It was a warm summer afternoon in Florida when I was six years old. I was running around the front yard while my father, having just returned home from a long day’s work, was in the garage enjoying a “pork chop” (what my father called the iconic 1970’s can of Budweiser beer).

As I was playing, something swooped past my head and caught my eye. On closer inspection, it was a wicked looking bug that had landed on a bush nearby. Like any typical boy, I found the nearest stick, crept over slowly and reared the stick back with the intention of exacting death and destruction. It was at that exact moment that I heard the all too familiar, deep, low voice of my father, “Son, don’t you kill that dragonfly.”

With the stick cocked back over my shoulder ready to fire, I paused and recall asking, “Why Dad? It’s just a bug.”

He took a slow but deliberate step forward and spoke with one of the most serious tones I had heard in my few years on the planet. “That’s not just a bug, son. That is a dragonfly”.

I looked back at the bug and pondered why my dad was so serious about this small and inconsequential creature before it flew off.

My father, still serious in his demeanor, asked me to go over to the old cypress stump. The “stump” was not just a felled tree in our front yard, it was a tool my family used to turn negative energy into positive activity. Something those of us with military service would call a thrash session location.

My father, an Air Force veteran, and lifelong aviator, was a hardened man with steel in his blood and gold in his heart. He was a model father, but a stern disciplinarian who didn’t have to use many words when getting a point across to my brother and me. His disciplinary actions were harsh at times, but never unjust and always ended with a lesson.

On the stump that day, he told me to get up, get down, get up, get down, put my arms up high in the sky and put them down. This training routine went on for a while until he asked me to put my hands in the air until “he” got tired. While I stood atop the stump, starting to sweat in the summer sun and still wondering why this damn bug was so important, the very bug I had been about to destroy suddenly flew back and landed right on the top of my index finger.

At this point I remember the sudden rush of excitement as I quickly turned to my father. “Dad, look! Look!” I yelled.

The green darner dragonfly flew off in the commotion, but I can vividly remember my father cracking a hint of a smile, as he said, “Now you’re good son, hop down,” before he took a swig of his “pork chop” and returned to the garage.

Something changed in me that day. It was the first time in my life I remember really, truly, appreciating another living thing, simply for the fact that it existed based on my father’s compassion and my restraint. It helped hone my understanding of how much significance we can have in the world and our capacity to make the world just a little bit better of a place than when we came into it.

From that point forward, I felt an instant connection with dragonflies. I pretended to be one. I dreamed I could fly around my yard, fly to school, fly anywhere. I was a creature of the wind with an obsession for flight from that point onward, which later manifested in my military service with high-altitude free fall parachuting (HALO, HAHO) as well as thousands of jumps and countless hours spent paramotoring and paragliding in my civilian life.

My father, who also enjoyed watching the aviator acrobatics of dragonflies, encouraged my interest and would pepper me with dragonfly facts and myths from that day forward. Out on fishing trips to the river he would tell stories about dragonflies landing on your fishing rod bringing good luck. He would point out the different types of dragonflies that swooped past (darners and skimmers being the most common) and I would sit patiently waiting for one to land on my fishing rod, giving me my fill of luck for the day.

As I grew and continued to learn about the world around me, I have always remained enamored by the dragonfly species. It is one of the most adaptive creatures on the face of the planet, the greatest hunter pound for pound, most efficient animal on earth, surviving and thriving for nearly 300 million years, not because it is the strongest or smartest, but because it is incredibly adaptive to change.

That willingness to embrace change is something that I have embodied, challenging the system, and disrupting the status quo of establishments that I have been fortunate enough to work within. Not out of a sense of anarchism, but because set patterns and influences often create complacency which ultimately leads to failure or extinction.

It is that mentality that shapes our training philosophy and product design at Haley Strategic. We embrace change, compassionately striving for continuous improvement to meet and overcome the emerging threats faced by the brave men and women who put themselves into harm's way for the betterment of our families, our society, and our way of life in this beautiful experimental republic that our country represents to the rest of the world.

So why do we have a dragonfly as our logo? It reminds us of compassion, self-reliance, and a fearless focus on continuing to evolve and improve. It reminds us to reflect on our lives and our purpose. Consider for a second that after a dragonfly takes its first flight it will only live an average of 30 days. That is an astonishing fact, how can the greatest hunter, most efficient flying insect, most adaptive creature and one of the longest sustaining organisms on the face of the planet only live for 30 days? I think we can only subjectively answer that question while objectively looking at our own time on earth with a sense of self reflection on how short our lives actually are. Memento Mori (remember that you must die) should shape your thoughts, your words, and your actions.

Ultimately, the dragonfly symbolizes Haley Strategic because we endeavor to leave the world just a little bit better of a place than when we came into it.

Stay Sharp, Be Safe, and Die Free - Travis Haley