Meeting The Combat Veteran Marine That Turned Into A Global Entrepreneur, David Johnson Wood.
“There is a subtle difference between your identity being rooted in your essence and your identity being rooted in your success. What you do comes out of who you are, but who you are must exist apart from what you do. If your identity is rooted in your success, then you will lose who you are when failure comes your way.”
David is pivoting into new arenas since covid has hit and he’s worked hand in hand through his company VOG (Virtus Outdoor Group) to Develop a tactical training kit that he calls the VOG TacBag which consists of an Assault Rūk and a Dynami Sandbag. He’s also created training regimes derived from his intense Marine training that can be done individually or more importantly done from small fire team up to company size strength training and timed team building evolutions.
David has led dozens of events globally from 4 hour to over 70 hour non stop training and teaching evolutions, some of which partnered with Spartan Race and have been showcased on ESPN 1 and ESPN 2, and are currently being edited tor Discovery Channel.
Most recently since David’s move from Asia to Spain, He has assembled a leadership team from very diverse backgrounds, some from the most elite Special Operations and SWAT/Commando backgrounds and also professional athletes, coaches, and nutritionists to lead events under the VOG banner called, ‘The Trajectory to the Telos’.
These will be grueling endurance events.
The goal is to awaken, rejuvenate, and instill a new sense of gratitude, appreciation, courage, and a Path for having a true purpose in Life.
They are partnered with several key NGOs
and NPO’s that are battling human trafficking, restoring the environment, and restoring the combat veterans, victims, and addicts struggling with PTSD.
In this article we ask David a few questions about his success and what it was like pivoting from his apparel line to producing sandbags & more.
What’s it like owning a successful apparel line?
I love what I do and I have a team of brilliant folks putting their expertise into everything we create. What makes us different from your typical apparel company is that we live our brand. We design, source, test, film, market, and now offer training regimes, manufacturing, fabric and camouflage licensing along with co/branding partnerships, so we are getting to actively engage in areas far from simply selling apparel. We are truly a warrior lifestyle.
What was it like pivoting from your apparel line to producing sandbags, tactical bags etc..?
This is a great story. So I partnered in Spain with the MOD to incorporate a VOG tactical bag kit (TacBag) which consists of our own VOG Assault Rūk backpack and Dynamic Sandbag.
We also detailed out a partnership where we would not only be providing our tactical bags but we would be certifying infantry platoon leaders in our training evolutions and regimes with the Gear. I left Madrid in early March to travel to Vietnam where we have a subsidiary company and multiple manufacturing factories. I became stuck under lockdown for five months and with the gym and pools closed and literally everything closed off, I began incorporating and writing our regime and training evolutions and filming parts of it on the roof of the Rex hotel in Saigon Vietnam. This exploded on our social media and I began getting dozens of requests daily for individual purchases. I then decided to not only created the military adaptive training regimes but also a corporate and private endurance event evolution series with my teammates that were originally writing out the MOD regime with me.
Fast forward three months and we are already fulfilling our second full production run of the TacBags globally to over 30 countries B to B and twice as many B to C.
Do you feel Covid-19 Had anything to do with your pivot?
Without being locked down in Vietnam in isolation and really having to solely base my workouts on our new TacBag regimes, I would would’ve never branded this as something outside of our initial arrangement with the government in Madrid. This has now turned into the largest and most lucrative area of our company and has enabled us to move away from only selling apparel and camouflage licensees, but move into events, and the coaching, athletic IP arenas. This is where we can truly shine light into the darkness.
God always has a plan, and even in the darkest times, if we seek to be illuminated, He will do as He promises, and show us His Path.
What does the future look like for you?
Well, It’s non stop my friend. There is constantly new tech coming to market and it’s crucial to integrate into the appropriate arena. So we will constantly be building and creating new functional training equipment as well as the most highly functional and adaptive apparel for athletes and extreme outdoorsmen. We will be launching our training evolutions, the ‘Trajectory to the Telos’ in Q4.
As we continue to adapt to ever changing environments, we will strive to always lead and be a light no matter how dark it gets around us. VIRTUS is Latin for Warrior Virtues, so we’ll always have that engraved in our action…
