Ted Buffington, founder and CEO of Achievement By Design®, is an expert in 'performance under pressure' related processes & patterning methodologies.

   He has nearly 30 years of experience in high performance and excellence research, programs design, development, and delivery.

   He has received international recognition and acclaim for his 'decision making in critical situations' and 'mental focus training programs.

   Ted's critical situation decision making techniques have proven results with Fortune 500 companies leadership teams; process and project teams; airport emergency response teams; professional sports; military, fire services; law enforcement; emergency operations centers (EOC); hospital emergency operations; public health; plant & facility maintenance, physical asset management teams; and a variety of other incident command and  'mission critical' contexts.

   A major focus of Ted's is providing his critical situation decision making processes and methodologies to support all aspects of Public Safety.  He is a Certified Emergency Response Professional (CERP), former Instructor for the Community Preparedness & Disaster Management (CPDM) graduate program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Senior Consultant for Crisis Teams International; Chair-elect for the Tarrant County Citizen Corp Council; an Officer in the Texas Medical Rangers unit of the Texas State Guard; former President of the Keller CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) Association; a Certified CERT Trainer; Charter Member of International Consortium for Organizational Resilience (ICOR); creator of the C.L.E.A.R. (Command Leadership Effectiveness for Awareness & Response) Training & Coaching programs, and Associate Editor and columnist for Responder Magazine.

   Ted’s recent keynotes and presentations include:  The World Conference on Disaster Management (WCDM in Toronto,) Canada, Disaster Forum & Conference, Banff, Alberta, Canada; Several Disaster Recovery Journal Conferences, (DRJ), National Association of Convenience Stores Technology Conference, (NACStech), Pinnacle Summit, FEMA Higher Educational Conference, International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) Annual Conference, EPICC (Emergency Preparedness for Industry and Commerce Council), The Hong Kong Benchmarking Conference, CPAC (Continuity Planners Association of the Carolinas) Conference, and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority Disaster Management Conference.

    He is a former commercial banking officer and has been a consultant, trainer, keynote presenter, and advisor for the American Management Association (AMA).

Ted has been active in martial arts for over 30 years and served in the Vietnam war with the U.S. Army.  He  was awarded two Air Medals and a Bronze Star for acts of heroism and valor.  As a demonstration of his 'beyond the comfort zone' methodologies, Ted was invited and attended the famous "Hell Camp" - a Japanese 'Kamikaze' styled management training school (as seen on CBS 60 Minutes). He graduated first in his class and went on to earn an instructor's ranking.  Also, he was a stunt man and received cast credit in the movie, "The Jewel of the Nile".

His comments and observations on critical situation decision making, managing fear, conflict management, and his views on high performance and team engineering, have been presented in several publications including: The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Industry Week Magazine, and Canadian Business Magazine. He has been a guest or featured on many radio and television programs throughout North America and Asia.

His unique insights & teachable moments, combined with a playful, humorous approach and interactive facilitation style, keeps Ted busy as a regular keynote speaker and program presenter at a wide variety of major conferences throughout North America and Asia.  Based in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area, he is completing his next book, "Focus, Fold, or Freeze - the Science & Art of Performance Under Pressure," while continuing his trainings, research and consulting practice.

Links to Ted Buffington References on the Web