Chris Grollnek, Active Shooter Expert: The Executive Profile
The Chris Grollnek executive profile: the whole picture on one page. Former U.S. Marine and retired police detective corporal. Architect of the P.R.O. Model™. Published October 18, 2026.
Chris Grollnek is an internationally recognized active shooter expert and the chairman who founded and has run Active Shooter Prevention Project, LLC since 2010. He is also a senior operating executive who builds the alliances that make prevention work. The U.S. Army published an account of a technology demonstration at Blue Grass Army Depot. In it, the Army called him “one of the country’s foremost authorities on active shooters.” The U.S. Department of Justice then selected the prevention model he created, the P.R.O. Model™, as “A” national standard for the Assistant United States Attorneys and across the Department, for 2022 to 2025 and again for 2026 to 2030, and it is in use at some installations and commands across the Department of Defense.
He is the Chairman of the Board and Founding Principal of Active Shooter Prevention Project, LLC (ASPP™), a service-disabled veteran-owned small business. For the past several years he has also held a senior executive seat in the digital twin and indoor mapping industry. In both roles he has been the connector. The builders of security technology, the people who sell it and the people who live with it all end up in his room. This Chris Grollnek executive profile is written in the third person on purpose. The record reads better in other people’s words.
What have the U.S. Army, the Department of Justice and the press said about Chris Grollnek?
Boards and agency leaders are right to discount what an executive says about himself. So this Chris Grollnek executive profile leads with what others have put in writing about the active shooter expert.
- The U.S. Army, describing the Blue Grass Army Depot demonstration it hosted with senior defense officials, named him “one of the country’s foremost authorities on active shooters” (army.mil, October 8, 2024).
- The U.S. Department of Justice selected the P.R.O. Model™ as “A” national standard for the Assistant United States Attorneys and across the Department, twice. He then wrote and delivered the National Active Shooter Prevention Training Video built on it for the 10,700 AUSAs, and it is now carried on the DOJ learning portal.
- The Department of Defense has the P.R.O. Model™ in use at some installations and commands. He also created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Program of Instruction for active shooter prevention.
- The World Police Summit in Dubai, hosted by Dubai Police, invited him twice as a featured keynote presenter.
- The NFL made him its Active Shooter Prevention Coordinator for Super Bowl LVIII and Super Bowl LIX. NBA and NHL venues have also brought him in for facility assessments.
- Congress has heard him testify before House Ways and Means and in Senate testimony convened by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. He also contributed to Representative Peter King’s joint homeland security committee work. After 9/11, he served as a terrorism analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and briefed the National Security Council.
- National and international press have turned to him for more than 1,200 television interviews across FOX, CNN, BBC, CGTN, RT and France 24. Meanwhile, he has delivered more than 1,500 speaking engagements. The citations, with links to the original pieces, are kept on the media interviews and verified citations page.
How does Chris Grollnek operate?
As an executive who has run the same play in four different worlds and can explain it to a fifth. The lines on the banner above are not slogans; each one is a body of work.
The operating record
He founded ASPP™ in 2010 and has run it since: the doctrine, the people, the partner economics and the books. The Community of Experts partner model is his. A business development fee and a keynote program are written into every partner letter. So the company earns from the alliances it creates. Then came SAM registration, SBA certification and the cooperative purchasing vehicles that let a public agency buy without a full solicitation. The federal outreach cadence and the sales collateral are his as well. So is the newsletter that reaches a few hundred decision makers twice a month. In short, he has carried the chairman’s seat and the operator’s seat at the same time for sixteen years. He reads a board packet the way a board does.
Strategic alliances: the Community of Experts
ASPP™’s Community of Experts is a bench of more than sixty specialists and partner companies, assembled one relationship at a time. For example, it includes retired FBI special agents from the Behavioral Science Unit and the Hostage Rescue Team, two retired general officers, and a former Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps who went on to serve as a U.S. Ambassador. It also includes the companies behind access control, weapons detection, AI video analytics, ballistic glass, indoor drones, gunshot detection and 911 integration. Scylla, one of those companies, published his analysis of where weapon detection and AI video analytics belong inside an all-hazards program, workplace violence included, as Closing the Gaps. He also holds board or advisory seats with Garrett Metal Detectors, FutureVu Brands, Brecourt Solutions and GSIS in Washington, D.C., and he chairs the steering committee of ASHER 360™, the nonprofit arm of ASPP™. The through-line is the same in every seat: bring the technical people, the sales people and the customer into one room, then leave with a plan everyone will fund.
National security, the defense industry and public safety
He has briefed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters at Blue Grass Army Depot and written a Program of Instruction for a federal safety board. The Department of Justice got a national training standard out of him, and two Super Bowl security operations centers got him in the room. Because ASPP™ is registered in SAM and SBA-certified as a service-disabled veteran-owned small business, he reads a solicitation the way a contracting officer does. It is also sold through cooperative purchasing vehicles, so an agency can buy without a full open solicitation.
Digital twins and indoor data visualization
His executive work for the past several years has centered on indoor mapping, living digital twins and the information systems that feed them. As a result, his prevention work now treats a building as data: where the cameras see, where the doors fail, where a response team loses time. He has presented that convergence from main stages in 2026. In short, he is one of the few people in the field who can speak to the security officer, the facilities director and the chief information officer in one meeting.
Doctrine, not just delivery
He created the P.R.O. Model™, Prevention, Response, Options, in that order, and authored Law Enforcement Standards for Active Shooter Response for Quick Series. He also holds Texas TCOLE Master Instructor and Master Peace Officer credentials, which have carried his courses through POST standards in more than half the states. Still, the method is more than doctrine, because three documented saves sit behind it.
The credential nobody can buy
He was on scene at an active shooter incident, a vehicle bomb and more than a thousand rounds fired, with 168 of them fired at the responders. That day is also the reason the model starts with prevention.
Where does Chris Grollnek add the most value?
At the operating level, not the functional one. So here are the seats where the Chris Grollnek executive profile earns its keep:
- Chief operating officer or president of a funded company that needs to scale. The team, the systems, the partner channel and the operating cadence a board can read, built by someone who has run his own company for sixteen years and worked inside a large enterprise
- Chief-level leader for strategic alliances, partnerships or channel in security technology, digital twins, public safety or the defense industry
- Chief Security Officer or head of enterprise resilience for a company whose buildings and people are the balance sheet: stadiums, campuses, hospitals, critical infrastructure
- Board member or advisor for a company selling into public safety or federal markets and wanting a service-disabled veteran-owned small business in its teaming plan
- Keynotes and executive briefings for boards, agencies and associations
What does not fit: a quota-carrying individual contributor seat, or any role that asks him to speak about prevention from a political corner. Because evil does not discriminate, neither does he.
What is new in 2026?
- The Department of Justice selected the P.R.O. Model™ for a second window, 2026 to 2030.
- The U.S. Small Business Administration certified ASPP™ as a service-disabled veteran-owned and veteran-owned small business on September 23, 2026. That opens set-aside and sole source awards, and it also lets a prime count ASPP™ toward its subcontracting goals.
- Allied Universal hosted his session on the speaker stage at GSX 2026 in Atlanta. Then, in October, he delivered a main-stage talk on indoor mapping and living digital twins.
- ASPP™ published the two-page P.R.O. Model™ explainer with its capability statement, the glass solution fact sheet with FutureVu Brands, and The Prevention Brief, a newsletter that reaches a few hundred decision makers twice a month.
Education and credentials in the Chris Grollnek executive profile
- M.S., Administration of Justice and Security, 4.0 GPA with honors; capstone on the active shooter phenomenon
- Former U.S. Marine and retired police detective corporal; Texas TCOLE Master Instructor and Master Peace Officer
- Creator of the P.R.O. Model™ and the DNFSB Program of Instruction; author, Law Enforcement Standards for Active Shooter Response (Quick Series)
- Expert witness in multiple cases for victims’ families
- Contributor, MacKenzie Institute (Canada); former CSIS terrorism analyst
Frequently asked questions
How does Chris Grollnek work with boards and executive teams?
Through advisory seats, executive briefings and the alliances he builds, and this Chris Grollnek executive profile is the short version of why. He is reachable at chris@aspppro.com, 214-663-2849, and on LinkedIn. A conversation costs nothing, and it usually starts with what the organization is trying to protect.
What does an active shooter expert do inside a company?
First, prevents the day everyone is afraid of; then prepares the company for the day prevention fails. In practice that means assessments of buildings and people, and a threat assessment team with a policy behind it. It also means training that leaders and staff actually remember, and the technology choices that make all of it work together. The full definition of the role is here.
Has the federal government adopted the P.R.O. Model™?
The Department of Justice selected it as “A” national standard for the Assistant United States Attorneys and across the Department, for 2022 to 2025 and 2026 to 2030, and it is in use at some installations and commands across the Department of Defense. It is written that carefully on purpose, because the words matter, and the record of the DOJ selection is public.
Does Chris Grollnek speak at conferences and brief boards?
Yes. More than 1,500 engagements so far, for example from the World Police Summit in Dubai to GSX, with executive briefings and board sessions in between. The keynote page covers the topics and how to book.
Why does the P.R.O. Model™ start with prevention instead of response?
Because response, however well trained, begins after the first shot. Prevention is the only part of the problem that can end with a quiet day, so the people who do it never make a headline. In short, the price to solve a problem is far less than the cost of dealing with one.
To reach Chris Grollnek: email chris@aspppro.com with the organization and the subject. Then you will have an answer inside a business day. Destination #NEVERHERE™.
The Active Shooter Prevention Project, LLC is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, certified through the U.S. Small Business Administration and registered on SAM.gov under UEI WY1KKBUALL95 and CAGE 9FEA4. Former U.S. Marine and retired police detective corporal.
