personal protection Archives - Page 2 of 5

The Value of Ongoing Training

I changed my college major from engineering to criminology and fought my way into the police academy only to find that Central Ohio was not the Mecca for protection details. Neither was there much in the way of professional training in protection work because EPI and ESI hadn’t taken off just yet. So, if one wasn’t in the Secret Service or Army CID, one’s education came from magazines, television, movies, and a variety of other sources which had little reliability and even less practicality.

My first protection detail was 30 August 1974. I was a second-year Marine Option Midshipman at Ohio State who “volunteered” to protect then-President Gerald R. Ford as he gave the commencement address at graduation. While it was an eye-opening and life-changing experience for me, the two-hour orientation provided by the US Secret Service hardly prepared me for a career that I knew I desperately wanted to pursue.

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Advice for finding work in Executive Protection

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of mentorships for current and retired law enforcement officers looking to transition into private sector executive protection roles. This is primarily due to my position as the head of the Law Enforcement/Military Liaison committee in the ASIS Executive Protection Community, of which our very own Jerry Heying is the Chair of that community. Also, it’s because I’ve made that transition myself. After spending almost 27 years working for the California Highway Patrol, I was lucky enough to retire and almost immediately find a job as a corporate executive protection manager. A lot of my former colleagues, nearing retirement, reach out to me for advice, which I happily do. I do it for LEO, Military, my fellow NLA members, or any decent person that is considering this line of work. We need good people in this business.

Here’s the advice I share. I believe it’s universally applicable to all candidates, not just LEO or Military.

Testimonial

After knowing about EPI for a very long time I finally reached the point to attend and come out of class 84. After the knowledge and instruction my biggest regret was that I didn’t do it sooner. I started my networking locally and while traveling making most contacts to local ASIS chapters. I got my first “gig” through a good friend who is a local police officer. It was for an up-and-coming regional Latina singer who was having some stalker issues from an obsessed fan, getting her to and from her events and identifying this individual. Doing this detail brought me into contact with other performers and their event managers which led to another performer for whom I still currently provide protection. My various law enforcement contacts have also opened the door to some political activities which I give credit to my attending EPI, the senator’s protection detail was very impressed with the skillset I had obtained.

Find Your Way

I always wanted to be a policeman (law enforcement officer was not even a title back then). I had all the cop toys and guns, watched all the cop tv shows, played cops and robbers with my friends. I never wavered. Never wanted to be anything else. All that changed on November 22, 1963.

I was 7. The whole world changed that day. Our President had been assassinated. I watched every one of the 3 or 4 tv stations we had back then flipped the channels by hand. I was devastated and fascinated by the whole thing. I learned what a Secret Service agent was and what they did and decided that was the kind of cop I wanted to be. I knew they were cops because their cars had red lights.