Proven expertise
Wherever your people have to engage with other people there is the potential for conflict to arise. That potential increases if your people need to enforce rules or standards or have to give people news they may not want to hear.
That's when you need the proven expertise and guidance of CERT Systems. We design and deliver training to ensure the safety, effectiveness and professionalism of your people. We equip your people with the knowledge and skills to keep them safe as well as enhancing their effectiveness and professionalism in a situation or role.
We also assist at a consultancy level, helping management to make better decisions across a range of areas.
So how did we arrive in this business?
It's a short story with a logical plot. Every member of the CERT Systems training team has operational and instructional experience in compliance and enforcement. Every CERT trainer has ‘walked the talk’ in real life. Our knowledge and experience is hard won dealing with real world situations.
We complement that with extensive instructional experience to ensure the best learning outcomes for the people who attend our courses and workshops.
Effective training solutions
All CERT trainers have extensive operational compliance and enforcement experience across a range of sectors. Their expertise has been hard won in ‘the real world’.
CERT trainers remain active in operational activities to ensure they remain up to date with current trends within today's operating environment.
Along with their operational backgrounds, CERT trainers also have extensive instructional experience that ensures they are able to deliver training in ways to maximise learning outcomes.
CERT trainers are members of national and international training groups and associations and undertake professional development to ensure they remain up to date with instructional best practise.
Since its inception in 2007, CERT has delivered training and provided consultancy advice to in excess of 80 public and private sector organisations throughout New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Both the NZ Police and NZ Department of Corrections commissioned CERT to design and deliver nationwide tactical communication training programmes to their officers while Air NZ entrusts CERT to train cabin crew in managing challenging behaviour aboard their planes. These sorts of appointments provide assurance as to the quality and effectiveness of the training we design and deliver.
We will gladly provide client contact details for references.
Professionalism sits at the heart of who we are and what we do.
We are open, honest and transparent in our dealings with everyone we deal with.
Put simply, we love what we do! Our enthusiasm for helping our clients and empowering their team members is palpable.
We are constantly exploring new ideas, concepts, techniques and products to ensure we remain ahead of the game and are ready with solutions for emerging issues.
Brad is the founder of the CERT Group of companies. Brad worked in the compliance and enforcement sections of NZ Fisheries for more than 19 years and has extensive experience in both operational and training roles.
Having faced many challenging situations with multiple safety risk factors, he developed his knowledge and skill in the officer safety field. This led to his appointment as National Coordinator: Officer Safety training and the development of the defensive tactics training manual for the Ministry of Fisheries.
Brad holds national and international instructor certifications in officer safety and tactical communications-related training. His experience in frontline roles, along with the development and delivery of officer safety training, ensure our programmes are second to none.
Rachel joined CERT Group after a variety of leadership roles in New Zealand and internationally. After starting her career as a print and television journalist she has worked in the agricultural, technology, education, and food sectors in communications, marketing, business development and management roles.
More recently Rachel was involved in the global satellite industry supplying broadband connectivity to aircraft in airlines across the world.
With a strong background in marketing, business development and management, Rachel’s role with CERT Group is providing strategic leadership to both CERT Systems (NZ) and CERT Australia
Olivia coordinates our training, looking after our clients, enrolling participants and ensuring venues and catering are top notch. She also ensures the smooth day-to-day running of the office and organises gear sales on the side. Olivia joined CERT in 2016 after similar roles with other New Plymouth-based companies.
With 23 years in the NZ Police, Laurie is an experienced Investigator with a proven history of working in the law enforcement industry in New Zealand and Australia.
Laurie is an Advanced Investigative Interviewing specialist at all levels of interviewing victims, witnesses, suspects, children and persons of interest. After being trained by world-leading Interviewing experts and following a career of interviewing and training NZ Police officers at district and national levels, he developed his own PEACE interviewing programme to train other government sector and private agencies to enable their people to undertake effective investigations.
Laurie is now delivering his highly-valued Investigative Interviewing course under the CERT banner.
Susan was an officer with the Hampshire Police in the UK from 1991 to 2014 attaining the rank of Sergeant in 2002. During this time she answered emergency calls from the public, supervised frontline staff in Portsmouth and ran a custody block between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton.
In 2014 Susan moved to New Zealand taking up a role within the Counties Manukau custody unit before becoming a Tactical Options Trainer from 2015 – 2020 training NZ Police in tactics such as Firearms, Taser, OC spray, unarmed defence and control and restraint.
Susan has an NZQA level 5 Adult Education Tertiary Teaching certificate, building on her experience in the UK Police where she was a workplace Dyslexia Assessor.
Cam served for 18 years in the British Prison Service and worked in various departments before undergoing further training to specialise as a Physical Education Instructor. He holds numerous coaching and adult education qualifications. He was also a Control and Restraint instructor and advised and supported senior ranks on the safe resolution of incidents.
He relocated to New Zealand with his family in 2008 and after a brief time working for the Department of Corrections became a Defensive Tactics and Physical Training Instructor for the NZ Police at the Royal New Zealand Police College in Porirua. He is also a Police Firearms instructor and a Cognitive Enhancement coach.
During a 28-year career in the NZ Police Blair reached the rank of Inspector and held a number of senior roles, including Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) supervisor, Area Commander and Private Secretary to the Minister of Police.
Blair’s experience includes numerous overseas deployments, including the Solomon Islands and as a Police Liaison Officer at numerous Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Blair is also an Olympian himself, having represented New Zealand in Bobsledding at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.
With almost 20 years of frontline policing experience, Blair brings situational safety, conflict management and resolution, and general law enforcement skills to CERT - skills garnered through experience ‘in the field’. He is also a qualified firearms instructor.
During 25 years with the NZ Police, Rachel worked in a range of roles, including nine years as a senior prosecutor. As a CIB investigator, in organised crime and child abuse, she gained a wealth of knowledge about New Zealand law. She also spent time on the Diplomatic Protection Squad, working with visiting VIPs, and the Prime Minister at the time, the Rt Hon Jenny Shipley.
A tertiary degree in psychology and criminology help her understand “how people tick” in high risk or stressful situations.
A Lead Auditor with qualifications in ISO 9001:2015 Management Systems and ISO 14001:2015 Safety and Health, Rachel has conducted safety audits and reviews of many large and small government agencies.
Chris served 26 years as a sworn police officer with Merseyside Police in the UK before moving to New Zealand where he became a Firearms and Defensive Tactics instructor with the New Zealand Police.
While in the UK he was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Self Defence, Arrest and Restraint Committee, Practitioners Group, UK, which steered national policy and guidelines for staff safety training.
Chris has also held a number of coaching and leadership roles within the high performance sports sector in New Zealand. Chris is a passionate cyclist and enjoys the off-road and cycle trail network in his home region of Central Otago.
Jeff McGrath joined CERT after 25 years in the NZ Police which included various ranks and roles including SAR Incident Manager, officer in charge of the Youth Services workgroup, and O/C of the Police SAR Squad.
During his Policing career, Jeff gained significant experience dealing with a wide range of people and experiences; he’s dealt with intoxicated, agitated, mentally unstable, unpredictable, and substance affected people, and incidents involving harm to self or others.
In his role managing Search & Rescue emergencies, Jeff developed his operational planning, coordination and command skills, and learned a lot about the skill of managing colleagues.
Ian worked in enforcement for 28 years; from 1989 to 1996 as a Fisheries Officer and from 2001 to 2022 in the NZ Police.
During this time, Ian was promoted to sergeant and supervised several frontline teams. With one of his community teams, he was recognised in the 2019 Police National Awards for work in a low socioeconomic community, resulting in major crime and significant harm reduction in that community.
In both Fisheries and Police, Ian proved a successful and safe communicator. Ian’s ability to communicate with all types of people, has been the driving force in making projects in the most difficult situations, work.
The Situational Safety & Tactical Communications Experts — New Zealand & Australia