The keynote they still remember on Monday
Former US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps, and Royal Canadian Air Force pilots who keynote, run workshops, and put teams through the same performance loop they flew in the cockpit. The Fortune 500 calls them in when execution keeps falling short of strategy.
In 30 years across six continents, Afterburner℠ has trained 2.2 million leaders inside more than 3,500 organizations, 85% of them Fortune 500 companies. The client rating sits at 4.9 out of 5.
20-minute call, no slides.
Most keynotes don’t survive the flight home
A fighter pilot lands after a two-hour mission and says nothing about how it went. Not yet. The mission isn’t over until the tape is reviewed and the team has pulled it apart, gap by gap, and that debrief can run longer than the flight itself. Only then does anyone really know what happened.
Most companies do the reverse. The offsite ends on a high, everyone claps, and by Tuesday the deck is closed and the strategy is right where it started. The speaker was great. Nothing shipped.
That gap, between a good day and a different Monday, is the one Afterburner speakers are built to close. They don’t just talk about execution. They leave your team running the loop that makes it hold.
The system every speaker runs
Strip away the flight suits and every Afterburner speaker is teaching the same thing: a way of working that fighter pilots live by and most businesses have never been shown. It isn’t a metaphor. It’s the actual cycle they flew, pointed now at the strategy on your slide and the people in your room.
Plan, brief, execute, debrief
Pilots call it Flawless Execution℠, or FLEX℠. Four phases, run on every single mission, no exceptions. The power isn’t in the diagram. It’s that your team can pick it up and run it themselves the next morning, with no pilot in the room.
The debrief is where the real work happens
After the mission comes ORCA: objective, result, cause, action. The team sits down with rank left at the door, Nameless and Rankless℠, and works out honestly what happened and why. A speaker can describe it from the stage. In a workshop, your team runs one for real. On a Top Gun Experience℠, they run it on a mission they flew together minutes earlier.
The bigger picture: the Three Ms
FLEX is the Method. Around it sit two more. Mindset, how a leader holds steady when the pressure climbs. Moments, the handful of decisions that reveal whether any of it is real. Mindset, Method, Moments. Every speaker on the roster teaches from the same three.
Meet the CEO
Three lives, one operating system. Rob “Rocko” Ceravolo flew fighters for the US Navy for fourteen years, then built everything that came after on the way of working that kept him alive in it.
The first life was the cockpit: a TOPGUN graduate with combat deployments in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, where every mission ran on the same four phases, plan, brief, execute, debrief, and where the standards, discipline, and decision-making under pressure were forged that would define everything after.
The second life started in 2009 in a Key West garage, with one airplane and one employee. Rob founded Tropic Ocean Airways and ran it the way he flew, Navy-standard training, debrief discipline, no shortcuts, and grew it into the world’s largest amphibious airline, operating across five countries, earning Commuter Authority from the US Department of Transportation, and building a stellar safety record through hurricanes, economic disruption, and rapid expansion. In 2019, he was named Ernst & Young Regional Entrepreneur of the Year. And when the hurricanes came, the same operating system ran disaster response: his team helped evacuate more than 900 people and deliver over 250,000 pounds of aid.
The third life is this one. As CEO of Afterburner, Rob installs the operating system behind both, Flawless Leadership℠, built on Mindset, Method, and Moments and a single idea: you don’t have to be perfect to be flawless.
On stage, that is what he teaches. Not the cockpit, how you build, scale, and lead when the pressure is real. Rocko anchors C-suite keynotes, executive retreats, and bureau shortlists.
Meet the Founder
Murph is a former US Air Force F-15 pilot with more than 3,200 hours in high-performance aircraft, over 1,200 of them as an F-15 instructor pilot, who served as Chief of Training for the 116th Fighter Wing, responsible for keeping 42 combat-ready fighter pilots prepared to deploy worldwide within 72 hours.
After the Air Force, he proved the squadron’s method worked outside the cockpit before he ever sold it: as a sales director, he used Flawless Execution principles to grow a manufacturer’s revenues from $5 million to $52 million. In 1996 he founded Afterburner to bring that operating system, Plan, Brief, Execute, Debrief, to business, and personally taught the debrief discipline to the New York Giants through their Super Bowl XLVI-winning season.
In the three decades since, Afterburner has installed the method across 3,500+ organizations, 85% of them Fortune 500 companies, and has been named a five-time Inc. 5000 honoree and inducted into the Forbes Small Giants Hall of Fame. He is the author of Flawless Execution and Business Is Combat, and has taught the method at Harvard, Wharton, and MIT.
The roster
Every speaker on the roster runs the same system. No exceptions, no variations, no interpretations.
James D. “Murph” Murphy
Founder, Afterburner
F-15 instructor pilot, USAF (retired)
Bobbi “Flash” Doorenbos
Brigadier General, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Todd “Burt” Lancaster
Colonel, USAF (retired)
T-37 pilot
Charles “Chaz” Campbell
Brigadier General, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Zach “Easi” Manning
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
David “Finch” Guenthner
Lieutenant Colonel, Montana Air National Guard
F-16 fighter pilot
Anthony “Roby” Roberson
Major, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Michelle “Sonic” Ruehl
Colonel, USAF (retired)
C-130 pilot
Dwayne “Spike” Booker
Major, Florida Air National Guard
F-15E Strike Eagle pilot
Don “Stryker” Haley
Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-15E Strike Eagle pilot
Francois “Balky” Garceau
Major, Royal Canadian Air Force (retired)
F/A-18 fighter pilot
Rob “Balz” Balzano
Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Joe “Cowboy” Wallace
Force Reconnaissance Marine (retired)
Robin “FOXC” Witt
Lieutenant Colonel, Iowa Air National Guard
F-16 fighter pilot
Tom “Mad Dog” Friend
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (retired)
C-5 pilot
Andrea “Gunna” Themely
Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-15C Eagle pilot
Scott “Hacksaw” Hall
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-16C fighter pilot
Chris “Tuco” Harrison
Major, USAF (active duty)
F-16 fighter pilot
Eric “Rabbit” Jorgensen
Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-15E Strike Eagle pilot
Connor “Kronk” Ference
Major, USAF (active duty)
F-22 Raptor pilot
Nick “SIC” Krygowski
Major, USAF (Reserve)
F-16C fighter pilot
Stacia “Match” Madsen
Major, USAF
A-10 Warthog fighter pilot
Maximo “Money” Navarro
Major, USAF (active duty)
F-15E Weapons System Officer
Mary “Mojo” Rainaldi
Lieutenant Colonel, USAF (retired)
F-16 fighter pilot
Patrick “Trauma” Ryan
Major, USAF (active duty)
F-22 Raptor pilot
Brennan “Vegas” Sweeney
Major, USAF (active duty)
F-22 Raptor pilot
85% of Afterburner clients are Fortune 500 companies.
The honest measure of a keynote isn’t the standing ovation. It’s whether they call you back. Google did, for a second year running. One client has now brought the team in four separate times. That second invoice says more than any feedback form ever will.
The work holds up in the numbers too. When VMware’s End User Computing division was missing its targets, the Flawless Execution loop helped turn it around: twenty percent growth, quarter after quarter, for twelve quarters straight.
85% of Afterburner’s clients are Fortune 500 companies, among them Google, IBM, Nike, VMware, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Fannie Mae, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Hear from the rooms we’ve run
No anonymous praise. Real buyers, named, telling you what changed after the room emptied.
“This is the 4th time that I’ve actually worked with the Afterburner group. Each time they far exceed my expectations.”
Your Leaders. Our Flight Suits. One Unforgettable Hour.
One keynote. A room full of leaders who stop reacting and start executing. Tell us about your event, and we’ll design the version built for your stage.
Frequently asked questions about booking Afterburner speakers
Who are the Afterburner speakers?
Afterburner’s speaker roster comprises former US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps, and Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilots and mission commanders, plus civilian facilitators with executive operating experience.
Every speaker has flown the FLEX cycle as a practitioner, a lineage that starts with founder James D. “Murph” Murphy, the US Air Force F-15 instructor pilot who built the original Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle in 1996. Today the roster is anchored by CEO Rob “Rocko” Ceravolo, a US Navy fighter pilot, TOPGUN graduate, and founder of the world’s largest amphibious airline. The team has trained 2.2 million leaders in 3,500+ organizations on six continents.
What makes a fighter pilot a credible keynote speaker for corporate audiences?
Fighter pilots operate under high-stakes execution conditions on every flight and debrief every mission to compound learning, which is the discipline most corporate teams skip after a kickoff.
Pilots plan, brief, execute, and debrief on tight cycles. FLEX is that cycle codified for boardrooms. Booking a fighter pilot means hiring a practitioner who has applied the system under real consequence, not a speaker performing the role.
What topics do Afterburner speakers deliver?
Topics center on team performance, execution, debriefing, and leadership under pressure, delivered in 45, 60, or 90-minute keynote formats plus workshop and multi-day options.
Frequently booked topics include Flawless Execution, the FLEX framework, Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief, and Leading Through Uncertainty. Workshop and Top Gun Experience formats turn the keynote into experiential team development for groups up to 5,000 participants.
How do I choose the right Afterburner speaker for my event?
Match the speaker to the event objective: keynote energy and stage presence, executive credibility, or workshop facilitation depth.
CEO Rob “Rocko” Ceravolo anchors C-suite and bureau-shortlist bookings; roster pilots fit keynote-only formats, breakout sessions, and multi-pilot panels. The events team aligns the right pilot to your brief on a 20-minute discovery call.
What size audience can Afterburner speakers handle?
Audiences from boardroom-size executive retreats under 50 through conferences over 5,000 attendees, with format adjusted to fit.
Keynote format scales to large rooms. Workshop and Top Gun Experience formats work best with 5 to 5,000 participants in team groupings. Bureau-shortlist conferences with 1,000+ attendees are a regular fit. The 4.9/5.0 client rating holds across audience sizes.
What kinds of companies hire Afterburner speakers?
85% of the Fortune 500 has engaged Afterburner, with named clients including Google, IBM, Nike, VMware, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Fannie Mae, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Across 30 years and 3,500+ organizations, the firm has worked across financial services, technology, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and retail. Repeat engagements, including a client returning for a fourth time and a client booking a second annual conference, are the clearest signal of post-event impact.
Are Afterburner speakers available for virtual keynotes?
Yes. Virtual keynote and workshop formats are available, though in-person delivers the experiential elements that virtual cannot.
Virtual works well for keynote-only delivery. The Top Gun Experience and most team-building formats require in-person delivery to preserve the pressure-and-debrief loop that drives behavioral change.
How is Afterburner different from other military keynote firms?
Afterburner speakers are practitioners running an active 30-year leadership firm, not solo speakers selling individual stage time.
The team has engaged 3,500+ organizations as one firm, not as unaffiliated individuals. Every speaker draws on the same FLEX framework, the same case study library, and the same operational discipline. The roster is a working business, not a list of for-hire veterans.
How does a fighter pilot’s background translate to corporate audiences?
CEO Rob “Rocko” Ceravolo flew fighters for the US Navy for fourteen years, graduated TOPGUN, then built the world’s largest amphibious airline from one airplane and one employee in a Key West garage. He teaches from the operator’s seat, not the cockpit.
The framing is practitioner, not guru. He founded and scaled Tropic Ocean Airways through hurricanes, economic disruption, and rapid expansion, led disaster-response operations that evacuated more than 900 people, and was named Ernst & Young Regional Entrepreneur of the Year, and he runs Afterburner today. The credibility is operational, not cinematic.
What credentials and awards do Afterburner speakers hold?
Speakers hold credentials including US Navy TOPGUN and USAF Weapons School graduate status, Mission Commander qualifications, and instructor-pilot ratings. The pedigree starts at the top: founder James D. “Murph” Murphy logged more than 1,200 hours as a US Air Force F-15 instructor pilot and served as Chief of Training for the 116th Fighter Wing, responsible for keeping 42 combat-ready pilots deployable worldwide within 72 hours. CEO Rob “Rocko” Ceravolo is a TOPGUN graduate and Ernst & Young Regional Entrepreneur of the Year.
The firm’s awards shelf matches the cockpit credentials: Afterburner has been named to the Forbes Small Giants Hall of Fame and is a five-time Inc. 5000 honoree.
Where can speaker bureaus access Afterburner’s official bios and collateral?
Bureau-formatted bios, reels, headshots, and topic catalogs live in the Bureau Partner Kit, with deeper resources in the Speaker Bureau Portal.
Afterburner speakers are listed with BigSpeak, AAE, ESB, LAI, Premiere, and GDA. Bureau agents working a corporate brief can request the Bureau Partner Kit for forwardable collateral that matches each platform’s preferred format.
How quickly does Afterburner respond to bureau availability inquiries?
Same-day response from the events team is standard, with most bureau inquiries returned within a few business hours during working windows in Eastern and Australian Eastern time.
Bureau-shortlist requests carry tight client deadlines. The events team prioritizes turnaround and provides confirmed availability, fee tier guidance, and topic fit in a single response. Bureau-formatted collateral arrives in the same thread.
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