Frank Groth | SRF Training Founder

Founder and chief trainer: SRF Training & Consulting LLC
Primary specialties: Defensive pistol, shotgun, carbine, personal safety, threat recognition, decision-making, instructor development, policy, and training systems

Professional Biography

Frank Groth is a retired law-enforcement professional, firearms instructor, writer, former technology-sector operations professional, business analyst, and founder and chief trainer of SRF Training & Consulting LLC. His background combines more than three decades of experience across law enforcement, personal safety, physical and industrial security, organizational operations, documentation, training, and process development.

Groth completed a California police academy in 1987. During his law-enforcement career, he worked in patrol, investigations, administration, front-line supervision, and organizational leadership. His responsibilities included researching and preparing policy, developing procedures, creating and delivering in-service training, and managing personnel and programs.

After leaving law enforcement, Groth built a second career in the technology sector. His work included operations, policy and procedure, process development, management of a high-performing team, technical documentation, training, and business analysis. That experience added a formal systems perspective to the practical judgment and organizational responsibility developed during his public-safety career.

SRF Training & Consulting

Through SRF Training & Consulting, Groth provides firearms and personal-safety education for armed citizens and other students. His course offerings have included foundational and advanced defensive pistol, protective shotgun, carbine, micro-compact pistols, backup guns, presentation from concealment, tactical anatomy, sporting shotgun, and citizen response to active-shooter incidents.

His instruction places firearm skill inside a larger problem-solving system. The student’s task begins with recognizing and avoiding danger when possible, preparing for foreseeable problems, making deliberate decisions, and applying technical skill when circumstances require it. Marksmanship and gun handling matter, but they are not substitutes for awareness, judgment, legal and ethical restraint, or a realistic understanding of consequences.

Groth’s law-enforcement and technology backgrounds reinforce this approach. Patrol and investigations exposed him to human behavior and imperfect information. Administration and supervision required policy, accountability, and consistent performance. Operations and business analysis emphasized processes, documentation, feedback, and identifying points where a system is likely to fail.

Instructor Development and Credentials

Groth holds Rangemaster certifications as a Master Pistol Instructor and Protective Pistolcraft Instructor, along with instructor certification in Basic and Advanced Defensive Shotgun. He has completed substantial continuing education with instructors including Tom Givens, Darryl Bolke, John Murphy, Greg Ellifritz, Rob Haught, and Matt Haught.

His additional credentials include NRA instructor ratings in pistol, rifle, and shotgun; Range Safety Officer certification; and Level One coaching in sporting shotgun. From 2010 through 2016, he instructed in a sporting-shotgun program at Valley of the Moon Trap Club in Sonoma, California, working with hundreds of beginning, intermediate, and advanced shooters.

Groth has also held instructor credentials for response to active-shooter incidents, Citizen Response to Active Shooter Events through Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service, pepper spray, and Shooting With X-Ray Vision through Tactical Anatomy Systems. Collectively, these programs reflect a curriculum extending beyond conventional square-range firearms work.

Writing and Systems-Oriented Training

Groth has written about firearms and personal defense through The View From Out West, with some articles shared or republished by nationally recognized trainers. His writing, like his instruction, emphasizes that defensive preparation is a connected system rather than a collection of isolated techniques.

That systems orientation is one of his most distinctive contributions. A training program should identify its desired outcome, provide appropriate material, establish meaningful standards, and give students a way to evaluate and maintain performance. Equipment, tactics, physical skills, decision-making, and policy interact; weakness in one area can undermine strength in another.

Groth is best understood as an instructor who connects practical experience with structured analysis. His career has repeatedly involved turning experience into policy, procedures, documentation, curriculum, and repeatable processes that other people can understand and apply.

Connection to Primary & Secondary

Frank Groth is part of the extended Primary & Secondary network through professional discussions involving defensive firearms, personal safety, training standards, threat recognition, decision-making, policy, and responsible armed citizenship. His perspective complements P&S’s emphasis on context, continuing education, honest evaluation, and treating firearm use as one component of a larger problem.

Selected Sources and Further Reading

Profile last reviewed: September 10, 2026.

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Frank Groth: retired law-enforcement professional, firearms instructor, writer, operations professional, and business analyst
SRF Training & Consulting LLC: founder and chief trainer
Law enforcement: patrol, investigations, administration, supervision, policy development, and in-service training
Firearms education: defensive pistol, protective shotgun, carbine, backup guns, micro-compact pistols, and sporting shotgun
Instructor development: Rangemaster Master Pistol Instructor, Protective Pistolcraft, defensive shotgun, NRA disciplines, active-shooter response, pepper spray, and tactical anatomy
Core themes: threat recognition, avoidance, deliberate decision-making, systems thinking, accountability, and responsible armed citizenship
Additional associations: The View From Out West and Primary & Secondary