Steve Kardian

Kardian was appointed to the Westchester County Victims Assistance advisory board from 2008 to 2012, and currently lives in Westchester County, New York with his wife.

From 2008 to 2012, Kardian lectured throughout United States on campus and women's safety at colleges and universities for CAMPUSPEAK. CAMPUSPEAK was founded in 1999 as an agency representing college speakers and has become the leading provider of professional speakers.

In 2003, 2004, and 2012, Kardian worked alongside investigative media teams with NBC and Inside Edition and lured 21 out of 21 women into compromising situations that, if he was real predator, would have compromised their safety, effectively using media to empower women with information and tactics that will help them avoid abduction, campus safety, and date rape drugs awareness.

Kardian is a certified New York State and FBI defensive tactics instructor and served as the Chief Criminal Investigator with the New York Department of Instigations. He holds the rank of 3rd degree Black Belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, a martial art which also honors Kardian with the title of professor. Kardian also has a black belt in Kyokushin Karate, is a Muay Thai Kick Boxing coach, and serves as Associate Instructor under world shoot fighting world champion and MMA coach Erik Paulson. He is a state-certified general defensive topics instructor, including T.A.S.E.R., chemical weapons, pepper spray, use of force, baton, and radar/laser certifications. Kardian worked at the Westchester County Police Academy as a senior Defensive Tactics Instructor from 1995 to 2007, teaching defensive tactics, interactive skills, and how to become an effective force supervisor, among other subjects.

Kardian started Defend University in Phoenix, AZ in the early 1990s with his partner, Brad Parker. Parker was approached by a group of female survivors of assault (including sexual assault, domestic violence, and kidnapping) requesting self-defense training. He taught them martial arts techniques, but found the techniques were not effectively deployed by the women, so he began teaching them how to fight by tailoring techniques to the unique strengths of their gender against the weaknesses of male attackers, while utilizing Jiu-jutsu concepts of the ground as their safety position. Kardian joined soon after and Defend University was founded.

Kardian began training police officers on Defensive Tactics in 1980 when he was recruited by an instructor at the Conn Municipal Police Academy to train part-time Police Officers. Kardian has taught international, federal, state, county and local law enforcement officers across the United States and in Europe, where he has taught Jiu-Jitsu, certified instructors for women's self-defense, and set up law enforcement training for police officers in Ireland and England. His students have included members of the FBI, DEA, US Treasury Department, NY State Police, Army Rangers, Navy Seals, the DELTA force, London's Metropolitan Police, Ireland's Garda Siochana, and the Israeli Security Agency under the Prime Minister's Office (Shin Bet). He was invited by Lt. Colonel in the NYSP to lecture and teach the Executive Division of the Governors office for the State of New York, training the women in the executive division of the Governors office in personal safety and defense.

Kardian was born on October 7, 1957 in White Plains, New York. When he was 17, he was visiting his girlfriend's family in Old Saybrook, CT when he witnessed a woman jump up from her beach chair and begin screaming and waving her arms frantically. A large mound of sand had collapsed onto and buried her 8-year-old nephew. Kardian rushed over and dug the child out, who was not breathing. Others gathered around, but in a crowd of 20 people, none knew CPR. Kardian didn't either, but he successfully performed the resuscitation from a memory of a pamphlet that he had read, saving the child's life. Kardian would later credit this event as the springboard for his pursuit of training people in public safety practices, promoting changes to social safety dogmas, and redefining personal safety.