LPRC - SPECIAL RE-RELEASE: CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 123 Live @ IMPACT with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

2022 LPRC IMPACT was a great success! In this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss the IMPACT Conference and the great preparations taken, the record-setting conference attendance, and a look at the LPRC moving forward into 2023! Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more!

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. Welcome, everybody. Another episode of Crime Science, the podcast from the LPRC. Today, we're joining you from the LPRC Impact 2020 version. I'm joined by colleagues Tom Ian and Tony D'OFrio and our producer Diego Rodriguez and our photographer Justin Smith, who's taking candid photos of us right now.

But record turnout, Tony and Tom, I think we had close to 465, 470 actually register for impact this year. We probably lose typically about 10% all conferences do. We probably lost about 12%. So we're just over 400 participants here, maybe a little more than that. I think our record in the past was about 360, which. with about 370 or 80 registrants in 2019. So this is exciting.

You know, here we are coming off the pandemic. A lot of budget cuts. A lot of our key people, a lot dealing with horrific storms. One of our members as we speak right now is missing 48 associates or unaccounted for. They've lost 10 stores. So, you know, the storm was horrific thoughts and prayers for southwest Florida, South Florida, even up into central Florida and parts of northeast. and we were actually spared here in Gainesville for the first time in my memory of going through 16 hurricanes.

This year, very fortunate. The weather here is absolutely beautiful in Gainesville, Florida. We were 70 degrees last night, about 320, 30 people at the opening reception at the labs. And then we had on Sunday evening a really nice dinner, AT&T sponsored. We had just over 30 executives in there, brainstorming, thinking about high-speed connection. And then yesterday on Monday, the third, full of all kind of neat things. We had a golf outing. They had a record number of participants.

I don't know if the number was maybe 40-ish. Raised $5 or $6,000 for the Gainesville Police Department's bold program for very troubled young men that get mentored by African American law enforcement officers, by police officers. Fantastic program with good outcomes. and we also had the Board of Advisors Chair and Vice Chair planning meeting. We had the overall Board of Advisor meeting and then followed by the LPRC's Innovate Advisory Panel Meeting and then finally followed up by what we call Strategy at, in this case strategy at impact, where we had University of Florida, Warrington College of Business,

head of the Entrepreneur and Innovation Center, Jamie Kraft, who's just phenomenal, going through human-centered design thinking, but applying it to reducing aggression and violence and stores. The group divided up into teams and really need exercise, and then finally, again, followed by the reception at the labs last night. So far today, here we are over in the UF's Wrights Student Union, R-E-I-T-Z Wright Student Union. again over 400 participants here in the grand ballroom we had some intro stuff today was founders day we had four of the well really five of the founders of the LPRC in addition to me I was kind of there long for the ride but we had some great discussion from Bill Titus who had been office

max VP at that time as a founder and then later was VP of asset protection for Sears Kmart and their other entities came on a long-time cheer for us to take us from really about 20 members up to just about 100 overall members. King Rogers, who was the VP of Assets Protection for Target Corporation. He was really his idea, LPRC, not knowing what we would call it, but that we needed something for some research, not just relying on benchmarking and industry surveys or just doing stuff. He went through. They each talked about what they were up to. We had Gary Johnson, who at that time was VP of Laws Prevention for Barnes & Noble. Now he's at Guitar Center. And then we had Ed Wolf, who was VP of loss prevention at the time at the Home Depot. So it was really neat

getting to talk with and the crowd talking with and asking questions of these founders of the LPRC. In addition to Chad McIntosh, who's LPRC's COO, who was the senior director He claimed today that he carried the briefcase for Ed Wolf back in the day. But hearing from all that group talking about some of the history of the LPRC and showing the old logos that we used to have and the first impact, and we talked about the event we had last night where we had over 300, close to 330 participants, well, the first two impacts we met in my kitchen in my home. So it gives you an idea the growth of the LPRC going to six labs,

the safer places lab. six research scientists plus two research associates or assistants going from the traditional three of us. So it's amazing what's happened and where we're going. We touched on the strategy. We'll touch on later. What I want to do is we want to keep this a little short, not just listen to me, talk about impact, but let me kind of switch over. I'm going to head over to Tony. And Tony, maybe fill us in a little bit on your thoughts. So first of all, an amazing start to LPRC here. Really great to be here, really great to be with the group last night. A fun event outside under the tents and the weather was perfect, I would agree.

Love the T-shirts. I'm going to be showing that logo in a bunch of different places around the world. And a tremendous start, really tremendous start this morning with the founders. I'm a big fan of history because I do think history teaches us lessons of where we go next. So it's really good to listen to that. And I think you made a really good point, read what in the U.S., you actually made the comment to the founders that when I asked the question about the pandemic, that really the pandemic accelerated the trends that were already underway. And in some ways in the lost prevention space made them more negative. So from my point of view, we're in a different world right now.

We're in a world where crime is actually, yes, change accelerated by the pandemic. I mean, if you look at, for example, right aid and their results. that they just published for the financial results. They cited in the financial call that they lost $5 million to test just in New York from losses. And they're using that as a challenge in terms of the impacting their results. So LPRC is needed more than ever. I think the founders have a lot of great knowledge that we got to figure out how to continue the leverage. I actually went up and shook all their hands after and I appreciated reseeing them again.

we're in a good spot. I think LPRC is going to play a major role in terms of where all this goes next and it's really a pleasure, really a great pleasure to be here. Let me turn over to Tom. Yeah, thank you, Tony. Thank you, Reed. First, it's great to be together. If you hear the background noise, it's because we're live. We're actually in the grand ballroom and there's a session upstairs a solution session. And I think, you know, just to echo first, the weather's beautiful. It's good to be back together. I think we're all kind of in agreement that we've got a lot of folks in our thoughts and prayers with some of the events that occurred. Just to kind of a highlight and to continue to talk about with the accelerated digitization and kind of the, I would say, the new challenges

were faced both from a political standpoint and some crime standpoint. It leads me to go to just a little bit of news that we talked about before and probably not news, but it's very interesting to see So New Jersey and New York did a bail reform. And quite honestly, I am a little biased here, but New York was really a bail elimination. It wasn't really a reform. I think there is 18 pages that are being rewritten to help around that. New Jersey was probably more what you'd consider bail elimination.

But then we think about the violence in Chicago, and then leads me to, in July 1st of 2023, Illinoises will institute a very, very similar bearer-of-form, and I read it. It's extremely extensive. I would say that, in my opinion, it's probably right in the middle of New York and New Jersey. And I don't want to make anecdotal statements, but we know, based on the right aid, we know based on the fact that I've, in my career, you know, 25 years of it have been in the New York metro market, and I can tell you that when I go to New York City, it reminds me of growing up.

and what New York City was when I was a child, literally going back to that stigma. And if you're not from that area, like, I recall going to baseball games and driving across the George Washington Bridge, and if you didn't pay someone, they'd break your windshield wipers. Like, and that is kind of where we're back in that straw martin tactic. So while I certainly am not an expert on Illinois or Chicago, I kind of leads me to think that we will be talking about some of the things that will occur with that. And these are the challenges that we're faced with, and even more importantly, when we talk about the LPRC, what the value is. And interestingly enough, in the cybersecurity world, in the past three months, the FBI, Interpol, everybody is talking about the need for intercooperation with cybersecurity professionals and how there are segmented groups that communicate, but there really isn't one body with that research base that goes through.

So it's really interesting. the FBI just said that now more than ever, you know, the cooperation between corporations and researching what people are doing is really the only solve for some of the cybersecurity challenges. So that leads me to think, you know, we are 21 years ahead. And as the founders are speaking in pictures that went up, it was reminiscent that I was fortunate enough to my first impact conference was the first conference that had more than 100 people. So that's my whole experience and I remember it very very vividly and when I saw the picture you know that that the evolution and I've been very fortunate that since then been able to come every year and the evolution of

the room with more chairs than we've we've ever had more more tables and even with the hurricane and all of the events that are occurring throughout the world today we still have a packed house you know there is not a seat that's opened in the room and there are more multiple tables in the room. So very excited to be here. We're going to keep this short because we need to get back to the events. And I think Tony's got a couple of closing words. Yeah, let me add a few more things to this because I do think LPRC in some ways at the cutting edge. Interesting in the past week or so, Walmart announced two new Metaverse platforms that they're launching, Walmart Land and Walmart Universal Play. And they're going to focus on fashion, style, beauty,

and the virtual, and being the virtual toy destination for the holiday. So LPRC does have a cutting edge virtual reality, augmented reality center that's being stowed up. So it's a place to experiment for where retail goes forward. And then the other thing that I'll conclude on, we got to remember that actually we are coming out of the pandemic or we're not exactly going into aggressive growth going forward. We're actually going into a world that has changed.

and we're now thinking inflation and we're also thinking recession. So I do think in those kind of scenarios, crime goes up. As we just mentioned, the latest survey that again, LPRC participated in with the National Retail Federation had nearly $100 billion in losses. So crime is there and consumers are really, really worried about inflation. And actually one of the founders made the point is a lot of the theft taking places that are of need based on the recessionary and inflationary. issues that are out there. Consumers are going to continue to change and adapt as we go forward

to some of this. So we'll have to see where this all goes next, but it's, again, great to be live. And let me have Reid take us home and close us all for this time. Sure. And what I'd like to do is, you know, Chad is our McIntosh is our COO. And in really coming out of the pandemic, LPRC, like everybody else, went into the bunker. We spread out. But we spread out. But we, What we did was stood up FusionNet, and we did a few extra special projects and did things to support. But coming out of the pandemic, you know, we lost some people, too, that changed their career tracks and so on. So Chad came in and operationally came up with a plan after first assessing the, I wouldn't say damage, but the confusion in the state of the state at that time. And so he's done an amazing job.

Well, here we go. this is probably Chad's 16th impact conference just like mine but this is a conference where Chad led the charge having never planned an impact conference or probably anything of this size so but I just thought that we get some thoughts from you Chad we talked about the founders you being one of the founders of the LPRC some of the discussion there and if you want anything about the the conference here we are on day one thank you read I appreciate that so it's you know getting the founders together and the feedback that I'm getting from the audience is just gratifying, by the way.

I don't know that anybody really knew the story of the foundation and how we got to this point with LPRC, quite frankly. So it's an amazing ride, and you and people like Tom and Tony get a lot of credit for getting us to this point. Those were the original vision of this thought process that is amazing today. I don't know that when we were in that classroom 22 years ago, we thought it would be anything like this, by the way. So, you know, what's going on at LPRC, the research that's being done, the technology that is in the labs,

not being replicated any other place in the world. So if you haven't been to Gainesville and gone to the labs, get down here, it's an amazing experience, nothing like it in the world. From the conference standpoint, I learn valuable lessons in this process. first of all, how many things it takes to get this thing off the ground, how much time it takes, who you need to get involved. The support that we get in our world in loss prevention or asset protection is amazing.

You can call anybody in the industry and say, I need help with this or need something there. And you're going to get it, by the way. They're just going to step up. So in 2019, we had 386 attendees. We have 461 today. So just an amazing turnout, an amazing event. The research that everybody's going to experience over the next couple days, just outstanding. So if you're not here this year, we're going to do it again in 2023 and don't miss it.

You want to be here. It's amazing. Thank you. That's awesome. All right. Well, thanks so much, Chad McIntosh. I want to thank Tony Donofrio and Tom E. And our producer, Diego Rodriguez.

But mostly, I want to thank you all out there, you know, stay. in touch, stay in contact. Let us know you want to hear more of, less of, different of, whatever it is. LPRsearch.org is our website, operations at LPRsearch.org, our email address. But we're here. We're in Gainesville. We're here to serve you all with any type of theft, fraud, or violence, R&D that you're thinking about. So everybody, stay safe out there. 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 lprosearch.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 Loss Prevention Research Council.