Matt Larsen, a career Army Ranger who is best known as a hand-to-hand combat expert and the father of the U.S. Army’s Modern Army Combatives Program, served in the U.S. Marine Corps and the 75th Ranger Regiment during the course of a 22-year career in the military. Larsen founded the United States Army Combatives School and served as both its commandant and the Director of the Army Combatives program for more than a decade.

Larsen has worked as a private security contractor throughout the Middle East and Africa, including managing a security company in central and southern Africa; designed Combatives systems for the Canadian Special Operations Regiment; and, consulted on the design of Combatives training systems for the US Air Force, the British Royal Marines and the British Infantry, the Polish Diplomatic Security Corps, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces and Presidential Guard and the Kuwait Police Special Forces. He is currently the Director of Combatives at the United States Military Academy at West Point.