Education
Slaton signed up with the United States Army as a forward observer in 1991, and graduated from the Air Force"s Close Air Support School, the United States Army"s Air Assault School, and then the United States Army Airborne School and the 75th Ranger Regiment Ranger Indoctrination program at Fort He also completed the Navy"s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape and Cold Weather Environmental Survival training at the Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine, and was honorably discharged from the United States Army as a Sergeant in 1998.
Career
Benning, Georgia.
In 1999 Slaton signed on with New Zealand Aerosports flying their Icarus Canopies range and later that year he started a parachute factory team in the new sport of canopy piloting, or "swooping." In 2000 he produced the swooping competition, the Para-Performance Games (PPGS), and hosted the first event at Skydive Houston in Houston, Texas. The PPGS had three competition events in Speed, Accuracy and Distance. In 2001 he produced the Canopy piloting School that teaches parachute swooping at Perris Valley Skydiving, California, and in 2003 created the first professional swooping, the Pro Swooping Tour.
He got the new sport of canopy piloting accepted at the 54th annual meeting of the International Parachuting Commission in Brazil in 2003, after which he helped organize the 1st World Cup of Canopy Piloting at Perris Valley Skydiving, California, in 2003.
In 2005, he started Ground Launch Center, the first school for the sport of ground launching. He created the World Parachute Stunt Team and the first amateur swooping tour, the Canopy Piloting Circuit in 2005.
Slaton survived but was in a coma for three days, suffering a shattered hip, broken leg, broken shoulder and frontal lobe head injury. He organized the annual Swoop Week Championships of canopy piloting between 2007-2009 in Longmont, Colorado and Houston, Texas.
Membership
He produced, directed and edited the Pro Swooping Tour"s 2003 Digital Video Disc entitled "The year of Canopy Piloting" in 2003, and with members of Team Extreme produced the documentary "Out of the Blue".
