THE HOUSE RULES

Feb 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By KATE HENRY

Frigid winds are better associated with the rolling prairie of southeastern Minnesota than are balmy breezes. But there, on the banks of the Mississippi River, Treasure Island Resort and Casino successfully bills itself as the Midwest's premier tropical getaway and offers guests nationally acclaimed entertainment, four-star hotel accommodations, a marina, a 120-passenger cruise ship, an RV park and some 2,400 slot machines, 64 blackjack tables, bingo, video poker, craps, and keno, the largest nonsmoking gaming area in the Midwest and proximity to Mt. Frontenac Golf and Ski amenities.

With nearly 1,800 employees, Treasure Island Resort and Casino is the largest employer in Goodhue County and is owned by the Prairie Island Indian Community, which also owns but separately operates the golf and ski resort. Treasure Island — and its security operation — have expanded every year for the past decade, and both show no sign of slowing down.

GATHERING FORCE

Security manager Clint Pitonak has been with Treasure Island for more than 10 years, first working as a security officer while earning his degree in law enforcement and since, working his way up through the ranks as a corporal, sergeant, shift supervisor, training coordinator and now security manager.

“When I started here, we were just a bingo hall with a few slot machines, but in the early ‘90s, it began to really blossom,” he says. “Working here has been like growing up with the casino.”

Working in a tropical environment — especially in Minnesota — is a lot of fun for Pitonak. Ensuring guests' experiences are enjoyable is one of his department's key objectives. “Our main role here is to make sure our guests and team members are safe and secure and to safeguard the company's assets, but we do that by providing optimal customer service.”

As Treasure Island has grown, so has the breadth of its clientele, which come from all over the Midwest. The resort and casino average between 3,500-5,000 guests on weekdays and between 7,500-10,000 on weekends. Last winter, a 58,000-square-foot addition nearly doubled the gaming space — along with the security and separate surveillance department's planning and oversight responsibilities.

“We're getting pretty good at expansion around here,” Pitonak says. “Ten years ago, the entire security department was operating out of a tiny room where we ran the phone and paging systems and time cards. It also served as the break room, entry point for all team members and provided access to the vault. As we expanded, we added a second control room and began to streamline team member responsibilities. This past summer, we moved into a two-level office building for which we were able to design our own area,” he says.

SLEEK NEW SYSTEMS

From the new security headquarters, Pitonak's 100-person-strong department administers a range of new physical security systems and is efficiently dispatched around Treasure Island.

“Next to guest safety, our top concern is theft,” Pitonak says. “We're a money business, so whether on the part of team members or guests, there is always the potential for loss of money.”

Pitonak notes that another risk against which his department defends is persons getting into unauthorized areas. “There are areas where only a few people are allowed and other areas where two or three people have to enter simultaneously because of the sensitivity of what's in there,” he explains.

Mike Wolf, who directs Treasure Island's surveillance department, agrees. “Under the Federal Gaming Act, our role is to enforce gaming regulations and observe and document gaming violations,” he explains. “We answer to the gaming commission who reports directly to the Tribal Council — not to any type of on-site casino management — so there's no conflict of interest. We're an independent department in that regard, but we work very closely with security. We're the watchdog and they're hands-on on the floor, enforcing what we observe.”

To keep tabs on all the activity, Wolf's 27-person department will begin to implement an upgrade to digital recording of the casino's nearly 1,000 surveillance cameras this month — the result of an 18-month research and planning process.

“There are fewer than a half dozen casinos anywhere that are fully digital,” Wolf says. “We started with 47 vendors, narrowed it down to four who came on-site to do demos, and chose (London-based) Primary Image. It's their first major casino installation in the U.S., so we'll be a sort of showcase for them.”

Installation of the new system will be done in-house by Treasure Island surveillance technicians, and Wolf expects the implementation to be done in monthly phases, ending in July.

The casino has no need for new cameras, because every five years, it upgrades one-fifth of its cameras, sticking mainly to Pelco and Philips, according to Wolf. “We're really getting there in terms of efficiency,” he says.

Other big changes have followed the expansion as well. Pitonak notes that owing to the increased technical sophistication of the casino's security systems, it drew directly from the security supervisory staff to hire a dedicated security system administrator. “He has oversight of every computer system security has,” Pitonak explains, “and also supervises our three on-staff access control technicians.”

Treasure Island's system administrator attends to a new Lenel OnGuard proximity system with 17 panels, 97 readers, 150 alarm inputs and 212 access levels programmed on-site. Procurement of that system was also lengthy — the security department interviewed more than 40 card access vendors before choosing the Lenel system. “We chose them because they're a software company,” Pitonak explains. “Hardware is hardware, but their software allows considerable future expansion and greatly reduces system maintenance.”

Local integrator Best Access installed the system, but Pitonak and three staff members were trained by Lenel to operate it entirely in-house. “That's key, because we're a 24/7 operation with a lot of cash on-site, so when we have a problem, we need to take care of it immediately,” he notes. “With the four of us trained, we can accomplish that at any time of day or night.”

Panic alarms reside on the system as do staff badging capabilities, and integrating guest badging is a future possibility. New optical turnstiles manufactured by Philips that read badges at team member entrances have expedited shift changes and other personnel movement, Pitonak says.

The casino's fire system is separately maintained, though monitored by security, and a PPM 2000 IRIMS event-writing system enables the department to document all incidents and then query information as needed. That's also useful to surveillance, which is responsible for executing investigations of incidents, though both departments interact with all levels of law enforcement as needed.

PEOPLE: THE FIRST PRIORITY

Security team members are everywhere in highly visible uniform at Treasure Island — and always on the move, according to Pitonak.

In addition to a security director to whom he reports, an assistant security manager and the systems administrator, a dispatcher will soon reside in the new control center, manning the casino-wide radio network while keeping an eye on alarm conditions and a weather alert system. Security officers control access to and greet and answer questions for guests in the lobbies. They also escort monies throughout the casino. Supervisors handle serious incidents on the floor personally: “If an incident is criminal in nature or if there is any threat to public safety, we call in law enforcement to assist,” Pitonak says. “We have an excellent working relationship with them, and that's crucial because we're actually about 15 minutes away from the nearest town.”

Also on staff are 14 EMTs who provide on-site service, 24 hours a day, and behind the scenes, a training coordinator designs and provides year-round, ongoing training.

“Certainly we give training in self-defense, report writing and such things,” Pitonak explains, “but guest service and helping to generate return business are also a huge part of it. Officers are the first people guests see when they come through the door, so we want to welcome them and provide them with any information they need.”

All staff involved in serving alcohol join security in Training for Intervention Procedures or TIPS.

Future security planning to which Pitonak contributes includes fiscal, personnel and systems considerations and is driven by physical building expansion such as occurred last winter: “Right now we haven't heard just what's next, but given that there has been expansion nearly every year, we're certainly excited and ready for it.”

FOR THE RECORD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Henry is an Annapolis, Md.-based writer and regular contributor to Access Control & Security Systems.

ABOUT THE COMPANIES

For information, please circle the appropriate Reader Service number (listed below) on one of the Reader Service cards in the issue or visit infoLINK at www.securitysolutions.com.

Best Access	20
Lenel	21
Pelco	22
Philips	23
PPM 2000	24
Primary Image	25

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