SDY Honor Roll 2005: Ray Miesch, From Educator To Teacher

Sep 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Michael Fickes

OTHER DEPARTMENT HEADS at the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., envy Ray Miesch, the casino's director of surveillance. No one ever seems to quit the surveillance department. Miesch (pronounced “Mish”) has only had to hire one employee in the last two years.

Recently, the casino's human resources manager asked Miesch to reveal his secrets. “We're a family,” Miesch says. “We're a small department, only 31 people. It is possible for each of us to know the names of everyone in the department. We also talk to each other and work out our own problems.”

Overall, the casino, which is owned by the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Native Americans, employs 3,000 people, often within very large departments. Miesch has made the small size of his staff work to his advantage through lots of personal contact and training. “I believe you have to train your staff. Then you have to trust them to do what you have trained them to do. I tell people that if you come to me with a problem, bring a solution, too. Don't complain. Don't be negative. If you solve problems, you will keep your job here for a long time. That's my philosophy in a nutshell.”

The low turnover in Miesch's department suggests that people like being trained to take responsibility and then being given responsibility.

If the Miesch philosophy sounds like something a high school teacher once said, it's true. Among the many jobs Miesch has done over the years, high school teacher remains one of his favorites. “The guys kid me a lot about using a fluorescent yellow highlighter to mark important points. I admit that I'm an old-school teacher at heart.”

In fact, Miesch continues to participate in Mt. Pleasant's high school by coaching football at the local high school, the one his son attends. “I get to be on the sidelines on Friday nights,” Miesch says. “My son is a halfback on the team. He's a better player than I was.”

But he has been fascinated with casino surveillance practices since signing up for an entry-level surveillance job in 1993, when the Soaring Eagle hired its original staff. At the time, Miesch was working in the recycling department in the city of Mt. Pleasant and filling in off time as a substitute teacher. A friend mentioned that the Soaring Eagle was hiring, and Miesch investigated. “I looked over the job postings and thought that surveillance sounded exciting,” he says. “Even though I didn't know what casino surveillance was, I filled out an application to work in that department.”

Miesch started at the bottom, as a monitor trainee — someone who watches surveillance video and looks for people in the casino that may cause trouble.

As he worked his way up through the ranks in the surveillance department, he developed an expertise in evaluating behavior on the casino floor. “There's a term in the industry called ‘JDLR,’” he says. “It means ‘just doesn't look right.’ In casino surveillance, you develop kind of a sixth sense about people that just do not look right. And this is who we follow.”

What kind of behavior seems out of place?

“People come to casinos to enjoy a vacation or a business conference. They are usually with their families or wives or friends. They will usually have a drink and visit their favorite slot machine. We look for people that are alone, stiff, looking around — they just do not look right.”

Miesch trains his staff to find “JDLRs.” So far, he's happy with the results. “We have some phenomenal people in our department,” he says. “They can at times pick someone out, watch for a while, and sure enough that person turns out to be up to no good.”

Casinos attract all kinds of crooks, from purse-snatchers and petty thieves to gambling cheats. But customers do not commit most of the thefts that occur in casinos. Statistics show that employees commit more thefts in gaming businesses than are committed by customers. Finding and keeping track of customers and employees that commit crimes in a casino requires a blend of experienced, well-trained surveillance professionals, gaming industry information sharing networks and closed circuit television (CCTV) technology.

“We use every possible communication network out there,” Miesch says. “We have CVI (Casino Visual Identification). This is an organization that hunts for bad people. Anyone that has been caught cheating at a table game goes into the CVI database. Another communication network that we rely on is called ICSN — International Casino Surveillance Network. If we see someone winning excessively at a table and something looks shady, we can query these databases by typing in a description of an individual. Sometimes we'll get a hit.”

The Soaring Eagle surveillance department monitors approximately 1,200 high-resolution color cameras. Cameras cover the casino floor in detail, monitoring dealers and games as well as money flowing into and out of the cages and counting rooms.

“We've just moved from videotape to digital recording technology,” Miesch says. “Digital technology has made us a lot more efficient. We can find video to review faster. We've been surprised at how much time we save not changing tapes. All those wasted minutes added up to a lot of time.”

Extra time can always be used for more training. Miesch regularly asks for advice from friends and acquaintances that he has made among gaming industry surveillance professionals. “I gravitate toward people that have led the way in our industry,” Miesch says. “I attend seminars and learn from them. We also bring them here to teach our staff. I think it is important to learn from the best. Their knowledge is priceless.”

Ever the teacher.

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue