President Founder

Steven M. Sheridan M. Ed.

President and Founder LTRI

Steve is a retired state of Florida law enforcement Lieutenant after over 14 years of service. He has almost 30 years of teaching experience, 13 as a lead instructor for his former agency, and over 10 years as an instructor for Florida’s State Police Academy. He has supervised and trained the state’s Special Operations Group (SOG), an integral part of Florida’s Homeland Security initiative.  He continues his law enforcement career as a Leon County Reserve Deputy, maintaining his state certifications as a Defensive Tactics and Firearms instructor. In 2010 he was inducted into the Police Hall of Fame for Lifesaving.  He has been teaching self-defense for almost 30 years, developing programs for students, families, agencies, and corporations nationwide. He is currently the state’s BOW Personal Safety Instructor (Becoming an Outdoor Woman Program). He is the founder of the Fortress Fighting System ® and holds Black Belts in Taekwondo and Combat Hapkido.  Steve has a B.S. degree in Sociology with a minor in Criminology from FSU (1994), and he holds a Masters in Adult Education from University of Phoenix (2010).

Steve is a published author and accomplished outdoors man as the first person to hike the Florida Trail.  He published a book about his outdoor experiences along the trail and during a cross state canoe trip titled “Florida Anyway You Can.”

Steve also owns and teaches at his martial arts facility – the Arsenal – in Tallahassee where his team brings innovative and timely defensive tactics programs to law enforcement agencies all over the state. The Arsenal is the only martial art school to actively teach at the Florida Public Safety Institute (FPSI) – Florida’s State Police Academy and has been a regular presenter at the Annual High Liability Instructor Conference since 2014.

The Leadership & Training Research Institute (LTRI) is a Tallahassee, Florida based company.  Mr. Sheridan started the company in 2009 while working on his Advance degree in education and acquired the first clients in 2010. LTRI focuses on assisting others with leadership training and development as well as introducing the Interactive Reality Based Training (IRBT) model to the business environment. LTRI utilizes a consultant network to allow the company to bring in experts in the various fields of business and government work.

LTRI can assist you with the leadership challenges you and your organization face. These challenges can be as involved as correcting leadership shortfalls and corporate culture adjustments to simply bringing in leadership best practices to ensure you and your company stay on the right track.

LTRI is also the only place you will find the IRBT methodology to acquire the best, most efficient and effective training available today. IRBT is a blend of training methods used in the military and police work for high stress and often times life and death situations found in those professions. IRBT has been proven in the corporate world; used by University of Phoenix South Florida Campus (by Dr. Andrew Edleman), Worksite Communications, and more. Interactive training is not just training for physical encounters. IRBT is being used to train teachers to run a classroom and benefit representatives to legally, ethically, and successfully educate employees on their insurance benefits.

Contact us for more information – we look forward to working with you on your next project.