Al Clark (mercenary)

Amid a prolonged trend of military downsizing and outsourcing, Al Clark, along with Erik Prince, founded the private security firm Blackwater in 1997 as a business for assuming some of the roles once played by the public sector military, most notably providing security for American and British officials in the Iraq war. As a top Navy Seal firearms instructor, Clark grew dissatisfied with the fact that the Navy did not own firing ranges, and instead had to borrow time on Marine or Army ranges or rent facilities that were highly inadequate for serving the Navy’s needs. With the idea of creating a “one-stop shopping” private training facility, Clark’s concept simply lacked the financial backing, until he realized that one of his Seal trainees (Erik Prince) was a man with similar ideas but far greater financial resources. While Erik Prince today disputes Clark’s involvement in conceiving the service model which eventually became Blackwater, many former Blackwater executives admit that, while Prince was the financial power behind the formation of the company, Blackwater as a one-stop security service was essentially Clark’s brainchild.

By 2000, Al Clark became increasingly disgruntled by what he saw in Blackwater’s new North Carolina training facility: as a “playground” for Erik’s rich friends and a business model that focused on maximizing profits rather than providing the best possible training program. In 2000, Clark, along with John Matthews and Dale McClellan, left Blackwater to form Special Tactical Systems.