Dan Consalvo ensures security and life safety for State Farm Insurance

Sep 1, 2000 12:00 PM, KATE HENRY

In the face of today's mercurial security field, Dan Consalvo's 28-year career with State Farm Insurance, Bloomington, Ill., is a standout.

Consalvo, corporate security manager for the company and chief security officer for its newly developed financial services bank, asserts that developing the company's security and safety program has been one of his most rewarding professional achievements. Beyond technology savvy, Consalvo's people skills also shine. He is thankful to State Farm for affording him the flexibility to dedicate time and effort to the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) where he serves as a regional vice president, and, this year, is on the ballot for ASIS board of directors.

Consalvo's domain of physical security responsibility at State Farm Insurance's corporate headquarters is massive. It comprises more than 6 million square feet of office space, 98 acres of parking lots and three parking decks. He also ensures the life safety of 12,000 State Farm employees, 7,000 external vendors and 1,000 visitors with the assistance of a security staff of 150 that includes direct-report employees and security officers.

"Dan is a self-starter whose enthusiasm is contagious," says Larry Evans, a security manager on Consalvo's team. "He always encourages his staff to `think outside of the box' and he puts in the long hours and hard work necessary to achieve success." Consalvo believes in and encourages his staff to use a "common sense filter" for their ideas and plans prior to implementation. He describes his first steps toward building the company's security program in the early `80s as a ground-up effort, but points out that those programs and policies have been enhanced appropriately over the years to meet State Farm's changing needs.

"If you look at us globally right now," he explains, "we have about 8,000 card readers and 1,500 facilities. The migration of the security program out to the regional and field offices was a major accomplishment."

Consalvo has since moved away from managing the regional side of the security operation, and dedicated his efforts exclusively to the corporate headquarters. "It's like a small city," he points out. The corporate security department administers one of Sensormatic Electronics' largest access control systems, with 750 card readers, 10,000 monitoring and 10,000 control functions. Some 400 cameras and extensive fire and alarm systems, all of which are monitored at three command centers in the Bloomington area, also protect the site.

For the hat he wears as chief security officer of the company's new banking enterprise, Consalvo is responsible for compliance with banking standards and regulations and for suspicious activity investigations. "It has been a lot of fun to learn the banking side of the business," he says, "but I owe most of the credit for developing the processes and procedures to the data folks."

State Farm is currently pursuing a strategic plan developed by Consalvo. "When we first started the security program," he explains, "the next step was to enhance our regional office security, then enhance our service centers, and so on. The strategic plan was to determine the logical next steps for the physical security process."

One of the biggest challenges Consalvo faced recently was the implementation of a smart card program. "We began the program to explore how we could better serve our policyholders," he explains. "About 1,000 people at corporate used the cards, which served access control, badging and stored value functions for purchases throughout the facilities." He adds that getting users to recognize the card as a security device first, and electronic purse second, was another challenge.

Consalvo's work, however, highlights the fact that effective security is not about sophisticated technology alone. With a B.S. and numerous security industry designations and posts to his name, including World Safety Organization board-certified safety and security director, ASIS Certified Protection Professional CPP), and a mention in Strathmore's Who's Who of American Business Leaders for 1997, his dedication to the security and safety field clearly goes beyond his work at State Farm. In 1999, he was awarded the ASIS Presidential Merit Award for his work with regional vice president (RVP) Charlie McCarthy developing a training manual for new RVPs. He was also named Regional Vice President of the Year.

His goals for ASIS in the coming year are to be elected to the Board of Directors, and to participate in the development of undergraduate and graduate security curriculums. "As practitioners," he says, "we can offer a lot from our personal experiences."

Consalvo is active in his community, consulting on the Citizens Advisory Council for his school board. "I continue that work to this day. As the father of a teenager, I think it is important to remain involved," he says. In his leisure time, Consalvo can be found avidly pursuing his avocation for woodworking and remodeling historic properties.

The Security Honor Roll recognizes and highlights outstanding security professionals and their contributions to raising the profile and quality of security practice at their companies or institutions. Our yearly recognition of security professionals is an offshoot of our Security Director of the Year Award, evolving from the realization that there is more than one security professional in any given year worthy of recognition. We would like to thank this year's honorees for allowing us to share their stories with our readers. Profiles of all 29 professionals who have been named to the Security Honor Roll since 1997 can be found at our Web site at www.securitysolutions.com.

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