Captain Sam BrasfieldU.S. Navy (Retired)Principal Consultant
Coaching for executives, teams, and emerging leaders — building trust, improving communication, and leading with integrity and accountability.
Advising on structure, decision-making, and mission alignment. Where the work gets stuck, who owns the call, and what has to change to improve performance and culture.
Building systems and processes an organization can sustain — balancing the demands of the mission against the well-being of the people carrying it.
Sam spent 36 years in the United States Navy, and now works with executives, teams, and emerging leaders on the problems he spent that career solving: how to build trust, how to decide under pressure and with limited information, and how to keep people steady as conditions change.
He enlisted in 1988 as an Aviation Electrician's Mate and earned a commission through the Enlisted Commissioning Program, retiring as a Captain. He made two deployments to Iraq as an officer-in-charge at EOD Mobile Unit Two, commanded the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center, and led NATO's Standing Mine Countermeasures Group One. Ashore, he was the Navy's Supervisor of Diving at NAVSEA, responsible for diving operations, policy, and safety standards worldwide, and a program analyst in OPNAV N80, helping build and defend the Navy's budget submission across three cycles. He taught as executive officer and assistant professor of naval science at Vanderbilt's NROTC unit, and later served as executive assistant to the admiral commanding Naval Education and Training Command. Across those tours he was responsible for hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment. His awards include the Bronze Star and the Combat Action Ribbon.
He retired in March 2025, spent five months hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, and came back to start this practice. He is also Chief Operating Officer of Veterans Lodge in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, a community built around the physical, emotional, and spiritual recovery of veterans and their families.
Read Sam's full military biographyLead with compassion, courage, and responsibility.
Sam draws on 36 years of leadership and operational experience in the United States Navy to help organizations and individuals achieve excellence through disciplined leadership, effective management, and responsible stewardship. His work focuses on developing leaders, building cohesive teams, and guiding complex operations with clarity and purpose.
Every engagement begins with understanding people — their mission, strengths, and challenges — and then tailoring practical, actionable solutions grounded in experience, ethics, and purpose.
He remains driven by a lifelong commitment to serve others, build strong teams, and leave a legacy of mentorship, purpose, and integrity.