LPRC - CrimeScience Episode 50 – Emergency & Disaster Training, Executive Protection, and COVID-19 ft. Eric White (Brosnan Risk Consultants)

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

In this conversation with Eric White, Executive Vice President of Brosnan Risk Consultants, we discuss the impact of COVID-19, executive protection during the pandemic, Brosnan’s pandemic threat intelligence briefing, and much more. The post CrimeScience Episode 50 – Emergency & Disaster Training, Executive Protection, and COVID-19 ft. Eric White (Brosnan Risk Consultants) appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. Co-host Dr. Reid Hayes of the Loss Prevention Research Council and Tom Meehan of ControlTech discuss a wide range of topics with industry experts, thought leaders, solution providers, and many more. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Take advantage of the advanced video capabilities offered by Bosch to help reduce your shrink risk. Integrate video recordings with point of sale data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. Use video analytics for immediate notification of important AP related events and leverage analytics metadata for fast forensic searches for evidence and to improve merchandising and operations. Learn more about extending your video system beyond simple surveillance in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com.

So welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. Today I'm joined by Eric White. Eric and I go way back to his Walmart and the Home Depot days, and of course, Tyco and then now where he is at Brosnan Security. from executive protection to a lot of Department of Homeland Security, DHS training and preparedness and response and recovery, as well as looking as an AP practitioner at different levels, the district, regional, divisional level, and what's going on out there. And now in his role with Brosnan, having this unique opportunity to work with different retailers from a different perspective and uniquely qualified, I think, to talk to us today about how this is unfolding and what are some forward-looking pathways here. So, Eric, welcome to Crime Science. Thank you, Dr. Hayes. Happy to be here. So Eric, welcome to Crime Science. Thank you, Dr. Hayes. Happy to be here.

All right. So I think, you know, can you tell us very quickly, you know, what is, I described some of your background, your training, your experience. What does some of that look like? Tell us a little bit about it. Yeah, I had the unique opportunity to really grow up in the retail industry, but working for a very big company, Walmart, growing through sort of the traditional loss prevention asset protection area. But I had the opportunity to take on other areas of responsibility and really grow. My career grew as well as my personal education grew. I was very appreciative of the opportunity to grow. I had responsibility for a number of different areas that were unique and growing at the time. You mentioned a few executive protection, supply chain security, homeland security, and in a post-9-11 world back then,

kind of the changes that were accelerating through our society in general, and then significant events like Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, that really changed the emergency response programs for everyone. And, you know, it's no secret that Walmart is exceptional at emergency response and disaster recovery. And I was fortunate in the early days to just be involved in that learning process. That's a great intro. really describes why we wanted to talk today a little bit about this global pandemic, why we're in the middle of it, and talk about some things that might help our listeners, particularly the practitioners, whether they're law enforcement or loss prevention, as well as researchers and

students. So, you know, how has some of your emergency disaster training, and of course, as you mentioned, between hurricanes and securing after September 11th, particularly for what some would describe as, while not a fancy icon, but iconic in something that those that wish the United States harm might identify as USA, and that would be Walmart. the United States harm might identify as USA, and that would be Walmart. How has that training and that experience prepared you, Eric, for the current global crisis? It's fair to say, Dr. Hayes, that what we're facing today has similarities to how we've recovered from other significant events. But the scale here that we're dealing with, because we're not just fighting the invisible enemy, the virus, we're also intentionally slowing down the monster economy that is America. And really globally, every country is touching the same problem. And as we did that to prevent hospital overruns, the unintended consequences are becoming clear with the relative number of unemployment cases that will see longer term effect. New York City and really the Northeast in general will continue to have impacts that are much farther into the future than a lot of states.

But I think what we're going to see is very similar to what we saw post-9-11. Once we understood what happened to us on the day of the attacks of 9-11, several agencies began to work together, band together. We created a new agency called TSA. And from that, we saw the creation of air marshals. We saw a very focused effort on the protection of the airline industry and passengers of the airline industry. And when you think about it in simple terms who before 2001 would have ever thought they'd take their shoes off at an airport we we went through relatively little screening at all getting on airplanes or any mass transit prior to that and and that's kind of normal today

we're all well we'd be surprised uh if we didn't have to take your shoes off unless you're in the in the fast pass lane and you and you don't have to do it, you've registered or you're clear of some of the program. But I do think this post-pandemic world looks to have changes like that for us that will continue to have implications kind of long term. I think we're going to change. The term new normal gets thrown around a lot. I think we're going to change. The term new normal gets thrown around a lot, but I think there'll be fundamental and substantial changes between how people interact with one another. screens that are between the customer and the cashier, sometimes they're between in different spots throughout the store. What was a sneeze shield you really only ever saw at a buffet

is becoming really frequent. And so I think you see more changes in human interaction that will have both a psychological effect as well as just a practical effect about how we operate, especially in the retail world. Very good insight, Eric. And, you know, I can remember my grandmother went through an outbreak in the early teens of the 1900s and was germaphobic to a certain extent. It was never pathological. And really, our parents kind of pointed out more than we noticed it. But it forever changed her through 99 years of life. And like you say, we've seen some pretty profound adjustments and changes we made in society and all these practices. But now most people don't notice them.

They may not like them, but we tolerate them for personal safety. So very good insight there. How should we look at this pandemic and the effects based on some of those trials and tribulations we've been through with huge major storms in this day and age, in this pandemic? huge major storms in this day and age, in this pandemic. And a quick example, in our retailer cluster calls, unanimously, they're talking about, we are used to a hurricane knocking a store or entire market out. We're used to this or that disruption. We've never had where every person and every place on the globe is disrupted. And in our case, our enterprise is almost shut down completely.

So any thoughts, Eric, on the magnitude and things that people maybe should be thinking about and recording in this day and age? Yeah, really interesting points, Dr. Hayes. really interesting points, Dr. Hayes. You know, in the last significant pandemic, and we've suffered through several near misses, SARS, avian flu, there were several opportunities for us to be where we are. But the last significant one that you referred to, the Spanish flu in the early 1900s, we didn't even know what a virus was at the time, much less antiviral drugs. And history says it just sort of went away. And that speaks to what is a factor in today's pandemic, which is the herd immunity aspects of it and how we'll develop antibodies ourselves, as well as a vaccine to accelerate that antibodies. And so it's really interesting. But from an overall standpoint, I think one message that's clear is we're really all in this together. And no one has an advantage over anyone else in this environment. And we're all wondering the same things. Everyone who works in retail is starving for is accurate information. Like what is the information?

We're overwhelmed with daily news briefings. The president, vice president give us daily briefings. Every state, the governors give briefings. There's a lot of consistency in the messaging, but there's maybe some wondering of why are those messages coming out. And, you know, unfortunately, politics plays into the messaging when it comes from politicians. And, you know, the medical professionals have a perspective, but they don't get to make decisions. So as an example, we all want the country to reopen. We want that to happen quickly. We want that to happen incrementally so that we're

protected from the concerns that the medical professionals offer to us. And you're hearing this constant drumbeat about we need to get the economy back open. We need to do that as quickly as possible. And a lot of that stems from really the fragility that exists inside of our supply chain. You have retailers that are experts at supply chain movement, at filling the supply chain. But what we have really is we've had a dependency on goods and products from China. And China is the epicenter of the concerns that we're facing now. We know this virus emanated out of China. There's some debate over whether it originated in a wet market from someone consuming bat meat or whether the Wuhan

testing lab that was working on viruses that could transmit from bats to humans, whether there was a leak there. And the intelligence community will sort that out. But we know it came from China. And we also know that a lot of goods and products have been traditionally moved from China to Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. And so that front end of the supply chain, the pipeline, is interrupted, significantly interrupted. It's beginning to grind back to a start again, but it was interrupted. And the senior politicians are measuring this balancing act between the push

to get the economy back open so that we can fill that supply line so that we don't impact people's ability to get goods that they're so accustomed to we're we're generations removed from not having food available to us i don't mean to discount the hungry and the socially economically depressed people that's not what i mean it was but it was available in masses people could go to a store people could go to a farmer's market and get product. And if we move to a time where it wasn't available, the potential social unrest there is critical. And so there's this balancing act of get the economy back open so we can sustain our supply chain versus creating panic to say, we're going to run out and no one's going to come out and say,

we're out of supply in two weeks. But I think the rational person looking at that problem says, hey, look, we're probably going to see some shortages of some things. We saw the silliness of people wrestling in stores, aisles over toilet paper. And we're trying to avoid that sort of a response from people again by creating the perception that there's shortages around food and other critical things. So this balancing act will continue to play itself out. And the challenge is in the midst of all of this. You want information. You actually want facts. We know that wherever the death toll is right now, as we talk, the infection rate is highest in the United States of all countries, but that's the reported infection rate. The intelligence services are very clear that China has had a much higher rate of infection and a significantly higher rate

of fatality than what they're reporting. Now, what that real number is, I don't know if we ever know, but let me give you some information that is interesting anyway. I think they're reporting somewhere around 100,000 deaths, something like that. It might be 30,000 or 60,000. That number does continue to rise. But people on the ground there, Americans on the ground there, really feel like that number could be as high as 8 million people that have succumbed to the COVID-19 virus. And why they feel that way is just simple observation of things like the production of urns, that society, cremating people. Other indicators are abandoned phone lines. I mean, there's just, what we know is that the numbers aren't real. And so we have this overall geopolitical issue with the region that was our supply of products and goods. We can't trust the numbers. We're doing business. Many retailers are embedded

in their business with China. So grinding this all open again is both a political challenge as well as just a physical challenge of getting the supply chain back open. That's interesting. As we speak on April 15th, according to the American Library Association's Worldometer, or Worldometer, however it's properly pronounced, I think, just as an update to the listener, to Eric's point, they're reporting right now a little over 2 million cases that they've documented, a little over 128,000 deaths, and close to half a million that have recovered. So like you say, Eric, it sounds like when we look at confidence intervals or plus or minus X amount, there might be a pretty big swing there potentially.

minus X amount, there might be a pretty big swing there potentially. And what does that mean for everybody? You know, we're looking to China so much to understand, well, they're coming out of this. What are the things that helped or didn't? And of those things that may have helped, maybe, are we able to do in the United States with the different culture and government-citizen relationship, but also medically, critically important. What are the things they're doing medically to respond for prevention and recovery? So, yeah, that's why it's, you know, game playing is this isn't the time, whether it's geopolitical or not. So good thoughts there, Eric.

Let's kind of zoom in for a second and look at an enterprise and something I set up at the beginning as you and I started the podcast. We're talking about individual protection of everybody. Now, you have experience of protecting the more senior executives of an organization, particularly in light of the September 11th attacks and follow-up attacks in the U.S. and around the world. What does that look like in trying to maintain an enterprise's viability and operations and future planning? How do you propose that executives in these organizations, as our LPAP listeners, dial into crime science? Think about that. What are some possible actions in that area, given this pandemic?

Yeah, there are. So it's a great question, Reed. There are so many variables that make today different than pre-pandemic. One clear example is your senior executives, your protectees, the people you're responsible for, you're really concerned that they not be exposed to this virus and expose their family. I think the pace of the testing of the president, the vice president, and the White House staff is, at the last I heard, it was multiple times a day, at least twice a day. And they're really limiting the people around them. We look at what happened to the UK's senior leader with contracting the virus. Those same dynamics play true for a company.

As we know, during a crisis, the most important thing that a leader can do is communicate and communicate to their company and their customers and just be a strong voice of steady perception that we're going to get through this. And interrupting that through contraction of the disease could really affect the company's morale overall. And, you know, if you could avoid that, you certainly would. The other interesting dynamic is, as we know, and, Reed, I've talked about this for years, as the environment changes, it isn't just the people that are protecting the merchandise, the people that change the criminal element or the people that are committed to deviant behavior change their tactics as well. to deviant behavior, change their tactics as well. Just in the last week, the FBI has released a threat intelligence brief that talks about focused threats on senior executives inside of major companies. And that threat, it comes generally through the internet. It would look a little like tiger kidnappings have looked

in south of the U.S. border for years, which it's an extortion attempt, but it's an extortion attempt with a threat to either contaminate you with the virus, contaminate your family with the virus, or interrupt your business in some way. And so that've got to believe that's probably a small creative group of bad guys that are thinking that way, but that does elevate the game that you have to protect against. So I think you're balancing between the need for the leader, the senior leader in an organization to publicly be visible, to be out there with their teams, to be that constant and calming reassurance that we're

going to get through it. And you're protecting them from external threats, from people that are taking advantage of the situation, and you're protecting them from this invisible threat, which is the virus. Some more great perspective, Eric. It's not that the C-suite team of an organization is more important, but their role is important. And it sounds like there's obviously a lot more to take into account now because of that. a lot more to take into account now because of that. And somebody trying to disrupt or even destroy a particular retail enterprise, especially in the time when they are vitally needed to get the supplies that everybody needs, healthcare, food, and other items that are out there, is important and something that we want to make sure people talk about. So, you know, let me ask you a little bit about, you all are doing some

high-level, high-order intelligence briefings, and you don't have to go into too much detail, of course, but Eric, what do you guys, who is on that team, and what are they doing to become more informed than the average citizen? And what are some of the things that are being discussed at sort of a higher level, if you would? Absolutely. We realized early on in this crisis that things are changing. Our customers rapidly made the decisions. In the early days, we did not anticipate closing of retail stores. We maybe anticipated some bearing of hours and some personal protection equipment and some things, but the wave hit quickly and people shut down. And so we took the resources we had available to us and reallocated them to really this intelligence gathering and more of a focus on what might be commonly called a fusion

center. We have our chief intelligence officer, a guy named Brian Parman is a recently retired senior executive from the FBI. He's extremely credentialed, ran the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, had international and national assignments. team, which includes Dr. Mike Tobia, who came from the Department of Homeland Security and the New York Port Authority prior to that, and a retired CIA agent, station chief, again with international and national history, and then our reach with law enforcement, local law enforcement. We collected all of that together and we are producing daily intelligence briefs, but they're packaged up kind of event-wise. We are giving them out to the industry in two ways. One, we have a webinar that we try to assemble the most relevant recent facts and do that on a weekly basis, make that publicly available to anyone.

And that's kind of more, maybe a little bit like this podcast, and it's a conversation about topics. The other way we do that is we have the ability for some companies to get some screening time with that group of people, as well as a former White House doctor who is on our team as well that provides this medical perspective of the virus, understanding testing, understanding what antibody testing is, when will the vaccine come, what's the value of temperature screening in a post-pandemic era, all of those things we provide in a threat intelligence briefing call format. It's a little more intimate capability for the listener to ask questions and engage with the panel. And the third way we're producing those reports, which are available to everyone on our website, to just go get this information.

where everyone is trying to work remotely, we're figuring out a way to use our resources to best help our customers, potential customers, and really anyone. I appreciate that very much, Eric. So it sounds like the Brosnan team is all over it and we appreciate the insight and your membership. And as you know, we look forward to some further research with you all and some of your particularly zone for parking lot technologies on comforting the green shopper and repelling the red.

So any last thoughts, Eric, for the listener, things that they should pay attention to, think about, and be planning for? Yeah, I think my party thought is I didn't know anything about coronavirus before this all started. And if I can learn what I have, it's not complicated. It's just complex. And my recommendation is spend the time, find the resources, whether it's our intelligence briefings or whether you're paying attention to what is on the media, which can be dangerous, or you're out there and looking at your own sources. I think getting educated is really important. Seeing below the surface here and kind of understanding the whys that are motivating people to make the decisions that they make, you'll ultimately, this group of listeners, potentially from retail,

will ultimately be responsible for protecting their employees as they come back. They'll be responsible for protecting their customers as they come back. And as we all know, there's a third layer of protection that's going to be critical in the post-pandemic era, which is the establishment of a duty of care. What are your responsibilities to help people not contract the coronavirus or COVID-19 or any other future pandemic communicable disease. Because that legal entity we know is going to play itself out over the course of the next two years, three years, five years, as lawsuits are filed and people are in court wondering, did I do enough?

Did I do enough with the knowledge I had? And the way you answer that question is to get a whole bunch of knowledge, get the right people in the room and make eyes open decisions about your practices as you reopen in this new era. So my encouragement is just get smart, I guess. Your work at the LPRC has always been a central point, a repository of great information. I suggest that people come here, that retailers come here and understand what it is others are doing, what it is your expert guests are talking about, and then go back and make the decisions that are best for their company and their people. That's fantastic. And Eric, I want to thank you for joining us today, Eric White of the Brosnan team,

for all your insights. And we look forward to continue to work with you and your team and always value your wise counsel. So thank you, everybody, for joining Crime Science, the podcast, and thank you to Kevin Tran, our very busy and productive producer. Thank you everybody. Stay safe. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Laws Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more Crime Science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org.

The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Office of Prevention Research Council.