Thomas Burton is a retired Master Sergeant from US Army Special Operations, originally from Oak Hill, WV. Mr. Burton is the owner of two West Virginia small businesses, Black Side Solutions LLC, a defense consulting company specializing in Ground mobility and defense acquisitions as well as West Virginia Overland LLC, an adventure tourism guide and training company.
Mr. Burton has an extensive technical and tactical background with multiple certifications from various training ranging from the mechanical field, welding, advanced driving, SERE School, CDL, Parachutist, and SOF advanced combat training course. He has obtained extensive operational experience from his seven combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most notable, Mr. Burton served 11 years in Special Operations with seven years serving as a ground mobility assault driver in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta (Delta Force).
Mr. Burton spent his last five years in Special Forces Command serving as a program manager for all of the command’s ground mobility vehicle programs, managing the vehicle requirements and development for all of United States Special Operations Command programs. He was directly involved in the development of vehicle requirements, testing and fielding of some of the following vehicles: Polaris MRZR, Flyer Defense GMV 1.1, Non-Standard Commercial Vehicles (Hilux, land cruiser 79 and 200 series.)
He most recently finished up a two-year run as program manager and trainer for a SOF ground mobility training program, teaching team level small unit mobility driving and recovery skills to special operations units. Mr. Burton in now in to the private sector to continue work in the defense consulting industry and the over-landing and training industry.