Tank tactics help teams on corporate battlefields

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Dec 23, 2004 | by Marco R. Della Cava USA Today

SHERMAN, Texas -- For a guy who drives a planet-hugging Toyota Prius hybrid, Gary Chiu is having way too much fun grinding a few acres of north Texas ranchland into a hellish mud bog.

His vehicle of choice?

A 40-year-old diesel-guzzling British tank. No military service required.

"Can you believe this?" says a wide-eyed Chiu, 31, a Cisco Systems engineer who has gathered with 12 far-flung colleagues for a day of team-building at a curious place called Tactical Tanks.

"I mean, normally our group meets in places like Napa and drinks wine," says Chiu, his head popping out of the tank driver's steel hole as a stinging rain lashes his camouflage poncho. "That just pales in comparison."

Pale is what some of you might be right now. As war rages in Iraq, taking human conflict and removing all that is gut-wrenching and horrible about it to help a business meet its goals may seem insensitive, if not callous.

But the truth is, Tactical Tanks is culturally inevitable. The corporate world long ago glommed onto Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" as a guide for its winner-take-all pursuit of success. Those lessons have become gospel. Exhibit A: "The Apprentice."

And with no new worlds left to conquer, people are creating new ways to push themselves, whether it's taking a billionaire's dare to have tea atop a hot-air balloon or ingesting live worms to determine where fear factors into your life. In that context, using old armor with inactive weaponry to help workers communicate seems almost quaint.

Just what legend George Patton would think of average Joes becoming mechanized G.I. Joes after an hour of classroom training isn't known. A scatological bark comes to mind.

But Patton did say, "The soldier is the Army," and Tactical Tanks founder David Estes hopes his corporate version of that mantra -- "The employee is the company" -- persuades executives to send their troops for a day in his faux battalion. "Individuals are underappreciated in most businesses, so I created a place where their contributions could be recognized and improved upon," says Estes, 51, a military buff who opened his 265-acre compound last spring after selling his utility-pole-servicing company for eight figures.

So far, 200 people have run through his program, representing organizations as varied as U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and a German video game exec who wanted critics to test his new tank game while enjoying the real thing.

Estes charges $300 and up a person, depending on the complexity of the exercises. They can range from fairly simple navigational tasks, where each tank crew finds fake weapons of mass destruction, which the Cisco team signed on for, to mock battles involving a dozen volunteer staffers and most of his 20-odd tanks.

The on-site hardware is mostly British and bought at auction. Estes says prices average $30,000 a tank plus sizable shipping costs. He has put nearly $2 million into his gear so far. Decommissioned American tanks are very hard to come by and are limited to museums.

"Given how fast technology advances, this is all Stone Age stuff," he says of his arsenal, which mingles with a neighbor's cows in pancake-flat fields. "But it makes the right noise. After people get inside, they're hooked."

Estes was reeled in a long time ago. His father was a mechanical contractor who fixed National Guard gear. "My first contact with armor was playing in an M60 tank," Estes sighs. "Wow."

The boy grew up. Estes dropped out of college to build a local company that first serviced oil rigs, then utility poles. A few employees became 450. In 2001, a bigger company bought him out. Estes stuck around for a few years, then left.

Flush with cash, Estes poured his energy into Tactical Tanks, convinced that any ridicule would soon turn to respect. After all, he witnessed just that the day he picked up one of his two daughters at her high school -- in a tank.

"At first, I saw total humiliation on her face. You know, 'Dad's lost his mind,' " says Estes, a hulking, balding man with an easy laugh and infectious demeanor. "But then the boys got a look, and suddenly everything was just fine."

Such stunts no longer light up the police department switchboard in this town of 33,000.

"David gives so much to the community -- even lets our cheerleaders pose on the tanks," says police sergeant John Talcott, who often uses vacation time to volunteer as a Tactical Tank safety officer. "Heck, I don't mind. When would I ever get to play with toys like this?"

At least one local citizen wouldn't mind if the town's most manic son took things down a notch. Deborah Estes says life with her husband can be dizzying.

"I travel for my job and, frankly, for my sanity," the corporate human resources expert says. "David likes to do 50 things at once."

Things like, oh, flying acrobatic planes, racing his Japanese speed bike and building a 5,000-square-foot French manor complete with a handy shooting range outside a garage filled with sports cars.

"Please, I didn't need the house," Deborah says. "David was just, I don't know, bored."