Towering team leader

Sep 1, 2000 12:00 PM, CAROL CAREY

Setting an international standard for security practice, Douglas Karpiloff of the World Trade Center displays a job-tested ability to adapt and grow.

The date was July 3, 2000, and Douglas G. Karpiloff, security and life safety director for the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City was busy. Like many other security and law enforcement professionals in the city that day, he was part of the largest security contingent in recent memory, deployed for the city's Op Sail holiday festival for which 100 tall ships from around the world would dock in Manhattan.

The WTC planned to host the ships' captains at its five-acre outdoor plaza, providing them VIP seating for a public performance of the New York Pops Orchestra.

"We worked with the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey police and the United States Secret Service to secure the area. Teams of bomb-sniffing dogs were brought out. Finally, everything was secured and cleared," recalls Karpiloff.

Then, a sudden torrential downpour broke out, destroyed the awning over the stage and knocked down most of the 4,000 chairs that had been set up for the public.

It was less than an hour before show time. All the national media planned to cover the captains party. "The implications of going on without proper security were staggering," Karpiloff says. "So you have to be able to think on your feet."

And think on his feet he did.

"The World Trade Center Team had to re-deploy the police, our security guards, the orchestra and the public," Karpiloff remembers. Places were cleared for the orchestra and VIPs inside the WTC on the mezzanine level, with the public allowed to sit on the floor of Building 1. (Karpiloff's authority covers Buildings 1, 2, 4, and 5 of the WTC complex).

With less than an hour to go, Karpiloff worked closely - and furiously - with the port authority police captain, the contract security force manager, the property manager for building 1 and the U.S. Secret Service. After the area was again secured, the show went on - on time.

The incident illustrates that a security director must be adaptable, says Karpiloff. "You cannot get tunnel vision."

For his career achievements, Douglas Karpiloff of the World Trade Center has been named Access Control & Security Systems Integration's 2000 Security Director of the Year. Karpiloff has proven his ability to adapt and grow, to bring to the WTC an exemplary security program that has become a worldwide model, to work effectively with upper management to implement programs and to keep himself, his staff and management poised for the future.

Karpiloff's domain is huge. The World Trade Center houses 45,000 tenant/employees, and welcomes 5,000 visitors and 800 trucks every day. More than 100,000 people shop at its mall complex each day, making it the third-highest-grossing mall on a square-foot basis in the United States.

And his contributions to the security field extend well beyond the towering walls of the World Trade Center. Karpiloff has become a recognized national authority on threat assessment and security master planning, and is sought after as a consultant and speaker for both the federal government and the private sector. In addition, he teaches training seminars on physical security.

"Through his creativity and visionary guidance, the World Trade Center Security program was developed. It has been recognized by his peers as a model for the nation," says George Tabeek, Jr., a security operations manager at WTC who nominated Karpiloff for the Security Director of the Year award.

Personal and professional growth

In the initial period following the headline-grabbing 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Karpiloff worked closely with Kroll Associates, outside consultants who compiled a threat assessment and security master plan for the WTC. The process sowed the seeds of Karpiloff's growth as a security professional. As he oversaw the implementation of the master plan during the next seven years, he was frequently asked to relate his experiences and share his insight.

In 1996, for example, Karpiloff was contacted by the director of the Federal Protection Service in Washington, D.C., to do a threat assessment and security master plan for the Ronald Reagan Building, the largest commercial building in the nation's capital.

During Timothy McVeigh's trial in Denver for the Oklahoma City bombing, Karpiloff was asked by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) to work with large building owners to help them secure buildings near the federal courthouse. "Property managers feared a terrorist attack on their buildings during the trial, and we worked together to help minimize vulnerability," says Karpiloff.

Again, Karpiloff found himself thinking on his feet, going from building to building and in some cases, recommending changes that were implemented the next day. These changes included securing parking lots, implementing badging programs, and educating patrol guards on how to spot potential terrorists. Karpiloff also shared the lessons he had learned from the WTC bombing with the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI and the state disaster management team.

Improvements born of tragedy

At the time of the World Trade Center bombing in February, 1993, Karpiloff, a certified protection professional (CPP), was general manager of tenant services. He had held several security-related positions with the port authority earlier in his 30-year career there - working in its police studies group, designing its firearms training facility and program, and providing physical security and guard deployment for an elementary school under the Port Authority's local assistance program. At the time of the bombing, which killed six people and injured 1,000, his work was focused on tenant relations.

After the bomb attack, Karpiloff spent six weeks helping to restore building systems and to clean the entire complex. Tenant relations and security issues were inextricably linked. Neither Karpiloff nor his job would ever be the same. And security, always an avid interest of his, would now become a passion and a mission.

"It is the ultimate stress," he says of the weeks after the terrorist attack. "Facing this adversity makes you a stronger person. You are better equipped to deal with the next adverse situation."

There were up to 200 people in the WTC's tenant support center during that interim period after offices at the 110-story twin towers had to be evacuated, and many worked 16 to 18 hour days, six to seven days a week. Karpiloff directed tenants' access to the evacuated offices to obtain critical information and assets so they could function off-premises until it became safe to return to their offices. He also directed the tenants' return to the complex.

"The initial challenge was immense," he says. "We went from an open to a closed building complex. We issued photo ID cards for approximately 40,000 people, secured our underground parking garage and truck dock, and issued emergency purchase orders to obtain anti-ram barriers around the periphery."

Karpiloff's position expanded and he was named program manager, security systems, for the WTC. He was responsible for both the $15 million interim and $35 million permanent security programs. In March of 1999, with the capital security improvements well under way, Karpiloff was promoted to Life Safety and Security Director, making him the top security professional at the WTC, reporting directly to the complex's director, Alan Reiss.

"He has facility responsibility for both the capital improvement program and day-to-day operating responsibilities, with this new position," says Tabeek. "His ability to mediate conflicts and make sound decisions is of tremendous benefit to the agency."

Benchmarking

Today, many private and government organizations look to the World Trade Center for benchmarking. The complex's large, automated visitor desk operation, its integrated, yet cost-efficient security command center, redundant power systems, and perimeter protection system, including large planters, movable gates, and bomb resistant trash containers are among the features that engender the most interest.

"It used to be that the security director in a commercial facility kept a quiet, normal nine-to-five routine. That's changed now because the world has changed. Even in a relatively small building, maybe seven to eight floors with four to five firms, there are serious security issues today. Car bombs may not be an issue, but protecting corporate assets has become a priority, with the threat of intellectual theft from computers, hard drives, memory chips. So access control remains more important than ever," says Karpiloff.

The security program

Notable among the security improvements at the WTC has been state-of-the-art security in the parking garages, where the truck bomb had exploded in 1993, creating a five-floor crater. An Enworks EN2000 parking access control system was put in place, integrating vehicle and driver access control, alarm monitoring and the parking security intercom. With auto vehicle identification (AVI) tags on car windshields and drivers' prox cards, the system is meant to ensure that both driver and vehicle are authorized to enter the garage. Bullet-resistant guard booths are the first line of defense in securing the parking area.

Perimeter security is accomplished by 250 10,000-pound planters, a movable gate for emergency access into plaza areas. Also notable is a stopped vehicle detection system that electronically monitors vehicles that are motionless - such as parked vehicles - on the 14-acre perimeter of the complex.

In the past three years, as the permanent capital improvement program nears completion, the extensive CCTV system has been integrated with both the perimeter and lobby access control systems. In the lobby, employees and tenants must place their Motorola proximity cards above the Perey turnstiles, while visitors swipe temporary photo ID cards through readers after having been cleared by one of approximately 13 guards at the long, sleek marble visitor's desk.

Jump-over protection is supplied by a system of motion detectors, alarms and CCTV cameras. To facilitate access control for employees, individual tenants have been allowed to use the same Motorola card readers at the doors to their businesses as they use to gain lobby access. This makes a one-card access control system possible, and is another example of how customer relations and security are coordinated at the World Trade Center.

A network of copper and fiber optics connects the lobby, parking and perimeter access control systems to a main file server at the Security Command Center. A redundant, back-up system also is in place. The lobby access control system has been custom designed using software developed by Lantek, of California. The general contractors for the permanent system are EJ Electric Installation Co. and ESA Electronic Systems Associates, both of New York.

A mapping system is in the final stages and, when complete, will give operators a graphic map of alarm locations.

The WTC has also acquired emergency power from the State of New Jersey through the mid-Atlantic grid. The power line runs underground from New Jersey into the WTC. It gives the complex several megawatts of back-up power should regular systems and emergency generators fail. The line, several miles long, consists of rigid metal conduits with a number of big gauge copper wires, or feeders, that carry power. It would provide power for the command centers and one freight elevator in each building, emergency radios and emergency lighting.

With the emergency power source from New Jersey, the WTC now has four levels of power - its primary power source, emergency diesel generators, battery back-ups and the New Jersey power line.

The WTC boasts an action-activated, high-resolution color CCTV system of covert and overt pan/tilt/zoom alarm-point cameras and the system's American Dynamics matrix switchers have been integrated with the security systems.

Security issues today

"It's vital to understand that security principles are the same no matter what size the building is, though the individual threats may differ," emphasizes Karpiloff. "You can't put a guard in a lobby, lock the door, and say you have a security system. You may have executive protection issues, extremely sensitive case files that must be protected, a totally open building or parking areas that need to be secured. And, you have to look not just at the lobby and access to the building, but at how you're going to protect the individual offices on different floors and how this can conform to the overall building security."

Today at the WTC, for instance, individual tenants are responsible for the security to their offices. But their systems' readers and cards have been made compatible with the complex's systems.

Many of the security issues Karpiloff deals with on a day-to-day basis are benign compared to the 1993 bombing. Customer relations between the public and the WTC security staff of approximately 450, contracted to a private firm, is a high priority. Sensitivity to tenant concerns is also important, and Karpiloff makes sure tenants are able to contact either himself or one of his top supervisors, such as visitor desk coordinator Barbara Ford, IT senior consultant Vic Guarvera, security operations manager George Tabeek Jr., or life safety manager Mike Hurley.

"We call it an escalation process, because it allows tenants to reach us on a timely basis with important problems. We also try to be proactive and avoid problems," says Karpiloff. "When a large tenant is getting ready to move into the building, we will often badge its employees ahead of time by going directly to the office. This way, we have the data and photos in our system for the majority of the employees and can issue the proximity cards in a much more timely manner when the tenant does move in."

Making the visitor desk more "user friendly" has been another customer relations improvement. "We had noticed that the lines were getting longer and longer at the visitor desk during the peak morning hours over the past year," says Karpiloff. "We improved the software, and added additional visitor desk staff. We put the staff through a formal, 16-hour customer service training program."

But neither Karpiloff nor the guards can ever become too relaxed, or forget that they must ever be alert for security breaches and terrorist threats. For several years now, the WTC has had a "mystery shopper" program where an outside contractor will test security to see if it can be breached at different points.

Members of the security staff have also been trained in counter surveillance techniques to help them recognize potential terrorists. The training proved critical during May, 2000, when anti-trade groups planned a May Day demonstration in New York City. "The WTC had been identified as one of 12 sites to be targeted by anti-world-trade groups," says Karpi-loff. "We deployed more than 100 extra guards plus more than 100 extra port authority police officers (the WTC has its own port authority police force). Some of the police were in riot gear. The City of New York also mobilized a large show of force to try and prevent a repetition of what occurred in Seattle when local law enforcement was overwhelmed by anti-World Trade Organization demonstrators.

"On May 1st, we ran a full inspection program of every visitor to the complex, looking at each knapsack. Previously, the staff had seen videos of training camps where some of the anti-trade organizations learned how to do such destructive acts as damage buildings," says Karpiloff.

It is important, he adds, to know your enemy. It is also essential for today's security director to be aware of different types of security threats, from cyberterrorism - the theft of intellectual assets - to weapons of mass destruction such as chemical, biological and radiological weapons. "You have to understand in detail the complex in which you are working, and you have to `sweat the details,'" he says.

Emphasis on teamwork

"At the same time, you must be careful not to micromanage, delegating adequate authority to staff members so they can do their job effectively," says Karpiloff. "You've got to approach the job as a team effort in a complex this size. My top supervisors and I are all on e-mail, and I make myself accessible to them through a dedicated phone line and computer from my home, a cell phone and a pager that lets me be reached anywhere in the U.S. All senior staff are paged in any emergency."

"He leads by example and is a firm believer in teamwork," says George Tabeek Jr. "His congenial personality has enabled him to establish excellent working relationships with all levels of the work force, including the whole team working on the development of the World Trade Center security program. When there are major events, he is on the floor with the security staff, making sure that things go well."

With a bachelor of science degree in engineering science from Hofstra University and a master of science degree in industrial engineering from Columbia University, Karpiloff combines a unique mix of qualifications. He is a technically knowledgeable security professional and a hands-on manager. He was a captain in the U.S. Army, with posts including Air Defense Artillery Missile Commander and Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Officer.

Although the long hours keep him away from home, Karpiloff is grateful that he, his wife, Jacqueline, and his two children have remained close, spending time together when he returns home in the evening. They have enjoyed family vacations to the Caribbean, where he relaxes by scuba diving.

For his work during and after the World Trade Center bombing, he was awarded with two medals, the "World Trade Center Individual Award for Exceptional Service" and the "Emergency Lifesaving Support Service Team Award."

"My personal code of conduct," he notes," can be summed up simply: `As you sow, so shall you reap'. Therefore, you need to take responsibility for your actions. The WTC bombing was a life-changing event for me, and for many others. We had the opportunity to come back stronger, and we've done that."

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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