Board of Directors
Demetrios Pynes
Simon Grieves
Paolo (Paul) Ferrara
Steven Andreazza
With over twelve years experience in operating successful businesses, eight years experience in the banking and finance industry where he was responsible for the management of hundreds of millions of dollars of client funds, and post-graduate qualifications in commerce, Demetrios holds the requisite experience to act as our managing director
Demetrios Pynes commenced his training in the martial arts in 1988 and in January 1992 Demetrios was awarded the rank of 1st Dan Black Belt by Gary Simpson and a panel of senior instructors. In January 1994, he was certified as a qualified martial arts and self defence instructor.
He successfully completed the requirements for the 5th Dan Black Belt through ZKKD in 2006, a rank verified by the Australian Martial Arts Association. Demetrios has been awarded the title of Renshi (Master Level Instructor) which has also been recognised by the Australian Martial Arts Association. Demetrios has held managerial positions in the security industry, formerly holding security officer and crowd control licences and is currently licensed as a security consultant.
Demetrios is also the founder of the Strategic Protection of Self course and devotes a significant part of his time into the development of curriculum for our registered training organization.
Simon has some 29 years of experience working in Law Enforcement and Private Security. Of these, 18 years were as a Police Officer with 5 years spent as a weapons instructor and another 6 years in Tactical Operations as an operator and Tactical Commander reaching the rank of Acting Sergeant.
He entered the private security industry and established himself as a weapons & defensive tactics instructor in the private security sector and delivers training to some of Australia’s largest and respected armed cash in transit security corporations.
Searching to challenge himself and gain more experience he continues to hold operational roles around the world. Simon has worked in Iraq as a training mentor to the Iraqi Police, in West Africa teaching local nationals defensive driving and delivering travel awareness workshops to the mining and resource industry. Today he continues his professional development travelling to the USA undertaking weapons courses and maintaining his own operational skills on active roles locally and internationally.
In his role of Director of Training and Special Operations, Simon is responsible for research and development and has written much of the accredited training material delivered by Tactical Conflict Solutions.
Simon holds formal qualifications in training and assessment and is a certified instructor in a variety of munitions and weapons.
In his capacity as Director of Operations, Paul has many years experience in logistics and business, having worked for one of the world’s largest transport companies both here and overseas. With university qualifications in management and information systems, Paul is well suited to his role of coordinating all training assignments across the globe. Paul also has a significant background in martial arts having completed his 1st Dan Black Belt examination in 2006.
Having spent the last ten years employed by large organisations in the mining industry, and also with the last five years as an accountant for one of the big four chartered accounting firms specialising in research, Steven has the appropriate background to run the administrative aspect of our training organization. As a result of his security industry experience, Steven was appointed as the Tactical Conflict Solutions Safety Officer, and ensures that all risk management procedures are adhered to, maintaining high degrees of student and instructor safety. Widely known for his extensive role playing skills, Steven has been contracted by various other training organizations to assist in scenario based training.
Steven has trained in martial arts since 1996 and holds multiple black belt ranks.
Steven holds BSc. and B.Com degrees and has commercial experience in both metallurgy and accounting. He is the non-executive director of a mining exploration company.