Until his passing in 2014, S2 was honored to have Sam Hall as an instructor on leadership, motivation, intelligence, and covert operations.

Born one of three sons to a prosperous Ohio real estate developer, Sam Hall has been described in the press as eccentric, crazy, and recently, a collector of monikers – perhaps because he is impossible to pigeonhole. He is sometimes referred to as the 1960 Olympic Silver Medalist for springboard diving in Rome, an Air Force veteran, a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and Adjunct Professor, and real estate mogul. At other times he is labeled a recovered drug addict, a counter-terrorist-turned freedom fighter and captured U.S. spy.

In 1982, he signed up as a personnel specialist for a Sinai support element of the UN Multinational Forces and Observers that was part of the Camp David Accords. Trained as a counter-terrorist specialist by the Israeli Defense Forces, he dedicated his skills to an international fight for freedom, a conviction which took him to South Africa, where he rescued a group of kidnapped children, and later to Nicaragua where he helped train the Miskito Indians to defend against the Sandinistas.

Captured by the Sandinistas in the winter of 1986, he was accused of espionage and held prisoner for forty-nine days, interrogated and tortured. In January of 1987, he was freed and returned to the U.S. to find himself at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal. During this period, Sam was accused by the leftist Christic Institute of participating in a fictitious plot to assassinate a US ambassador and bomb a US embassy in an attempt to embarrass the Regean Administration.

After the dust settled on Iran-Contra and the Christic Institue case was thrown out of court, Sam settled in Florida and published a personal account of his life to that point in his first book, Counter-Terrorist, which sold 80,000 copies. The book spared widespread controversy and reviews, and prompted a national tour, on which Sam interviewed for such shows as Larry King Live and Good Morning America.

For the next seven years, he worked as an undercover cutout for the FBI, assisting in the arrest of organized criminals and drug traffickers. At the same time, he started up a new real estate development company and built the business, along with the help of his fourth wife, into a hundred-and fifty million dollar enterprise.

In 1992 he volunteered for the American Red Cross to assist in relief work after the devastation of hurricane Andrew. He ended his volunteer efforts for the FBI in 1994, and at the age of fifty-seven, committed himself completely to relief and rescue work around the world. He aided in the clean-up effort in Vero Beach after hurricane Gordon hit that same year, and then again repeatedly over the course of the next seven years, helping out after hurricanes Allison, Erin, Opal and Floyd.

Over the course of the last four years, Sam Hall has volunteered as a digger, hours after the Trade Center disaster on 9/11, a searcher after the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, and a wildlands firefighter in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and California, also specializing in post-disaster animal rescue work. He spent six weeks volunteering for the Salvation Army in war-torn Iraq in 2003, where he used his real estate knowledge to assist in the contracting and rebuilding of hospitals and schools: all this while continuing to oversee his business back in the States.

Appointed Co-Chairman of the Business Advisory Council (U.S. Congress) back in 2002, he was awarded the 2003 title, Business Man of the Year, also by the U.S. Congress. That same year he started the annual Matthew Hall Memorial Golf Classic, a charity tournament in memory of his brother’s late son. He was named to a Special Task Force by the Speaker of the House in Washington, advising Congress on small businesses; awarded the prestigious Golf Medal Award by Congress; named to the 2003 Republican Chairman’s Honor Roll by the National Republican Congressional Committee; and last year was appointed by Congressional leadership to serve as Honorary Chairman of the House Majority Trust. He most recently volunteered his services in Sri Lanka after the 2005 tsunami.

Sam is also an avid mountain climber and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and at the age of 67, almost died in an attempt to climb Mount Everest.

Sam’s latest book, Danger’s Disciple, is available on Amazon or through the S2 Institute store.