
Mission Critical
The award-winning memoir behind everything on this site. Riveting, funny, and honest.
School safety, student engagement, and classroom management training that works, without the fear. Every school safety consultant is either a security expert who never taught or a teacher who read a book about security. Eric is the only one in the room who is both.
Booked by schools, districts, sheriffs' offices, and state preparedness programs nationwide. His calendar fills months ahead.
Full staff in-services, law enforcement classes, and student assemblies in the hundreds. The rooms change. The result does not.
In the order schools need them most. Every session is practical, story-driven, and built so your staff walks out with things they will use the next morning. Classroom courses carry 1-3 hours of graduate credit.
Eric spent twenty years protecting America's highest valued assets, from nuclear weapons to presidents. He brings that expertise to your building the way an educator would: calm, practical, and determined to make your school safer without making it look or act like a prison. His own writing takes apart fear-based active shooter theatrics. When he trains, people remember the plan, not the pain.
Take the 2-minute school safety self-check →
Federal and state money exists for exactly this. BJA STOP funds pay for staff training and threat assessment teams, and most states now run their own school safety grants. Eric helps you frame the ask.
Bring this to your schoolEric co-wrote the Time To Teach course on differentiated instruction, storytelling, and motivation, and he delivers it like the storyteller he is. Teachers leave with strategies like Synectics, Hot Seat, and structured storytelling they can drop into tomorrow's lesson, plus the why behind each one: positive feelings, attention, connectedness, and self-efficacy.
This course was put under a microscope, a doctoral case study watched what happened after one day of it. The numbers are below.
See how the course is built, component by component:
Short overviews from the Student Engagement and Motivation course.
Bring this to your schoolThe Time To Teach day changes the approach to discipline itself. Diffusers, Unconditional Positive Regard, and the Refocus method teach students to change their own behavior instead of simply being punished for it. Schools using it report dramatic drops in referrals, and one implementing school logged 59% fewer court-reportable discipline incidents over two years (per its resource officer's records).
Replacing a single teacher costs a district an estimated $11,860 to $24,930. A day that keeps teachers teaching, and keeps them from leaving, is the cheapest retention insurance a district can buy.
Bring this to your schoolIn 2015, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte doctoral case study examined Eric's one-day engagement and differentiated instruction training, delivered by Eric himself at a working middle school. The researcher tallied off-task behaviors in six classrooms before the training and after it.
Macon, A. K. (2015). The effect of differentiated instruction professional development on response and engagement in the middle school classroom. UNC Charlotte doctoral dissertation. Case study of six classrooms; the study notes results strengthen further with follow-up support, which is exactly how Eric structures multi-visit work.




Every word below is transcribed from a signed seminar evaluation of the program Eric co-authored, with permission on file to print the name.
“I use many of the philosophies and practices in my classroom from attending a Time to Teach in the summer. I have found that, when used consistently, my students respond to these practices so much better than what I experienced last year.”
This was one of the best seminars I have been to.
I feel I have learned enough to make major changes with my students. I can't wait to try all these great strategies!
I absolutely love Time To Teach! My special education students have recognized their full potential with the implementation of this in my room.
This was not a “fluffy,” “sugar-coated” workshop that wasted time. I honestly am looking at my teaching methods and procedures in a different and new way.
Tremendously informative. Strategies that will enable each teacher to have an immediate increase in instructional time.
This workshop is not only helpful for teachers, but for administrators as well. It has inspired me to think about the school-wide strategies and interventions that I can use.
Video testimonials on Eric and his Student Engagement and Motivation training.
Quotes are transcribed from signed Time To Teach seminar evaluation forms (consent on file) and reference the seminar program and materials co-authored by Eric Combs and Rick Dahlgren. Some quotes are excerpted at sentence boundaries; originals available on request.
Eric spent twenty years in Air Force Security Forces, protecting assets from nuclear weapons to presidents, training with the British SAS, and earning USAF Europe's Non-commissioned Officer of the Year. Then he did the harder job: he walked into a public school classroom. Twelve years later he had taught World History to at-risk ninth graders, been named 2006 Ohio Teacher of the Year, served as an administrator, and joined the faculty at two universities.
Off the clock he is a scuba diver, a high ropes and rappelling instructor, a survival instructor, and a storyteller who can hold seven hundred teenagers or a room of sheriff's deputies with the same story. Your staff will not check their email during his sessions. They will be too busy laughing and writing things down.
Meet him in person
Books and classroom resources by Eric and the Time To Teach team. Add to cart and Eric follows up personally with an invoice.

The award-winning memoir behind everything on this site. Riveting, funny, and honest.

Common sense personal protection for every staff member, from everyday life to the hallway.

One hundred ready to use behavior lesson plans to teach the behavior you want to see.
Federal BJA STOP School Violence funds pay for staff training and threat assessment teams (the other federal stream, COPS SVPP, is hardware only and cannot fund training). Most states now run their own school safety grants on top, and several mandate the very training and assessments Eric provides. Tell him your state and he will help you frame the request.
Keynotes, full-day trainings, two-day bundles, on-site security assessments, and tabletop series. Classroom courses carry 1-3 hours of graduate credit.