LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly R2P Review – Episode 228 Ft. Tom Arigi

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

In this episode of the LPRC CrimeScience Podcast, Cory Lowe talks with Tom Arigi, Chief of Staff at the LPRC, about his four-decade career in retail loss prevention and leadership. Hear insights on mentorship, team development, and why operational excellence and people-first leadership are critical to long-term success.

Hi everyone and welcome to crime science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone. My name is Corey Lowe. I'm the director of research here at the LPRC and welcome to crime science podcast. Today I am joined by Tom Arrigi. Tom is a long-term practitioner, leader in the industry, a wealth of knowledge, and a friend.

Recently, he joined the LPRC. It's not so recent anymore, is it Tom? But he joined the LPRC as the chief of staff. And so we'd like to go through a series of questions. Tom, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Corey. I'm excited to be part of the podcast. So to start, can you tell us a little bit about your

professional background, how did you get involved in the industry and a little bit about your journey through the industry? Sure. Yeah, it's, it's starts, sums back from a long time ago, back in 1983. Really, my focus, Corey, was to get into law enforcement, was testing at a few local police departments in the western suburbs of Illinois. And I thought while I was attending school would be good to get some practical experience and it's a mall out in the western suburbs of Oak Brook, Illinois, called Oak Brook Mall. And I hit that mall. Basically, I hit all the anchors and applied. And two places called me back, Sacks at Avenue and Sears. And what's cool about that is Sacks offered me a full-time gig, which is always a good thing. And I work there for a little bit and

learned some things there. But I also worked at Sears part-time. And I just loved that Sears experience. When I walked into that Sears office, I had no idea what, back then it was called retail security, but they were putting in a sensormatic CCTV system. And I had no idea that there were people watching people shop and looked for the theft. I mean, that was completely naive to that. And for me, that was an instant hook. I mean, I instantly knew that, I mean, this was going to be a fun job. My role is to catch shoplifters for the most part. Did that for a while. And then I had a, I had an ex-police chief take me under his wing. His name was Don Sacramento. And I remember that he said, hey, Tom, we're going to work on an internal today. And again, I'm probably four or

five months in the roll. I'm like, okay, that's cool. And we worked through a first cash theft case. He walked me through what to do, how to investigate. And then once the individual took the cash, allowed me to participate in the interview. And again, where I was hooked before, even more so. I thought that was just amazing, you know, what took place. So, so anyway, that's how I got started in the business. I ended up working for Sears for over 28 years. Like, they said started as a part-time security agent. They put me into an executive development program, which was different for an AP person or a security person. They, as usually reserved for sales managers. And from there, about every two or three years, there was a promotional opportunity.

And when I left Sears, I was the divisional vice president, really on the Kmart side of all things, after Sears and Kmart merged. So great, great place to work, work for great leaders there, learned a ton there and really set set me up for a lot of success. Not only while I was at Sears, but then after I left Sears. From Sears, I went to a company called National Stores out on the West Coast. It was privately owned. I worked with an owner there. Love that role.

Love the trust that he put into me and my team. I was able build a team build program was awesome. From there, Walmart came calling. said, hey, they're looking for somebody. You know, being a Sears diehard and the wool type individual, my gut reaction, Corey, was Walmart, woof. But, you know, instantly click like, hey, Walmart wants to talk to you. It would be cool to hear because back then you didn't hear much about what was going on at Walmart. So I was very curious.

And, you know, interviewed with Sonia, who was a VP at the time and started out in the West Business Unit. And then when Mike became the VP, transitioned from the West Business Unit into the corporate office as a director of safety and security. So great, great time at Walmart, an amazing business, amazing people there still today, learned a ton. And from Walmart went over to Kroger. Mike, as you know, was a VP at Walmart, Mike Lamb. And then he went over to Kroger and called me up and said, hey, you know, what do you think? And, you know, any opportunity to work with Mike is when you don't want to pass up. You learn a ton working with him and sound like a fun gig too.

Amazing people over Kroger, amazing results. Let some great folks learn a ton about grocery. And so from Kroger, I had a good friend of mine at a business called American Freight. It was a furniture appliance retailer. Really didn't honestly when that opportunity came up I really didn't think that you know that that was going to be An opportunity for me but Yeah, you never say never and it was an amazing amazing couple of years great group of individuals They're getting great results very proud of that team and everything they accomplished in a very short period of time

Unfortunately we had a banner year but unfortunately the business filed for bankruptcy. And so great people got impacted because of on our great people overall, but also on our team, not because of a lack of hitting goals and objectives from their standpoint, but bigger, bigger concerns. So, and then that led me to hear. Very excited to be part of the Lost Prevention Research Council. Great things I've been, I think I've known Reed for 23 of the 26 years.

of the loss prevention research council so uh very excited to be here and i know we'll probably talk a bit more about that in a minute most definitely um and you're not new to the lprc like you said you've you've known read for 23 of the 26 years and you're in your 43rd year in the industry which is pretty amazing um i know that i had a lot of great conversations with you oh go ahead tom i was going to say all that means is i'm getting old already am old that's worry wise we call it but wise. I like that. No, we've had a lot of great conversations.

And one of the things I want to talk to you about today was, you know, throughout your career, what has energized you? Particularly around leadership, people development, what has really driven you through all these different roles and these promotions and and all of that. Can you tell me a little bit more about your passion and for leadership and development? Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And as I think about that, what comes to mind for me is it's very situational. Right. Early on in my career, I mentioned that when I started that Sears catching shoplifted, and I was passionate about that. And then I learned about internals and was passionate about that.

At a point in my career, I had some operational responsibility. I ran a store and I was a district operations manager. So the P&L becomes very important, total P&L, not just your portion of the P&L, but top to bottom. And so for me, it's been a journey of, depending on the role I'm in, and what motivates me in that role. But the one thing that I find constant, Corey, more than anything else, is I learned early in my career, As I was getting promoted, people say, wow, that's awesome. We got promoted. You know, they'd ask questions.

You know, friends of mine, you know, peers. And I always started with, yeah, we had a great team. We had a great. And about the, and I'm not the smartest guy in the world. So it took me maybe through promotion before I, before I get it. That I keep saying the same thing. And somebody says, well, yeah, how'd you get that promotion? Man, we had a great team.

And so people became a real focus in my. And what I've learned is, You could have a big case, really, or you can have a great shrink number, or you could have a great P&L overall. But the thing I've gotten the most satisfaction out of over my career is working with individuals, whether they work directly for me or with me or around me. But if I had an opportunity to help somebody or help them, help them to be promotable, and then once they got that promotion, there is no better feeling in the world. that is, to me, the thing that motivates me more than anything else. And especially at this stage in my career, like, it means even more. It becomes more of a legacy type thing that says, you know, every once in a while,

I could be at a show and someone will come up and say, hey, Tom, do you remember me? And it's a little embarrassing when you don't, right? And that happens from time to time. And they'll have a story that I don't remember. You visited me in a store one time and didn't go so well. and you were very candid with me. And it put me on the right path. And the reason I'm a regional today is because of that conversation.

You know, things like that. If one day in the future, somebody's out there going, yeah, that time of regal isn't so bad. He taught me some things and he helped me get to where I needed to be or where I wanted to be. Then I think you call that a win. You chalk that up to, yep, then you did what you're supposed to do. And to me, that's what's still motivates me today.

Yeah, and I've had the opportunity to be partisan. some of those discussions. I was pretty amazed. You know, you're the part of your career where there's, you know, high level leaders who worked underneath you. I found out about one recently where I was on a call with you and he said, yeah, I was actually two levels down from you when you were at one of the retailers, which was someone I really look up to. So it's pretty, pretty incredible. Now, you've mentioned that you know, love building teams. success is driven by having a great team that functions well together. Looking back, can you think of some characteristics that are common across teams that work well together

and that can grow together versus those that are going to struggle? You have any lessons there that you learned over the years? It's an interesting question. There are some commonalities, I think, to teams that win or perform versus those that don't or takes longer to get there. I think one of the most important things is do you have the right people in the right role doing the right things? Right. So that's a little bit about structure, I think, but it's also mainly about. individual. You know, sometimes people get put into roles and they're not really well suited for

them or or sometimes they think, hey, man, this is what I really want to do and then they get into that role. And it's not working out for them. And so as a leader, I think it's really important that people under understand that, see that right away. Because it's been my experience, Corey, that it's not like you've got a ton of extra people that can fill in the gaps if somebody's not if somebody's not succeeding for whatever reason. Is it will, is it skill? Are they in the wrong role? You know, whatever that part doesn't matter.

The most important thing is that you recognize this is a gap. And that gap is impacting the ability for the team to be successful. Because every team member is critical of the overall success of the team. People have to understand their role. So role clarity becomes very important. They have to understand what they're going to be rated on. And I think that most common mistake that I've seen in, leaders where it's taken longer than it should have to succeed is a tendency not to address

the real issues. And people call that, well, tough conversations. And I always cringe a little bit when I hear somebody say, ah, you know, I had to have a tough conversation. Well, as a leader, that's your job to have those conversations. And if they're, if they're tough, then maybe you're approaching them wrong. Maybe you're not quite as developed as a leader as you need to be. But the most important thing a leader can do is be honest what's the individual they're talking with. And that honesty is you're doing a great job and here's why. It could be that or could be you're not, you're not getting the job done. And here's the reasons why. And here's what I need to do differently. And I'm going to help you. But at the end of the day, most of that responsibility and accountability is going

to fall on your shoulders. I'm here to help you, but I can't do the job forward. And so just recently, you and I attended an event where we had a sheriff of talking. And he had a comment that kind of teased this up perfectly. And I think about it all the time. He said, sometimes when you give somebody a break, they give you a compound fracture back. And he said his number one regret was not addressing poor performance fast enough.

And when teams don't succeed at a good pace, where the leader feels like, hey, in most cases, I don't find that. You can, but then it's not sustainable, right? Something something's going to burn out fast. So I like to see a nice, steady trajectory of improvement. Then I know probably the results are real, and I got the right people doing the right things and everything else. But this individual, that's what his thoughts were. I see that as well. This lack of candor, this lack of direct communication, this lack of feedback. I don't want to hurt

anybody's feelings. That's not the point. You don't have to be a jerk. You don't have to be mean. But what you have to be is candid. And you have to give somebody a real honest assessment. And you know, you and I were just talking about this the other day. If somebody is surprised in a reading of you, good or bad, like, man, I had no idea of Corey felt I was this good or I had no idea. Corey thought I was, you know, doing so poorly. That, that either one of those is a bad situation. One's a little bit easier to deal with, but then the other, but both are bad. So that ability to be able to be able to be able to. to ensure that the team knows what you're holding accountable to, what their responsibilities are, and exactly where they are at any point in time. So there are no surprises. It helps drive performance on the team. And I think those things, a couple with one other thing I would add, Corey, which is leadership support. When your leaders are aligned, it greases the path for you. That's critically important as well, making sure that I understand what the goals and objectives and where my senior leaders are heading, and it's my role to take my responsibility to make sure it's supporting

that effort. And when you got that, great leadership support, senior leadership support, and a great ability to manage results and hold people accountable the right way, and things accelerate. Yeah, I think that that was on around. those, you know, you said you call them tough conversations and you said that you cringe at that. I think that those are some of those caring conversations. And I think that's something you really helped me to understand over the last, you know, a couple of years that we've been working together is that you're not doing anyone a favor by not having those conversations and not saying, telling them where there's opportunities to improve.

And if you don't do that, then you're going to stay stuck in the same place that you've been without the level of growth that you would like. I'm been extremely excited to have you join the team. You know, at the LPRC, you join us at a very interesting time in the history of the LPRC. You know, we've had some pretty tremendous growth in the last five years. What excites you most about joining this team at the time that you've joined it? Well, there's two things. This team is amazing.

But you don't see it all until you get kind of shoulder to shoulder, right? I always know when the team was amazing. I always knew that the LPRC was doing amazing work. But sometimes that work goes on behind the scenes. You don't see how much goes into it to get to the end result. And so first and foremost, what excited me about joining the team is the mission. supporting safer places, safer people, safer place to work and shop is kind of how I frame it up in my head. Using real data to help make decisions so that we're not spinning our wheel so that we get to a safer place or quicker.

Critically important. And so supports my, I don't know what you'd call it, my basic instinct around what should a retail environment look like and feel like. And it's got to feel safe. It's got to be safe. And so that part of the mission, very excited about it. And getting to be able to get to know the team, Corey, is probably the second thing that comes to mind. I mean, I've met everybody, I had met everybody, but I didn't know them like I know them today after six months in the role. And what they do and how they do it.

and the level of commitment they have to what they do is just amazing. And then the third thing I would say is just what you were talking about. The amount of growth that have taken place is unprecedented, I know, in being able to be part of that to help ensure that the resources that you have as a researcher, is there to support that mission of safer places. Just, again, an amazing thing to be part of. And, you know, sometimes I think back and go, man, it's been six months already. Where did that time go?

But my experience tells me, if time's going fast, that's probably a good thing. And so things are moving fast at the LPRC. I know we've got a three-year look ahead we've been working on. That's exciting to me to see, you know, what the future holds and how we're going to get there. And, you know, to be able to be part of the team. I'm very honored to be part of the team. Now, you've joined the team, play a pretty critical role these days as chief of staff. Can you just kind of go through, you know, how you're supporting the team as chief of staff?

staff and really what that means, you know, just walk us through that. Yeah. Well, look, it's a great question. And I think candidly, Corey's evolving a little bit. But I'll tell you some of the things that have been working on initially, which is, you know, we talked about how important team is. And so one of the things that I'm very excited about is being trusted to help formulate our way of working. Not saying that our way of working in the past wasn't good, but when you accelerate growth the way the LPRC has, and when you set expectations as high as the LPRC has for member value, it means that, you know, we've got to have our T's crossed, our eyes dotted. We've got to have, you know, we've got to be a higher performing team than we were yesterday, that constant improvement

improvement piece is critically important. So to me, one of the fun aspects of the role so far has been what areas do we want to focus in on to perform at a higher rate tomorrow than we did to that? What does that constant improvement look like? And as you know, we've had an offsite. We've got another one coming up at the end of the month. Those are the things that we talk about. What are our way of workings? How do we hold each other accountable? What are we going to be accountable for. And so I could probably go on for the whole time just on that topic, so I'm going to stop there, but it is one of the funnest part of my role at the LPRC is helping to formulate and identify those things that will ensure that we are constantly working on getting better every

day, something that I think is critically important for any organization. Being part of Reed's big three and innovate has been also a fun piece for me. I've always been kind of a technology junkie. I don't know how that technology works. I'm not that guy, but I am the guy to say, can it do this or maybe can it do that or maybe we can use this technology in other ways versus the way that it was originally intended. So that's been fun to work on that innovate piece closely with you and Reed and Josh and what that looks like. So, that's been a whole lot of fun for me as well. And then I think just to round out some of the things in the interest of time,

just, again, what organizationally, how do we go about the business of the LPRC, what operational processes have to be put in place? How do we make sure that, you know, we're all roan in the same direction, Because when you work fast and when you work hard, sometimes, you know, you could leave somebody behind. And they might not understand, you know, where we're headed. And so how do you make sure that these processes are in play to make sure that communication is high, that Chad and his team clearly understand what you and your team are working on and the stuff that Reed's got going on with, innovate and safer places? So that's been a fun piece of my role as well to see those.

three things in operation and then and then and then working toward even better communication between those three functions yeah i i wanted to go back to the to your piece about just organizational growth and you know taking a high performing team to a higher performing team i have to say these last six months have been some of the most uh incredible months in terms of personal growth because one of the things i've noticed is as we've drawn as a team it's it's kind of revealed things that I could improve on across the board, not just at work, but also outside of work. So I really, I really enjoyed the process so far and looking forward to doing so much more along those lines. So mentorship is also very important.

You know, I consider you a mentor. I'm sure you've had a bunch of fantastic mentors throughout years. Why is mentorship such a critical component for career advancement? And if you have any examples from your career that you can share, I would love to hear them. Yeah, look, I think it's critically important. And the reason why I'm a big believer in it is, you know, sometimes you don't want to always have the dialogue with your boss or your peer. sometimes there's a tendency to want to, like I don't want my boss to think I'm a ding dog, so I don't want to have this conversation with him. You need somebody to talk to. And so for me,

a mentor is that person. And I was very lucky when I stepped away from Sears to have an individual. I don't know why he did, but he took me under his wing when I went over to national stores. He at one point he called he called me up and he said hey time he goes I'm thinking about coming out there where are you at in your program development and I told him I said Mike we're we're rolling and so so he said I want to come out and see and really that was a mentoring session he made me outline to him everything I was working on he made me show him we hit stores together and he gave me some great feedback. And I felt really good about him coming out, wanting to come out. I felt really good about where we were. But that doesn't mean that we were perfect. And he provided me some really, really

strong insights. So that was Jim Lee, by the way. And why, and I still today don't understand why Jim took me under his wing the way he did, but he did. And I love that. I've had, you know, individuals that I've worked for in the past that I didn't work for any longer, but were such in such wealth of knowledge to be able to pick up the phone and not only talk to them about their family and from a friendship standpoint, but also to say, hey, I need some help on this. What do you think? And to be able to have individuals at your disposal that you can talk to, without the fear of them judging you or all they want to do is help. If you have a circle like that, you're very, very fortunate.

If you don't, then you've got to formalize it. And so the way I think about when I've been a mentor, I have a couple rules that I put in place. And I tell the individual, I'd be happy to mentor you, but these are a couple rules you have to come up. You have to follow. And the first one is you've got to put an agenda together. right so you have to send me the agenda at least the day before so I can get my head straight around what you want to talk about what are the things are pressing what are you concerned about what are you working the second thing is we establish trust we upfront right because in order for mentorship to work there has to be trust so we a lot of times the best way to teach somebody is to give them an example and sometimes you give an example you're talking about an individual right

And sometimes this person would know, even though you're not using names, like probably who you might be talking about. And so you got to be able to trust to say, look, you might hear about things that are only between you and me as a mentor and mentee. And I need it to stay that way. And if you break that trust, we can't be in this relationship any longer. And then the final one is termination. So what I've seen over the normal course of most mentorships is they run their course. The individual has grown to a point where you're probably not going to be much helping. And so what I've told people that I have mentored is you can call me up on you.

You're not going to hurt my feelings and say, hey, Tom, I think, I think, you know, we've played this out the best we can. And I said, and I reserve the right to do the same thing. But if you're not producing an agenda and if you're not taking things serious and if we're not really having meaningful conversations, I'm going to find you just like you can fire me so we both can get on to other things and so you know establishing some ground rules I think are really important to mentorship's and that's kind of the way i've used them in the past I've been lucky enough to have some great mentors and I've been lucky enough to mentor some individuals and I fully expect when I mentor somebody that I'm going to learn as much from that individual then they're going to learn from me and I think when you go into it with

with that mindset, it really is an awesome thing to experience. It's something worthwhile. If you don't set up a regular cadence, it can't be, well, you know, I'll call you if I need you. No, it's once a month. That's part of the agenda rule. We're going to meet a minimum one hour once a month and it's got to be calendared and there's got to be an agenda to it. And if you do those things, you have a high likelihood of having a really good relationship. That's some really, really awesome, awesome advice to the industry. You've made it pretty far throughout your career.

You served at the top of organizations, led multiple, and you've been able to progress up the ranks. For those starting out today who want to have a successful, career. Is there any other advice or principles that you would offer them that might help them in their journey the most? I think a couple things is, you know, take some risks. You know, I stepped out of AP for about six years. And I got to tell you that time as a store manager and that time as a district operations manager made me a way better AP practitioner. And so sometimes, you know, it's not like you're going to go straight up the ladder.

Like if you have a goal to be the VP of your organization, it might take you some laterals, some additional experiences to be able to get there. And so be very clear with the person you're reporting to, making sure they understand what your career goals are. And they have a responsibility to tell you. So if I came to you, Corey, one day and said, hey, look, I want to be the CF. and you know math isn't my strong point, you'd have to tell me, look, dude, you've got a lot of schooling ahead of you. That ain't going to happen anytime soon if I'm being unrealistic. But if I've got a realistic goal, you've got to help me understand how to get there and advocate for me to say, all right, well, you're probably going to have to go into this role over here, and then back over into AP over here, and then maybe that gets you into this role.

But I think having that conversation, don't be shy. Don't assume your leader knows what you want to do. Be overt about that. And as you're meeting on a regular basis, as you're having touch bases, have you're having performance review, whatever it is, make sure that stays a part of it. And then you and your leader need to make sure you have that developmental plan. What are the core competencies need to be successful in the role I'm interested in? What ones do I've got figured out?

What ones do I need to develop? and use the time in the current role to develop the core competencies to help you be successful in next role. And when you do those things, you have a much higher likelihood of getting where you want to be than just hoping somebody's going to notice your hard work. And so you've got to have results. You got to have people skills. And you've got to have a vision of what it is you want to do. And when you can put those three things together, success is more likely than not.

I'm fantastic advice there. I want to go back to your comment just now about your time as a store manager and operator and how valuable that was. Why do you think that was so valuable? Do you think it was just because of the skill that you were able to acquire and familiarize yourself with some of those issues that made you more aware? Or what do you think was most helpful about getting outside of that comfort box? like I think the easiest thing you can do as a practitioner today is going to a store point fingers and I think if you do that you're you're probably not going to be too successful and what that what those experiences taught me was how to look at things differently

not just through the lens of an AP practitioner but through the lens of a merchant through the lens of a store manager through the lens of a salesperson through multiple different lenses and the thing I didn't really realize is when you learn those things. Like, again, it sounds like this is can, but it's so true. When I ran a store, I had the best group of sales managers and leaders. And that was a great store. And so in many cases, that team ranked number one or number two in the region and certain

key performance metrics. And so, you know, being able to then step out of that role and back into AP, what I didn't realize was when I could talk to a store manager about what their role is, when I can tell them, hey, look, I had number one performance in this in my region, and this is how we did it, something for you to think about. When I become not just the AP practitioner, but somebody that can help on a wide range of things, There was two things that happened. One, I was accepted much, much more because I wasn't the guy just trying to point out things.

They're trying to help because I understand how hard it is. It's the hardest thing I ever did was run the store. So I understand how hard it is. And what you need is somebody helping, not somebody just pointing a finger. And so I think you gain some points there, some respect points, right? Some partnership points from the store team when they see that, when they hear that, oh, you've been in this chair before. And then there are sometimes, Corey,

that those store leaders will try and BS you. Right. And you know when you're being BS in a store? And being a store manager, help me understand, say, that's not true. Right. And call that bluff. And that was always an interesting thing, too,

because if somebody didn't understand my background, they tried that stuff. And I said, look, I ran a store for two and a half years and I was a district operator for two and a half years. That's just not true what you're saying. But that only happens once. And then after that, we get down to business.

So those are some of the things. The lens you look through empathy, the knowing how hard it is to run a store and all the different things that can impact what runs the store. And then what a meaningful visit looks like. Like are they learning? And I used to tell my team,

we'll know we're successful when, if there's a store manager out front and they see you walking in, is it, oh, good, Tom's here today? We're going to learn some stuff? Or it's like, ah, crap, Tom's are today. You never want the, oh, crap. You always want

that, yes, we're going to learn something today. We're going to have a good visit. It's going to be meaningful. It's going to be worth my time. It's not going to be punishment or punitive. Well, this episode has been absolutely packed with lessons about leadership,

mentorship, personal growth, organizational growth. And that's one of the reasons I'm so incredibly excited to have you on the team and to be able to spend as much time with you as we do here. Tom, thank you for joining us today on the Crime Science Podcast. It's been great talking to you, and very good to have you on the team.

Thank you. Thank you, Corey. I have a great conversation. I appreciate you. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Lost Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at LP Research 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 Lost Prevention Research Council.