About CAVU deploys tested, regimented, and immediately validated safety and leadership strategies that ignite lasting organizational change.

We were born from an idea that substandard performance and catastrophic incidents are not the results of inevitable chance or human nature. They are the result of two simple, yet misunderstood factors: leadership deficiencies and inadequate safety training.

After more than two centuries of combined leadership and tactical experience at the highest levels of the United States Navy, we partner with ambitious companies to address both, with a clear focus on the business mission. Our approach is rooted in our Continuous Improvement Model – a rapidly deployable and dynamic system that ensures team-wide alignment on the mission objective(s) and how to meet them day after day.

Joining with high-hazard industries to create organizational resiliency through superior training Drawing from our military training, we develop high-reliability teams across roles and capability, from the frontline up to the executive management. For the frontline, we habituate processes to reliably meet production and quality benchmarks while protecting the wellbeing of equipment, the environment, and themselves. For supervisors, leaders, and management, we help define your successful outcome and create a deliberate plan of behaviors and strategies to achieve it.

Most importantly, we engage the entire organization to capture what was learned, what can improve, and what will lead to continued future success.

Bridging the gaps between effective management, actionable training, and enduring implementation, we help teams evolve beyond merely reacting to internal and external circumstances but proactively, confidently, meeting them head-on.

At CAVU, our mission objective is simple: empower your team to achieve yours.

We optimize performance and eliminate risk through addressing the most common human and operational vulnerabilities.

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CAVU Services CAVU training gives teams the tools they need to take charge of their projects, removing luck and chance from the equation. We show the secrets high reliability industries
have used for years to create a deliberate, repeatable and sustainable model. Our focus is on leadership fundamentals that drive optimum team behaviors centered around the continuous improvement process. Best of all, safety issues disappear and morale dramatically improves. Executive Alignment

• Strategic vision and messaging
• Safety goal alignment
• Management expectations
• Accountability defined by role

Workforce Assessment

• GAP analysis
• Culture survey
• Manager and supervisors effectiveness
• Technical workforce perception

Leadership Development

• Facilitated round table discussions
• Identify goals, challenges, and mitigations
• Leadership milestones and commitments
• Individual leadership action plans

Team Coaching

• On-site coaching and mentoring
• Frontline supervisor best practices
• Process compliance expectations
• Soft skills and human factors training

Deliverables

• Survey results
• Phase engagement plans
• On-site post engagement debriefs
• Phase debrief reports

Crew Resource Management
Human FactorsMitigating the biological, psychological, physiological limitations of individuals that impact their ability to safely and efficiently complete a task.
LeadershipThe capability of a leader to accurately, decisively, and calmly enhance the performance of a team towards a specific goal, while developing growth and engagement of the individual team members.
CommunicationImparting relevant, timely, and accurate information to an individual or group with the intent to shape a common picture, confirm understanding and improve decision making.
Decision MakingAccurately and efficiently diagnosing situations to effectively choose appropriate courses of action.
TeamworkThe ability of a group of two or more to work effectively and interdependently within available resources to achieve a shared goal.
Situational AwarenessAccurately and consistently analyzing dynamic environmental factors that impact a team's safety and performance in pursuit of their objective(s).
Human Performance Instructor CourseInspired by the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program (TOPGUN), CAVU’s Human Performance Instructor (HPI) Course is a five day course designed to create Human Performance subject matter experts within your organization’s own workforce.

This course isn’t for “just anyone.” The HPI certification is meant for those within your organization that demonstrate a high level of motivation, commitment, and competency. Prior to being nominated by their supervisor to attend the in-person course, the student must first complete the HPI Online Prerequisite Course (which is a subset of the Leadership PRO Course).

Upon completion and certification of the in-person course, CAVU will offer annual standardization checks where CAVU coaches observe the HPI in their own work environment. Post graduation, all HPI graduates will be invited to a Biennial HPI Refresher Summit to review new material, techniques, and trends developed since their initial training.

The HPI Course can be held either at the CAVU Center of Excellence located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, or CAVU coaches can travel to your location to conduct the course at your own facility.


Leadership PRO Leadership PRO Online Course is a library of relevant and engaging videos that you can reference for any real-world situation, accessible from your phone, tablet or laptop.

This course is your personal ticket to access the tips and techniques used by Top Gun Commanding Officers, Aircraft Carrier Commanders, Strike Fighter Wing Commanders, The Blue Angels, Force Master Chiefs and Fleet Master Chiefs, just to name a few.

This course delivers the fundamentals, skills and actions that will make you a great leader. You will have access to continuously updated material in an expanding video library of relevant, usable and evolving information.

• Leadership Fundamentals
• Continuous Improvement
• Team Resource Management

Team ChecklistsCAVU International has witnessed in many industries, such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, and Transportation, a complete reliance on experience versus standardized, usable procedures. When procedures do exist, they are rarely updated, seldom referenced, and are usually found sitting on a shelf in a dusty binder.

While having an experienced workforce is extremely valuable, relying on an experience based culture was abandoned by the airline and nuclear community over 50 years ago. They learned that the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our “individual” ability to deliver its benefits safely and reliably. They discovered that the best way to manage this complexity was with a standardized, procedural baseline without which it would be impossible to:

• Ensure workers remember critical steps
• Ensure tasks are completed correctly the first time, every time
• Provide operational help including pictures, videos, or schematics to workers during a job
• Integrate risk analysis with procedural steps
• Provide a standardized method for addressing emergency procedures
• Capture lessons learned and best practices
• Measure job variability and efficiency
• Establish a procedural baseline for continuous improvement
• Transfer knowledge and expertise from one generation to the next
• Provide a company-wide training standard
• Verify process compliance to customers

CAVU works with teams to create checklists that accomplish what checklists have done elsewhere; help with memory recall and clearly set out the minimum necessary steps in a process. Our coaches bring decades of experience in successfully leading and operating in complex, high hazard environments including commercial and military aviation, nuclear ship propulsion, conventional and special forces, and the Oil & Gas industry.

Leadership Development WorkshopsThe Leadership Development Workshop (LDW) is a series of events designed to develop frontline, middle and senior management skills within a client’s organization with respect to leadership, communication and team building.

The art of combining effective management and inspirational leadership is not something most leaders are born with. It requires training, mentoring and experience. Our coaches each have a career’s worth of experience and training, which they leverage to share the key pillars of effective management, as well as the traits and principles of solid leadership. Together, we will target the methods for setting vision, leading by example, and rewarding correct behaviors. CAVU coaches will work with managers and supervisors on how to inspire, motivate and lead their teams to new heights in performance using positive reinforcement techniques and proven leadership skills.

The LDW process typically includes sustainment visits after the initial LDW to assist, coach and mentor the leadership and crew to achieve positive cultural changes in basic leadership principles and actions. The main goal of the LDW is to provide leadership with increased skills for communicating, working together to identify challenges and increase overall teamwork.

The end result is an organization that can identify and correct deviations early as one team. Initial LDW Support Services Include:

• Conducting and reviewing a unit/facility-wide Culture Survey
• Identifying challenges within the local sphere of influence to correct as a team
• Elevating identified challenges outside their sphere of influence to next appropriate level of leadership
• Cultivating the critical skills of Crew Resource Management (CRM) for Leadership Teams
• Development of an Individual Action Plan (IAP) for each leader with a commitment from each to make positive changes in their leadership actions and team

Sustainment Visit Support Services Include:

• Individual Action Plan review
• Continued leadership team coaching and mentoring
• Crew Resource Management training to workers
• Development of Sustainment Checklist tailored to the organization’s Key Performance Indicators

Individual Action Plans
Individual Action Plan (IAP) OverviewThe IAP process endeavors to promote ownership and accountability at the individual level for the issues and challenges faced by a particular organization. IAP’s are designed to work hand  in hand with the Leadership Round Table (LRT) process to ensure that the individual leaders have a firm understanding of the organization’s current challenges as well as its successes. The IAP promotes alignment between individual accountability and actions needed to manage and support their team.

IAP Objective and Interview An IAP is developed during a one-on-one interview/ discussion between the CAVU Coach and the individual leader in the organization. The objective  of the IAP is to generate a comprehensive list of action items that the individual leader will commit to accomplishing. To facilitate the discussion, CAVU will post a list of applicable organizational Challenges and Successes (directly from the LRT or as otherwise developed in coordination with the local leadership) to reference during the interview. This list will ensure that the IAP focus remains on the actions required to support the leaders team.

IAP Interview/Discussion The IAP is intended to be a two-way dialogue, not a lecture or coach monologue. The primary purpose of the IAP is to be a tool for the individual himself/ herself and, therefore, it is imperative that they take ownership of the action plan. While there is no expectation that an individual leader will be able to single-handedly tackle and overcome all of the organization’s identified challenges, they can tackle small pieces or parts of the challenges that the person can influence for the better. Additionally, it is just as important that actions are included that contribute to the organization’s successes. CAVU will utilize the SMART technique (mnemonic below) as a test of an action item’s practical usefulness:

S.M.A.R.T.Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time Based

The finished IAP is optimally shared with the person’s immediate supervisor so they can assist the individual in achieving the objectives detailed therein. All discussions will be entirely non-attributional, and nothing will be included in the IAP that is not explicitly agreed to by the individual.

Safety Audits CAVU International proudly offers world class safety audits based on multi-functional capabilities in the best practices from a spectrum of high hazard industries. Our experienced team of professional safety auditors bring decades of experience from aviation and maritime safety inspection and analysis. They couple this with certifications in industrial safety requirements and broad experience in from nuclear, oil and gas and industrial construction safety. When the consequences of a gap between expectations and actual practice are too great for chance, CAVU audit teams remove any doubt. We will analyze your programs, identify gaps, recommend corrective action and support remediation of deficiencies.

We follow a standardized approach to any safety audit that ensures all areas are reviewed in a logical order. The audit will end with a final report following the same sequence with each section providing a set of findings and recommendations from which your company can take deliberate action.

The first step in any audit will involve a review of the governing documents, rules and regulations compliance for the relevant programs. This will be followed up with physical inspections, operational assessment and worker surveys/interviews. One best practice, in some areas a requirement, of high hazard industries is to create and catalog of Major Hazards that can cause serious harm to the operation and do a bow-tie analysis based on the threats and consequences of those potential events.

If this program is already in place, CAVU can do an in-depth analysis to ensure the program is running as expected. If not in place, CAVU can offer some recommendations on how to incorporate this system into the organization.