About RETI

Built on Purpose. Driven by Mission.

RETI was founded to help people thrive in chaos by turning resilience into actionable, everyday practice.

  1. 01Our mission
  2. 02Our story
  3. 03Our history
  4. 04Our founder

Our story

The space between knowing and doing.

Prevention, not intervention

In elite military units, resilience isn't taught through PowerPoints or motivational speeches. It's drilled, practiced, and tested until sound judgment under pressure becomes automatic. Dr. Naggiar assumed this kind of training was just part of everyone's lives.

Over time, he realized it wasn't. These concepts were prioritized in special units and boardrooms, but somehow overlooked for everyone else. Why weren't people facing the grind of high-stakes decisions every single day given the same tools, especially when they often faced more stressors with fewer resources?

The people who needed it most, those making split-second calls under pressure, navigating high-risk environments, facing daily uncertainty and chaos, had minimal exposure to these frameworks.

We exist to close that gap.

Not the gap in knowledge. Most people know what they should do. The gap we address is deeper: the space between knowing and doing. That's where excuses settle. Where pressure breaks people. Where good intentions collapse under stress.

RETI trains what happens before the critical moment. We don't teach theory; we build practiced strategies that become reflexive when it matters.

You can't hope or wish your way into resilience. You have to train your way into it.

We meet people where they are. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, because a corrections officer, an incarcerated individual, and a firefighter face different pressures and different stakes. But they all need the same core capacity: to think clearly and act with purpose when everything is on the line.

This is prevention, not intervention. We train people before crisis demands it, so that when the moment comes, there's no gap between what they know and what they do, because resilient people build resilient communities, and resilience is not theoretical; it is practiced, trained, and lived.

That proven model is now the foundation for RETI's next chapter: taking Mission-Based Resilience digital to reach far beyond a single location.

Our history

From a university course to a national mission.

The Resilience Education and Training Institute (RETI) was founded in 2018 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to make high-quality resilience training accessible.

  1. 2011

    The framework

    RETI's Mission Based Resilience (MBR) framework was developed by Dr. Naggiar in 2011, originally as a university credit course for the Florida Department of Corrections at Florida State University. It was built with the intention for everyone, regardless of background or life circumstances, to effectively use it.

  2. 2013

    First responders

    In 2013, Dr. Naggiar noticed a great need right in his own community and began offering his time and expertise to bring MBR to the Bay County, Florida SWAT team, a cutting-edge application at the time. MBR's proactive, holistic approach to stress has earned recognition at the state, regional, and national level, drawing interest from agencies nationwide and abroad.

  3. 2018

    RETI is founded

    In 2018, after witnessing MBR's success firsthand, Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford asked Dr. Naggiar to adapt the curriculum for incarcerated adults, leading to the founding of RETI.

    Since then, the Resilience for Incarcerated Adults Program has become a cornerstone of Bay County Jail's Lifeline Program, impacting 450 participants and growing, while averaging about 3 onsite classes per year.

  4. Today

    Who we serve

    RETI serves law enforcement, first responders, incarcerated populations, and anyone else navigating high-pressure environments. This work is for anyone facing high-stakes decisions every day.

  5. 2027

    The next chapter

    The next chapter begins in 2027, as RETI moves this proven curriculum onto a digital platform built to reach a million people by 2031.

    2031 · 1,000,000 lives

Dr. Ed NaggiarFounderDr. Ed Naggiar
Four dimensions of resilience
  • Physical
  • Mental
  • Emotional
  • Spiritual

The insight behind Mission-Based Resilience: true resilience requires integration across all four.

Our founder

Dr. Ed Naggiar

Edoardo “Doc” Naggiar · Founder, CEO & President of the Board

Dr. Ed Naggiar holds a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology with expertise in performance under stress in extreme conditions. His fascination with human performance in high-pressure situations stemmed from a 20-year career as a U.S. Navy SEAL Officer, where he served in SEAL Team ONE, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team ONE, and Special Boat Team TWENTY TWO. He also served as a human experimental test subject at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, testing the limits of human performance in extreme environments both in and out of the water.

Over two decades, Dr. Naggiar discovered that athleticism and grit alone weren't the determining factors for success in elite special operations—true resilience required integration across four major areas: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. This insight shaped his approach to resilience training and human performance consulting.

As a consultant and instructor, Dr. Naggiar has worked with law enforcement agencies, correctional systems, fire and emergency responders, 911 dispatch centers, disaster response agencies, branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, public policy legislators, nonprofit organizations, and private sector corporations. If you ever have the privilege of sitting in one of his classes, you'll likely hear participants call him "Doc", a nickname earned through years of personally instructing RETI's programs and the trust he builds in every room.