Owner and lead instructor, Jerod Campbell, has been married to his wife, Jennifer since 2004 and they have 4 children.  Jerod began his law enforcement career in 2001 and has worked for a Sheriff's Office in Southern Illinois since 2003 where he currently holds the rank of major.

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Jerod has been a member of his church's safety team for over 8 years.  After being involved in many fellowship opportunities with other church safety teams, Jerod realized that most church safety or security teams do not have any tactical training that would help them stop an active threat event at their church.  Jerod decided to use his experience and training as a certified Active Threat Master Instructor to start Mat 5:9 Training Group (M59TG) in order to give church safety team members the tactical skill needed to safely and effectively stop an active threat at their church.

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In 2008, Jerod joined a regional Weapons of Mass Destruction Special Response SWAT team that covered 34 counties in Southern Illinois.  During the 15 years Jerod was a member of that team, he held various roles and responsibilities.  Like all new guys Jerod started as a "perimeter guy" and worked his way up through the roles as a breacher, point man on the entry team, assistant team leader, entry team leader and was the overall team commander for the last 2 years he spent on the team.  While on the team, Jerod conducted over 150 operations ranging from high risk search warrants, executive protection detail, barricaded gunman and high risk ground searches.  Jerod completed thousands of hours of tactical training across 15 years, not only in Southern Illinois, but at training locations all across the country.

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In 2009, Jerod completed his first active shooter instructor course and in 2018 was certified as an Active Threat Master Instructor and a Master Tactical Patrol Officer.   An Active Threat Master Instructor certification requires holding an instructor certificate in the following topics: Solo response to an active threat event, Rapid Deployment, Use of Force, Rescue Task Force, MACTAC (Multi-Assault, Counter Terrorism Action Capabilities) and a Tactical Medical Instructor.    

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Jerod has been teaching active threat tactics to law enforcement officers throughout Southern Illinois since 2022 for an Illinois mobile training units.