary came from a family of subsistence farmers. Sometimes, his father borrowed the closest grandfather’s mule to plow their garden. His family moved every few years with his father’s work. Gary had a variety of everyday jobs, including at a car wash, a corporate mailroom, a crop-picker, a dishwasher, a short-order cook, a warehouse worker, a lifeguard, and a housing maintenance man.
Gary became a Marine Officer upon graduating college. He served in an infantry unit, then as a reconnaissance platoon commander, and was the Commanding Officer of Troops aboard a naval vessel deployed to Beirut in 1982. Gary left the Corps as a captain to seek new adventures by enlisting in the Army’s Special Forces (SF; aka Green Beret). He served in a unit focused on South and Central America, in Delta Force as a counter-terrorist, and in the Fifth Special Forces Group oriented to operations in the Middle East. Gary deployed to Yemen in 1998/1999 as the first Green Beret to conduct Advanced Special Operations Techniques (ASOT) in a foreign country. Later, the Army loaned Gary to the CIA for two years, and he became a CIA officer two days after retiring from the Army. Gary’s service includes multiple combat tours, classified missions worldwide, almost four years in Afghanistan, and two years doing ops in and out of Iraq from 2002-2004.
Gary’s military qualifications include static line and free-fall parachutist, scuba, Dive Medical Technician, MK15 Closed-Circuit Rebreather, Marine Mountain Warfare School, Marine Infantry Officer’s Course, Marine Scout Sniper Instructor School, high-performance driving and instructor, Amphibious Reconnaissance, SF Medic, SF Operations and Intelligence School, Advanced Special Operations Techniques, and Delta Operators Training Course.
The Man
Gary has been described as an honest man but a rule breaker, a risk taker but diligent, a friend and mentor, fearless but kind, a father of five, and a man of faith. Gary was known to go against the grain when necessary. He was an unconventional man in unconventional wars.
King Arthur asked knights gathered around his table to show them the scars on their hands so he would know what weight to give their counsel. – Gary has the scars.
Gary’s expertise has been featured in radio and television interviews. He guests on podcasts. He appeared in several television documentaries, four featuring him including Spy Ops on Netflix, World’s Deadliest Weapons Declassified 2.0 on A&E, and First In: The CIA versus Bin Laden on Reelz. Two more television specials will debut in 2025.