LPRC - SPECIAL RE-RELEASE: Episode 30 – The History of IMPACT ft. Fred Becker (Bloomingdale’s) & Dave Magersupp (Verizon)

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

Happy New Year from the CrimeScience Podcast team! As we are 3 months away from our 2026 LPRC IMPACT we wanted to re-release this gem from the past. For this week’s episode, we have two special guests! Fred Becker (Bloomingdale’s) and Dave Magersupp (Verizon) discuss thehistory of LPRC IMPACT, what to expect at this year’s event, the significance of IMPACT on the industry, and more, with co-hosts Dr. Read Hayes (LPRC)and Tom Meehan (CONTROLTEK).  The post Episode 30 – The History of IMPACT ft. Fred Becker (Bloomingdale’s) & Dave Magersupp (Verizon) 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. Reed Hayes of the Lost Prevention Research Council and Tom Meen of Control Tech discuss a wide range of topics with industry experts, thought leaders, solution providers, and many more. On this episode, we have Fred Becker at Bloomingdale's and Dave Madrasup of Verizon Wireless discussing the history of LPRC impact, what to expect at this year's event, the significance of impact in the industry, and much more.

We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Use Bosch Camera's onboard intelligent video analytics to quickly locate important recorded incidents or events. Bosch's forensic search saves your time and money by searching through hours or days of video within minutes to find and collect video evidence. Learn more about intelligent video analytics from Bosch in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch Online at Boschsecurity.com. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of LPRC. and UF's crime science podcast.

I'm joined today, as always, by my very able co-host, Tom Ian, long-time practitioner and control tech executive. Today, we're honored to be joined by two long-time LPRC participants and planners and executors. One, I'd like to introduce Fred Becker. He is very executive at Blooming Bales and the Asset Protection Department. And then also we're joined by his cohort, Dave Magersup, as well, from Verizon. And I want to welcome both those gentlemen today because they both are key members

of the impact planning team. And their band gets back together every year. And we're going to talk a little bit about the history and tradition of the Impact Conference and its roots, and then a little bit about how the LPRC impact planning works and makes it all happen and continues to make it better and better every year, and then what's coming up and how in the world you might get involved in something like LPRC impact. So welcome Tom, and I want to see if we can welcome Fred and Dave today to plant science. All right, so what I'd like to do is let's kind of

peel over and talk a little bit about the history. And I think, unfortunately, I'll probably have to start with myself, because I have a little more of that experience than you guys do. But our earliest event was in 1995, Brainstorm 95. We ran one in 96 and 97, and Brainstorm was to a certain extent what you see today. But the real idea was to get LP, there were a couple of AP out there, but LP vice presidents or directors together, and they would each ask to bring their key subordinate with them.

And then we also invited solution partners to come in. The first time that the use of solution partner or was used to our extent, or the solution provider actually in that day, up until then, it was pretty much vendor. For anybody that fractured or sold or provided solutions to the LP AP practitioners, And myself and our tiny team thought, wait a minute, you know, I'm not sure that vendors is adequate and certainly not very descriptive and maybe even create some barriers for some. So let's go ahead with solution provider or partner. And I mean, we had an amazing attendance. There were a lot more retail there, but I think we were on the order of 80 chains.

Walt Disney World hosted at no charge, brainstorm 95-7, and then really the first. maybe four impacts we did that started in the early 2000s. So just a book rundown of brainstorm leading to impact conference. So what I thought I do is maybe go over to you Tom and I know we've got some questions we want to ask Fred and Dave Day about impact. Yeah, thanks Reed. Thanks Fred and Dave for joining. This is really out to either of you guys. So Dave if you want to take it first and then Fred, give a little bit of history of your involvement with the LPRC and impact. And because there's two guests, I mean, Dave, if you want to start and then Fred answer, after that'd be great.

Sure. So good afternoon, everybody. So I believe this is my fifth or sixth impact I've been to over the years. I started out as a regional loss prevention manager with Verizon and before that Circuit City and had my first interaction with impact through circuit. Not heavily involved out of the gate initially, but had the opportunity to become more involved over time and really saw extreme value in the partnership that impact develops between retailers and solutions providers and the academic world, the research scientists that are looking at our industry and helping us make better and more effective

and was really intrigued by that. And as I moved over to Verizon and became part of the team here, I wanted to take on a much larger role within that space. And that was the opportunity that landed for me and becoming part of the planning committee for the Impact Conference. Great, thanks, Dave. How about you, Fred, to give the listeners a little bit of your involvement and where it started for the LPRC and impact? Sure. I'd say I've been, it's probably been about 12 years or so that I've been involved with the LPRC. So, in a role, previous role, where we were doing a lot of mix from a shortage perspective.

We were doing a lot of surveys and analysis on technology. And then we kind of learned a little bit more about the LPRC and how we could leverage the LPRC as well as work with other retailers to come up with bigger solutions. I mean, pooling resources and adding more data to try and utilize our service providers to come up with the best solutions just made sense so as we had more and more involved we started to get more folks from our organization at the time involved learned a lot from the LPRC and just start participating and realize the value

that it brings to the organizations that are involved so right right from the beginning you know we bought in and we saw the value so we started with initial I started with initial learnings, then how to leverage what we're doing with projects that were in tandem with the OPRC. And then as time evolved, being more and more part of impact planning committee and all the different working groups. Great. Thank you. And again, because there's two guests. Normally we have one guess. The format's a little bit different today. but I think most of my questions are really relevant to both of you and probably because you have similar but different backgrounds, it would make sense if you both answered. One of the questions that I often get asked, and I think is a big question that comes up is, how does impact differ from other industry conferences out there?

Fred or Dave, whoever wants to take that just first, I would think the listeners would really love to hear. We have a lot of listeners that are new members or not even members yet, and often the questioning comes up of, well, what's different? I'm already participating in all these other conferences. So this is Dave. I guess I can go first, Fred, if you don't mind, but coming off a conference that I actually put on up here in Atlanta and being part of the Impact Conference, I feel the two are very similar in the fact that they both provide a true learning experience when you when you come there and experience the event itself I've been to many other events around the country and won't name them by name but in a lot of ways they feel very

fluffy and very if you will a dog and pony show and that to me is not what I'm looking to spend my money on when I want to invest in an event for my team and I truly love the way when we come to impact. We walk away with actionable data, actionable steps to take within our own organizations. We learn from other organizations that are their best practices that they are using and have had success with. And the solutions providers typically bring the best of the best to this show and allow us access to the latest and greatest technology out there that we we can all leverage and take advantage of. So it's always a win-win. We never walk away, feeling like we spent money that shouldn't have been spent. And it's a fun experience and a great

learning experience. Yeah, I think I'll echo that. You know, every, you know, there's value in different conferences that are out there, certainly. I don't know that, you know, every conferences for everyone now and I think that's the one of the values of the impact conference is that there's something for everyone and it's it's a totally different approach because we're not someone relating experiences which is what you find in some of the conferences out there and there's nothing wrong with that right there's some great conferences out there but I think when you take this science of

When you look at it from a perspective of multiple retailers, partnering with solution providers in tackling problems, working on all the working groups, working through the projects and trying to find solutions. And then impact is, you know, a big portion of impact is the culmination of all that work throughout the year and learning from that. And you're hearing from a solution,

a solution provider side by side with a retailer or you're learning about something new to the industry it's you know we take it from a science perspective data I think it provides a lot more learning than you would get elsewhere so I think that's one of the reasons why it is the fastest growing conference in the industry and every year year and year out it just gets bigger and better And I think this question leads into that kind of, so Fred, I think you had mentioned you'd been involved for several years, more than 10. How does, how is the LPRC or more importantly impact? How has it changed over the years? What's different in the last few years from when it started?

And, you know, I don't know when your first impact was, but what do you think of the evolution and what's the message that you'd send to the listener? Sure. Well, you know, my personally, you know, I started learning more. about the LPRC and then participating, and then was a co-leader on the video analytics working group. And then started participating in the Impact Planning Conference. So I certainly have lots of opinions on how it's evolved over the years, and it's all been very positive.

So I'd say about 10 years ago, you know it was it was it was a much smaller group which has what was a much bigger group than five years before that and I think just watching the evolution over time you know going from the the OPRC working on 20 projects a year to 80 projects a year over the years and then going from I think my first conference was about 70 or so attendees to 400 so year and year out it's just getting bigger and better every year with more participation from retailers and service providers more everybody working on additional projects more funding and then thereby at

impact there's a lot more to learn so you know you get out of the OPRC what you put into it and with everybody putting in so much effort, I think as an industry, we're getting a ton out of it. So again, it's just that growth year and year out. Every year I go and I learn something. And I have the advantage of hoping from an impact planning perspective, but I look forward to the most every year is impact because of the things to learn. And the other piece of that is there's something for everyone.

Whether you're the pyramid head or you're a district person or a corporate person in an organization, there's something there to. You know, let me have Pete ask you guys a little bit about how you put the content out. We know it's all about the experience, but mostly about the takes here to our members, the LPA community, get better. better and better at what they do, but do that with via evidence-based practice. So our research, we call it SDP, again, science practice is put out. You know, maybe if I could ask you putting that content, what does make a difference there and how's it different than some of the traditional models that we do like, do enjoy and do get a lot out of, but it's how's it different at impact.

Sure, I'll go first. Well, I think we set very clear forms around all the different content that go into it. And like I mentioned before, there's got to be something for everyone, right? So it can't be, you know, everyone should go and learn something. There's got to be takeaways. The worst thing you do is go to a conference and you really didn't grow. you didn't walk away with more knowledge so that's it that's a piece of something for everyone the others are it has to be relevant right so it's got to be

relevant to the topics of today right so you know you always you know today the agenda reflects some of the big things that are happened today between a cybers there's cyber security there's active shooter there's violence violent there's all these things that everyone talks about and you know from the content perspective we try to weave those into to the agenda and then you know we're there to talk about the progress of the project so what are we working on as a group or the working groups what are they working on and what are the findings and then it's got to be you know tailored to the audience from a retail perspective so you know we have solution providers

and we have retailers, you know, it's, you have to walk away with something that you can place in your day-to-day professional. I totally agree with Fred. I think I've found my experience with impact has been, the whole relevancy piece has been so much more unique, if you will, than it has been at other conferences I've been to. I think we are definitely keeping a good pulse on the heartbeat of what's going on in the loss prevention industry and what we can do to help address security and safety for our employees and our customers much more so than many others have. I also think the difference is the way we take projects that have been, you know, basically in development

throughout the year, and we report out on those through the learning labs that are done at the conference, and I have the privilege of being on one of those learning lab presentations this year, and it's been fun watching the project developed throughout the year and now be able to report out to our peers in the industry on what we've done and how it might be able to positively impact their own world through the work that we've done with you guys at the LPRC and the folks here at Verizon throughout the year. So much different way of delivery than I've seen at most other conferences. Sounds good.

I appreciate that, Dave. And as you can see with science and practice, we're trying to put it out as new and interesting ways, more engaging ways, because at the end of the day, the participants have to go back and really put the pieces to work to make a difference with theft, fraud, and violence. You know, Tom, let me go to you. Let me turn on you for a second because you've been to impacts. You've been involved in impacts as a practitioner, now as a solution partner. You know, what have you noticed at impact, impact, what's different, what's useful, you know, how do you get your content there?

And how do you engage now with your practitioners, your partners trying to fight theft, fraud, and violence? Yeah, so it's definitely different, I think, from those social providers. and the aspect that obviously when you're going there, you're looking to really develop solutions and gather. But I would say that impact in general is about collaboration and education. And one of the things that I think where it really differs from the concert, a traditional conference is that everybody is bought in and everybody is participating to help solve problems.

So it's much more of a learning environment and a collaborative learning around, regardless of whether you're a solution provider or someone of law enforcement, someone from academia, or a retailer, the idea is just getting people together to solve some common problems that aren't easily solved. So that's kind of my first piece of it. And then taking the science to practice approach and really either from a retail or a solution provider side, and I can really wear both hats. You know, when you think of the learning labs, if you're a retailer, you're going in and you're hearing what's, you know, best demonstrated practices that are working and their science-backed in environments that are similar to yours. And if you're in a solution provider, you're getting

a sneak peek into some of the challenges and problems and listening to it in a much different format to help develop better solutions. And I often say that the learning labs are one of the things that makes it different. It is not a typical breakout session. And even the posters when you walk the floor are about things, you know, actually science-backed research projects for things that occurred. It isn't what I think is a great way to solve a problem. It's not what Dave or Fred thinks. It's what all of us think together and we actually tested that, whether it be in a lab store or a lot of times in a full rollout. So I can say that obviously I'm biased and it's my favorite conference for a whole bunch of different reasons. But even

through the years, I think when everybody that goes, as long as you put something into it, you leave learning something. You leave learning something. And you also generally are going to leave having a new contact or a new point of view. And it's just a resource. I mean, I often, even as a solution writer, when I leave impact, I have a whole different viewpoint of what's going on in the industry or even some of the common plague problems with O.R. What are people trying, you know, or robbery things? What are people trying? What is working?

What's not working? And it really helps. That's good stuff. And I really appreciate that, Tom. And, you know, it really is designed, going back to, I know Fred was touching on this, that the integration of all the parties that need to be there are there. And they're working together throughout the year and the working groups at LPRC. And then getting together at some of the summits. And then finally, at the end of the year, getting together for impact.

And, you know, we grew from 50 a year to 100 a year to 200 and so on. We'll be over 400 this year, presumably, executives getting together. But working elbow to elbow, I remember LPRC being founded at 2000, and it wasn't really until about 2004 or 5 when the VPs of Laws Pension and Asset Protection did on the board advisors to, wait a minute, let's bring solutions, excuse me, partners in as full-time members, full-on members, Let's work elbow to elbow with them. It's not a selling environment.

It's a relationship and problem-solving environment and community. And that's really what impact is. Impact isn't a conference. It's a place to solve problems and to look over all the research evidence that's going on to date. We're working on over 60 projects. Now we'll probably showcase at least 2530 projects, the results, the implications, how do you use them in your different environments? And, you know, I mean, clearly, Rite Aid, Walgreens, CBS environments are different than Blooming's, Nordstrom, and Macy's, which are obviously totally different than advanced auto parts of ozone and on and on.

So that's what we're trying to do. Let me go back over to Fred. You're the leader. You're the leader of the LPCMPAC planning team. You've been that for a while. What's the team do? What do you all trying to do and how do you do that? Sure. So the planning team comprises, just like you would see at impact, as you have the LPRC team,

have some solution providers, and then retailers. So what it is, is everyone just throwing their experiences and what we think is important for our industries into a pot. Let's figure out what's important, right? So the impact planning committee perspective, we're focused on what the content is, that's a big part of it, right? What projects are we going to present? What's going to benefit the most folks? What is the most interesting? What's relevant to today, as we discussed before? So that content piece is really important. And we have full participation from the So the OPRC team is putting everything together and they're doing the interviews and crunching the data, working on the presentations. But we're also the retailers involved from a presentation perspective and the solution providers.

And then in fact, planning committee, we want to make sure it gets the audience the right way. So, you know, it's not a, it's objective, there's learning, it's interesting, it's fun, it's interactive. So one of the parts I didn't mention before is that, you know, we want to make sure it's interactive. It's not just somebody up on a stage talking to you. There are sessions like that, right? So we have some great speakers. But a lot of the learning labs and other sessions are interactive learnings and discussions. Like you said, how do we fix this?

And then there's the logistical and operational pieces of the conference. So, you know, how do we make it fun and how do we move people through and have to through and have the best experiences. How do we do something different? So every year, if we want to change, it can't be the same thing every year. Otherwise, it would get stale. So the content's got to be updated.

It's got to be fresh. We've got to have some different ideas. Maybe have some customer panels or some offender panels or we talk about something we haven't in the past, that could be technology. So every year, we try to keep it different. So the impact planning committee really goes through all those pieces.

and organize it and, you know, we break up into subcommittees and focus on, you know, what are the events going to be and how do we execute those, the logistics as an operational pieces, the content, etc. So it's a pretty complex perspective, but, you know, there's a really good team there putting it all together. That's excellent. And Dave, let me, if I could go over to you, I mean, some behind the scenes, what are you all doing on the impact planning team? What are the process you use. I know obviously a regular conference calls, WebExes, business, and things like that. What are you all doing? How do you do it? What's the result? Yeah, so pretty intense interactions between the group of us

that are on the planning committee. We meet every other week for an hour to just to talk about updates, what we've got going on on the content, the sponsorship committee, which I'm a part of the overall logistics and planning of the event itself between the LPRC team and us retailers and solutions partners out there in the field. We've come up with a good game plan on what we believe the audience or the participant is going to want to hear from the event. And taking our theme, science to practice, and really trying to capitalize on that. make sure that the theme runs throughout the event and that the takeaways that we gain from the event are ones that these organizations can take back to the folks in the field that weren't able

to attend and put those into practice. So it's a lot of effort, like Fred said, there's a lot, a ton of logistics that go into making these things happen. And it's a pretty talented team that I'm very honored to be a part of that does this every other week. And as we get closer to it, we'll be getting together face-to-face and meeting in Gainesville to come up with our game plan on the day of and day before type of logistics and things like that. So a lot of work, but a lot of fun work, and really enjoy it. Thanks.

I want to thank you all and, you know, how you are as a planning team. It's amazing. I know you all get better and better and better each year and have a blast while you're doing it. It's a pretty nice, tight team. It has a good time as well as being highly productive. And we all know that when we're discussing theft, fun, and violence we've got to get right. We're going to use rigorous research. We're going to collaborate with all parties.

we're going to vet things, we're going to do it right. Tom, you touched on the testing and how critical that can be. Real world environments as well as now some of the really cool simulations. And I want to give everybody out there a heads up, what's coming up. We start on that Monday, September 30th this year. You're going to see the impact planning team by and large have come in on Sunday. We mobilize all kind of student groups. We've got faculty coming over.

The LPRC team, the interns that we've got will be Moving and grooving throughout that week, you'll see Monday throughout the day. We'll have events going on. The LP Foundation is having a learning day on that Monday, October 1st. I'm sorry, the 30th of September. We're going to have a golf outing that we have every year at Ironwood Country Club. Also on the September that Monday, the Board of Advisors for the LPRC will be having break out in meetings throughout that time period. We have a VIP strategy at

reception for number ones that will be taking place. We're going to do some exclusive tours of the brand new LPRC Innovate, next retail center, the ideation space, the mixed-reality space, installation space, and so on. We go to the main reception over at the main research lab. We'll see probably 250 to 350 executives having a blast with all kind of good music drinks inside the new lab and outside. So it's a good time. We go all day Tuesday, a ton of content with the learning lab breakouts. We have post-per sessions with all kinds of research projects.

Stage, we've got neat things on cyber. We've got neat things active assailant. We've got those things happening that evening, we've got the ever popular cool event, social then up in the swamp with the best barbecue live southern rock music and good times are had by all and on Wednesday culminating with offender interviews we've also got shopper interviews around fear of crime understand better how we get and keep good customers even at nighttime parking lot and inside but anyway it should be an amazing amazing at 2019 LPRC in fact we love to get everybody involved

Fred mentioned a little while ago, whether you're the vice president or senior director or director or senior manager or manager and so on. District AP Regional, we've got something for you and the different learning lab breakouts, the posters and stage and all the tours and things going on around campus. So I want to, on behalf of UF, on behalf of the LPRC, producer Kevin Tran, I want to thank you, Tom Ian. I've always done a super job of co-hosting and planning with us on crime science. And then, of course, I want to thank you, Fred Becker and Dave Magersup for all your insights and all you do. And thank you listeners out there for crime science. Have a good week. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science podcast presented by the Lost Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security.

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