2004 Security Honor Roll

Sep 1, 2004 12:00 PM

Steve Bias

Executive director of public safety, Nova Southeastern University

Challenging Conventional Police and Security Systems Beliefs at Nova University

When you meet Bronson S. Bias, he'll ask you to call him Steve, his middle name. It's a small thing, perhaps, but characteristic of his style as executive director of public safety at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Fla. Bias believes formalities get in the way of learning, questioning and getting better at what you do.

A graying 62-year old, Bias has held his post at Nova since 1987. His mildly messy office provides few clues to what he does, but it does suggest an unconventional man. A cavalry flag with crossed swords, a bugle and a captain's hat hang from one wall, commemorating his ancestors' service in the Civil War. On the opposite wall is a movie poster advertising the cult hit “Tremors” with Kevin Bacon. On his desk, Bias has pictures of his wife Melody, their two children and a grandson. “He's the number-one focus of our life now,” he laughs.

While talking, Bias fingers a plastic award given to him by Nova students. It recognizes him as the Nova Administrator of the Year in 2000. “I keep it on my desk,” he says. “I'm proud of it. But I don't know why they gave it to me. I don't hang with the students.”

The reason might be that Bias himself has become a student, teacher and security innovator over the past 20 years.

Bias started his career with the police in Hollywood, Fla. A motorcycle cop, he broke his back in an accident in 1969. After convalescing, he worked his way up to acting captain. His accomplishments include creating a hostage negotiation unit and an internal affairs unit for the department. In 1978, his law enforcement career ended when recurring pain forced an early retirement. He was 36 and looking for a second career.

He went back to school and became a serious student of security. He attended the Crime Prevention Institute at the University of Louisville and later earned a bachelor of science in criminal justice from Nova. Study led him to ponder the difference between crime prevention as practiced in law enforcement and loss prevention, a goal of private security. He wondered if it was possible to use the techniques of crime prevention to achieve the goals of loss prevention.

the early 1980s, Revco Drug Stores hired Bias as a regional security director and gave him a chance to test his theory. At the time, 21 of the 150 stores under his care used plainclothes security guards to catch shoplifters. Bias researched the approach and discovered that stores employing guards had more losses than those that left security to managers. While the guards caught some shoplifters, they could not stop shoplifting that occurred in the store. “When we put an undercover security guard into a store, employees quit thinking about security,” he explains.

Bias also studied retail shrinkage generally. Back then, security theory pegged shoplifting as the primary cause of shrinkage. But Bias found that employee theft was the primary cause, followed by vendor theft. Shoplifting ranked third.

While the analysis rings true today, it challenged convention in the 1980s, and management insisted that Bias deal with shoplifting first. He responded with another study that analyzed shoplifting evidence — empty plastic packaging. The number of discarded plastic blister packs provided a minimum count of the number of shoplifting incidents. The location of the discarded packaging indicated where in the stores shoplifters worked.

Bias opened up those store areas with redesigns coordinated through the Revco marketing department. He also installed convex mirrors above problem areas.

Next, Bias taught store employees to steal. “I was criticized for that,” he chuckles. “But if you think of every employee as a set of eyes, you have a lot of people looking for tell-tale signs. We taught employees to spot suspicious behaviors and to approach suspects with a smile, asking if they could help.

Shoplifting plummeted, and Bias turned to the larger problems of internal and vendor theft. Working with management, he set up inventory controls in each store that made vendor theft nearly impossible and employee theft difficult. Revco asked him to take the program nationwide.

Impressed with his achievements at Revco, Bi-Lo Supermarkets Inc. of Malden, S.C., hired Bias to create a similar program. A few years later, Saks 5th Avenue asked for his help.

In 1987, John J. Santulli, II, came calling with the job Bias really wanted: executive director of public safety at Nova Southeastern University, his alma mater. Santulli asked him about his philosophy. Bias responded: “Crime prevention and safety are participatory. The best safety people on a campus are students and employees.”

He got the job and took his innovative ideas to Nova. Bias says crime investigations deal with three questions: Who did it? What conditions caused it? How can you prevent recurrences?

“Most security operations focus on the question of who did it,” he says. “But catching someone doesn't make a campus safer in the future. Preventing recurrences does. We talk to students and faculty about what happened and why, and we figure out what will keep it from happening again. That's worth more than catching someone.”

In developing Nova's program, Bias accentuated the positive by finding ways to provide service resources for Nova's faculty, staff, 7,300 students and four-dozen buildings. He assembled a department of 106 employees, 98 of whom work in uniform. Bias named the program NOVALERT and gave it a three-digit 24-hour phone number — for emergencies and for routine requests.

NOVALERT functions like most security programs with a security operations center that manages a 400-camera CCTV system, door access controls and intrusion alarms.

But NOVALERT goes beyond most programs by incorporating a vast service network. Patrolling Nova security officers lock and unlock building doors and car doors for faculty, staff and students. They carry air tanks to fill flat tires and jumper cables to start cranky vehicles. They provide directions to visitors and new members of the community. They respond to calls from faculty in need of classroom equipment and coordinate requests related to building heating and cooling systems. They discuss needs with facilitators identified in every university department.

While patrolling the campus looking for good deeds to perform, security officers not only deter crime, they constantly monitor, evaluate, and upgrade the quality of campus security and safety.

NOVALERT also includes a vast network of security resources extending far beyond campus. “After Sept. 11, it took us a while to bring people back to center by describing our comprehensive system, which includes relationships with emergency response and law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal levels,” Bias says. “We didn't create these relationships after Sept. 11; we had already formed them.”

Bias has also become a widely published proponent of his methods. His writing includes chapters in two security textbooks. He also contributes his expertise as an adjunct instructor at Nova.

Nova students know Bias by his writings, his teaching, and his effective security work. While Bias doesn't hang with the students, the students decided to hang with him. That's why they named him administrator of the year in 2000 and gave him an award he treasures.
— MICHAEL FICKES

Guy Grace

Manager of security and preparedness, Littleton Public Schools

Protecting Children, Teachers and Staff of the Littleton Public School System

Late one night last August, burglars attempted to steal $30,000 worth of computers, television sets and band equipment from Littleton High School in Littleton, Colo. Intrusion alarms at the school notified security and the police.

As manager of security and emergency preparedness for Littleton Public Schools, Guy Grace takes anything that threatens the schools personally. When he heard the call on a police radio monitor in his home, he leaped out of bed and raced to the high school, where he participated in the apprehension of three burglars.

“I like to be hands-on,” says Grace, a 37-year-old weightlifter who goes about 235 and will likely give pause to anyone he decides to go “hands-on” with.

The barrel-chested Grace is not just a big fellow. He's a barrel of energy and a big thinker. Since earning his promotion to the top security slot in 1999, he has revolutionized the approach to security and emergency planning in his district's 28 schools. With 16,000 students, the district ranks as the sixth-largest in Colorado.

Grace grew up aspiring to enter law enforcement. He comes from a family of cops, including his father and all of his father's brothers. He traces his family's involvement in law enforcement back to the 1800s. During the 1980s, Grace decided to go into police work. He spent a few years in the Army and then leveraged his military experience into a job as a security dispatcher with Littleton Schools. He planned to spend a few years in private security and then make the jump to police work. At Littleton, however, he quickly earned promotions to patrolling officer, lead security person and then security coordinator. “It was something all new and different,” he says. “I decided that I could grow here and make a future for myself.”

In 1999, he was named security manager for the district. Since then, he has expanded his responsibilities to include emergency planning and communications.

Grace steams into his office early every morning around 7:30 a.m. and calls the security dispatcher: What happened last night? Any calls? Incident reports? No fire alarms, right? What about the HVAC? Yeah, I heard about that. Did you call the plumber? Did the plumber show up? What was wrong? Let me know.

“Our department has become a resource for the district's facility management department,” he says. “We have a Johnson Controls Metasystem that monitors HVAC, fire alarms, and the access control and intrusion detection system since 1995. We're rebuilding all of it this year and putting security on a Compass system.”

From all the activity, you would think it's the middle of the school year, but it's only mid-August — just the beginning.

Today, Grace plans to meet with three new school principals and their administrative staffs. He will discuss a set of emergency flipcharts he has prepared for every administrator and classroom in the district. The charts provide instructions for 40 different emergencies that might arise in the course of a day, from lockdowns to tornadoes. Another section of his briefing will cover communicating with the security department over a radio system during emergencies that involve the police. Grace has connected every Littleton school to an Emergency Command System (ECS) radio network.

In addition, Grace's security operation maintains direct radio communications with the Littleton Police Department and the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office. Any tactical response to a law enforcement emergency that might affect a Littleton school lights up that system. “The cross communication is awesome,” Grace says. “And it's confidential. It enables us to alert our schools and buses to any emergency. It's a digital communications system and it works across the state. Even if a bus is 300 miles away, we can still talk to the driver.”

On the way to his first briefing, Grace stops at the store and grabs a handful of weather radios. Weather emergencies come often in Littleton. This summer alone saw 17 tornado warnings and alerts. “I find money in the budget to give inexpensive weather radios to secretaries at each school,” he says. “I also set up Web browsers on the secretaries' desks to access our school weather stations through weatherbug.com as well as the breaking news systems that local television stations put out on the Web.”

Grace likes everyone to have access to comprehensive sources of information. A key part of this morning's briefings covers how administrators can maintain radio contact with his security dispatcher during emergencies. “Parents expect us to make sure their kids are safe in school,” he says. “That means you must have good communications.”

Grace feels a special responsibility toward parents. The Littleton district offices sit just four miles from Columbine High School in neighboring Jefferson County, site of the 1999 massacre. “Today, emergency preparedness is probably 60 percent of my job,” he says. “This has been a nationwide push since the Columbine tragedy, and the issues raised by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have defined school emergency planning issues more clearly. We all use these events as landmarks for study and planning.”

Prior to Columbine, Grace, a self-taught software maven, built a technical system called School Emergency Management Planning Software or SEMPS. “We use SEMPS to create virtual tours of all the building systems in all of the schools in our district,” he says. “For example, SEMPS identifies all the circuit breakers in the lighting and HVAC systems in all of the schools, and we provide a Web site with this information to law enforcement agencies.”

Since Columbine, Grace has made SEMPS available, for free, to other security directors. He offers free training on the system to the police and to other school security directors. SEMPS earned a Pinnacle Award from the Association of School Business Officials in 2001. (For information about the system, visit www.semps.org.)

This year, Grace plans to upgrade security technology across the Littleton district. Some years ago, he equipped the schools with a network of motion detectors to make it possible to locate people in the buildings during an emergency. The new plan will complement the motion detectors with a closed circuit television (CCTV) system of 300 Pelco cameras. Grace is also managing the installation of access-controlled doors across the district. A Compass system will manage both the CCTV cameras and the access control system. In addition, Grace has put the entire system on the school's network and made it available over the Web to the local police.

“The police can tap into the camera system from their cruisers if necessary,” he says.

How much security is too much?

“There are some objections, and it is important to keep security in perspective,” he says. But it's also important to realize that kids are our most precious resource. On any given day, 25 percent of Littleton's population is in Littleton schools. In some districts, that percentage is as high as 40 percent.”

In the end, Grace leaves it up to others to hold him back. That's not his job. His job is to think of every idea he can to watch out for Littleton's kids.
— MICHAEL FICKES

Joseph H. Korte

Manager of nuclear security Fermi 2 Power Plant

Security at a Nuclear Power Facility Leaves No Room For Error

Think about the nerve-rattling job of running security at a nuclear power plant in a post-Sept. 11 world. Think of the potential disasters that may result from an oversight or misstep: radioactive leaks, nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists, a terrorist-led hostage event, and just about any other worst-case nuclear scenario.

Who could sleep at night under the heavy responsibilities of securing a facility with such ominous potential?

“It's not for someone who wants to go home at the end of the day and forget about the job,” says Joseph H. Korte, manager of nuclear security at Detroit Edison's Fermi 2 Power Plant in Newport, Mich. “The responsibilities are always there.”

For the past 26 years, the 47-year-old Korte has taken the responsibilities of nuclear power plant security home with him every night. Korte has spent his entire career working in the security department of the Fermi 2 facility, starting as a security officer in 1978 while the facility was still under construction. He had just graduated from Henry Ford Community College with an associate's degree in criminal justice.

Within a year and a half, he earned a promotion to shift supervisor at Fermi 2. By 1981, he was writing procedures for security officers on post throughout the facility and administering contracts for a contingent of contract security officers on duty.

By the time the plant commenced commercial operations in 1985, Korte was supervising the staff in charge of the plant's security plans, and the official documents kept on file with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which regulates security at the nation's 100-plus nuclear power facilities.

In the late 1980s, Korte enrolled in night school at nearby Spring Arbor College and began studying for a bachelor's degree in management, which he has since earned. In 1992, he moved into the top security slot at Fermi 2. While working his way through the ranks, Korte handled virtually every security job at the plant. “I won't say that I know every nook and cranny here, but I know a lot of them,” he says.

Security at the nation's nuclear power plants is more robust than at any other kind of domestic facility, with the exception of military installations. Prior to Sept. 11, the NRC required security operations that included armed civilian guards, fencing and barriers, intrusion detection systems, access-control technology, closed circuit television (CCTV), security control centers and painstakingly prepared emergency response strategies covering a host of different problems. The NRC routinely inspects security as part of its reactor oversight responsibilities and also periodically conducts force-on-force exercises designed to test potential vulnerabilities.

While most details of nuclear facility security are classified, Korte describes the basic strategy in terms of three perimeters. “The first boundary you come to is called the owner controlled area,” he says. “This is industrial security — a fence and an access control point. Next, you come to the protected area that houses structures and equipment related to basic plant operations. The third perimeter encloses vital areas, and I won't talk about those areas at all.”

Korte's responsibilities include investigating incidents, just like the security director of a commercial office building. But that's just for starters. He also manages the plans and procedures governing the physical, technological and human security that protect each of Fermi 2's three perimeters. He oversees the hiring, training, and qualifying of the plant's 130 officer security force. He administers a fitness-for-duty program, which includes random drug and alcohol screening. His responsibilities extend to background investigations for all prospective Fermi employees, which involve talking to previous employers, soliciting character references and credit reports, and conducting psychological surveys and criminal record checks.

As the manager of a large security department, Korte has not forgotten the value of his experience as a security officer. “I like to get input from others,” he says. “I don't like to arbitrarily push things down from the top. I think it's important for our staff to participate in the decisions that will affect them. In addition, I can't be a specialist in every area, so I rely on others for advice on issues such as technology, fitness-for-duty procedures, and so on. I'd characterize my management philosophy as participative.”

As tight as security has always been at U.S. nuclear power plants, it has ratcheted up since Sept. 11. By 10 a.m. on that fateful day, within an hour of the strike against the South Tower of the World Trade Center, the NRC had advised Korte and his colleagues at other plants around the country to go to the highest level of security. Within a few weeks, the NRC had issued new and more strict security standards for nuclear plants.

“We have always had good relationships with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies,” Korte says. “But our relationships with these agencies have grown even closer since Sept. 11. In addition, the NRC asked nuclear facilities to increase security forces by 25 percent, which we have done. The NRC has also revised the Design Basis Threat that all nuclear power plants must organize to protect against.”

The Design Basis Threat, or DBT, is a scenario developed by the NRC describing an attack of some kind against a nuclear facility. All facilities must develop plans to meet the specific DBT aimed at their plant. At Fermi 2, the new DBT required increasing the size and numbers of vehicle barriers. Access control measures are also being strengthened. Korte is currently investigating an iris-scanning biometric system to complement the plant's existing card access system.

Korte will not say more about the details of security at Fermi 2. But anyone can tell the gravity of his responsibilities do not go unnoticed. “There is a lot of personal sacrifice connected to our work here,” he says. “It is very challenging, but we have an excellent team of professionals, who are ready to respond should the need arise. We've selected the right people, given them the right tools, and trained them in the right way. And I can sleep well at night.”
— MICHAEL FICKES

Greg Schaaf

Director of surveillance, Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa

Surveillance Director Stays One Step Ahead of Cheaters at Atlantic City's Borgata Casino

Greg Schaaf got the word around 10 p.m. Surveillance at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, N.J., had spotted a past -posting team apparently en route to the roulette tables on the gaming floor. While nothing had happened yet, Schaaf prefers to stay one step ahead and to stop cheaters and thieves before they get started in the Borgata's 125,000 sq. ft. casino, with 145 gaming tables, and 3,640 slot machines, not to mention its 11 restaurants, 11 retail shops, huge spa, convention floor and theater.

In a past-posting attack, one or two members of a team will distract the dealer just as the ball drops into the winning roulette slot. With expert slight-of-hand, other team members place bets onto winning numbers — after the fact.

The team descending on Borgata's tables consisted of an internationally known group of professionals. Borgata's surveillance system identified the team with facial recognition software. The software, populated with images of gaming cheats from around the world, monitors cameras set above cash cages where patrons convert cash and chips. Carefully positioned cameras record clear frontal face shots and compare the images with a database of known cheaters. When the system detects a match, alarms notify system operators in the surveillance room above the gaming floor. The operators use the Borgata's 1,200 other gaming surveillance cameras to follow the potential cheaters across the gaming floor and to scrutinize their activities. Another 800 cameras monitor security throughout the Borgata's hotel facilities.

“We watched the past-posting team cheating,” says Schaaf, director of surveillance at the Borgata, a $1.1 billion joint venture between the Boyd Gaming Corp. and the MGM Mirage. “We arrested them and put their images and information out on SIN, a surveillance information network that enables us to send information instantly to 170 casinos around the world.”

Atlantic City authorities could not hold the team. But a month later, the security director of a casino in Lithuania called Schaaf to ask for details. The Lithuanian had matched the photos sent out by Schaaf and picked up members of the team who had gone back to work. “Our information enhanced their criminal case by showing a history of past-posting,” Schaaf says.

A key part of Schaaf's strategy for protecting the Borgata's games and assets is to take advantage of communication tools that track gaming cheats around the world. As cheaters are arrested in one facility and then in another, evidence piles up and eventually congeals into a hard-to-beat legal case. It's a pro-active strategy that has only just begun to gain credence in the gaming world.

Many casinos, for example, prefer not to share information on cheats or their scams. According to this theory, cheats tend to target casinos whose problems are on public display.

But Schaaf notes that the Borgata is the first new casino to open in Atlantic City in 13 years. In the gaming industry, cheats always target new facilities, hoping to take advantage of inexperienced security operations and dealers. Schaaf, Borgata CEO Robert Boughner and Rich Billington, Boyd's corporate technical manager, conceived of the Borgata's pro-active system as a unique defense strategy designed specifically for a major new facility.

To make the pro-active strategy work, Schaaf pressed to buy the best, most proven technology on the market and to hire the most experienced staff.

At age 42, Schaaf himself is one of the most experienced surveillance directors in the industry. He has spent nearly 20 years in gaming security, including 10 years as surveillance director, the top spot. Schaaf got into the business in 1985 when he joined the surveillance staff of Resorts International. Fresh out of college — he holds a degree in criminal justice — he worked his way up to shift supervisor. In the late 1980s, he was recruited to help open the Southern Belle in Tunica, Miss.

Boyd Gaming tapped his experience in 1994 and named him director of surveillance in another new casino in New Orleans. During the 1990s, Schaaf helped Boyd open two more new properties.

In 2000, Boyd Gaming and MGM Mirage began planning the Borgata. Executives from both companies asked Schaaf's advice on the organizational and technical design of the Borgata surveillance system. Consultants usually handle this work, but Schaaf recommended keeping the project in-house. Management concurred, and Schaaf worked with Boughner and Billington to develop the innovative strategy of relative openness combined with top-of-the-line people and equipment.

In building the department, Schaaf brought in three managers with a combined 60 years of gaming experience. Schaaf and the managers interviewed 2,300 applicants and built a security and surveillance department with 230 experienced people. “We looked for career-oriented gaming people who agreed with our pro-active, philosophical approach to security,” he says.

Schaaf also worked with Billington to design the surveillance system. Together, they dealt with issues such as camera selection and placement, software management systems including the Biometrica face recognition system and the design of the surveillance facility above the casino floor.

The surveillance facility is large. Unlike many casinos, Schaaf wanted the surveillance staff and the technical staff to occupy the same room. “Some think the operational staff does not understand what the technical staff does and that neither group can help the other,” Schaaf says. “But we wanted both staffs to understand the causes and effects of their work. When there is an incident, for example, and there are comments from managers, regulatory agencies, FBI and U.S. Secret Service, we want everyone to hear those comments. This way everyone sees what works and what can be made better.”

Not long ago, for example, a floor manager called surveillance to report that $1,000 was missing from one of the games. The surveillance team reviewed video, facial shots and found the culprit, while the technical staff observed, making suggestions about how the system might be tweaked to make such investigations easier in the future.

The cooperative, pro-active strategy has paid off. “The productivity we've delivered is groundbreaking in Atlantic City,” Schaaf says. “While there are always scams and arrests in casinos, we've found that we can identify problems early, respond quickly, and often recover the money.”

While different casinos practice different security methods, the Borgata's pro-active strategies have produced excellent results by helping security and surveillance remain one step ahead of the game.
— MICHAEL FICKES

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