EP 022 James Cameron - The Executive Protection Standard Didn't Exist So We Said 'Challenge Accepted'

Bio:

James Cameron is a Board Certified Protection Professional, and has over 15 years’ international security experience. James is a U.S. Army combat veteran and contracted with US government agencies providing diplomatic security around the globe.  James is the owner of Security Concepts Group (www.scg-lv.com) which provides security services internationally.  James’s focus has been providing high level Executive Protection which led him in 2021 to start The Board of Executive Protection Professionals (www.ep-board.org).  Currently he manages 180 volunteers who are presently creating the first proposed American National Standards Institute (ANSI) “Standard for Providing Executive Protection”.

Linked In Profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcameroncpp/

Mission Statement 

Our mission is to elevate the training, quality, and professionalism of the Executive Protection industry. 

Vision Statement 

Establish and maintain the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) recognized st

Security Circle ⭕️  is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

Yoyo 0:15

hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast if poe is the International Foundation for Protection Officers. And we want to thank all of our listeners around the world. Thank you for listening. We are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel, and make a positive difference to our members' mental health and wellbeing with me today. Is a very special man. His name is James Cameron. He is an A S I S International Board Certified Protection Professional C P P, for those of you that don't know, and he has over 15 years international experience in both the security industry and the corporate sector as well. He was a member of the A S I S Executive Protection Council and has operated Security Concepts group since 2009. James is a combat veteran having earned a bronze staff for his actions during combat operations as a sniper in Iraq. James has also earned his bachelor's degree in Business Information Systems. He's worked with the US State Department as a member of the diplomatic security Services, and there he served in multiple positions, including security detail leader for the US Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan. He ultimately finished as an instructor and subject matter expert for the high threat dignitary protection division of the uS Department of State Diplomatic Security Services. He is now president, c e o of Security Concepts Group in Las Vegas, Nevada. His business delivers active shooter workplace violence training. They've developed the first of its kind training and e-learning for active shooter, workplace violence and instant preparedness programs. This unique program helps individuals and organizations prepare for, respond to and recover from an event.. He's also, and he didn't tell me about this in the pre-chat, he was the security director or still is for Dancing with the Stars. Their security director for the past four tours in the last three years. We have something quite similar here. These tours have consisted of over 400 shows, 316 venues, and over a hundred hotels, and he manages all the security needs for all the 12 celebrity dancers during a 56 City tour. So welcome James Cameron to the Security Circle podcast. How you doing? Wow. Quite, quite a bit there. Quite a bit. You didn't tell me that. We obviously have our equivalent of strictly dancing is what we call it here in the uk. In fact, what started over there. Yeah. It's owned by bbc. That's right. All the best stuff obviously comes from the uk. So James, what a wonderful security career you had. And by looking at you, you've still young, you've still got long way to go. Hope so. if you've survived what you have survived already,, the odds are good. But tell me, when you were a kid, a little boy, what did you wanna be when you grew up? I think I always knew, even as a young teenager, 13, 14, I knew I was gonna join the military. And I'm old enough to remember back in the day when there was no internet, there was no cell phones. If you wanted to talk on the phone, it was, there was a cord and it was in the kitchen, but I always knew that I knew I wanted to join the military. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what there was to do. Again, no internet, no real research. I mean, the research consisted of going to the recruiter station and we all know how honest those people are. So, yeah I knew I was gonna join the military and after that, I had no idea. What year did you join the military then, James? 92. 1992 I was about two weeks out of high school. Went straight into basic training and I went to the military with a friend of mine and he was a lot smarter than I was. And he had an airborne contract or, for the British, the Paris. I was like, well, if he's got an airborne contract, I want an airborne contract too. I wanna jump from planes. And so I had that. And that led me to my, from my first duty station of 75th Ranger Regiment out of Fort Bend, Georgia. And was part of the Rangers for a little while. And then lived in Italy, got stationed over in Italy. And after that I got out I did about six years. Got out of the service went to college. That brought me to right around 2001 and nine 11 happened. And I was working in the private, or I was working for an organization, watched it on TV happen and started reaching out to units, military units, saying how, could I come back in? And away I did. I came back in, went over to, and spent some time in Iraq. And that's kind of, that divergence is what led me into my security career. Cause I was military, went private sector and then military again. And then I had a decision to make, right. Do I go back into working in the corporate setting or do I change and totally shift gears and go security. And at the time when I came back from Iraq, I had a lot of friends that were working as contractors for state department and they were calling me up, emailing me, saying, Hey, we need special skills over here. We need you. Why don't you apply? Why don't you apply? And one day I did and that changed everything. Yeah. And I'm hearing a very similar story. I mean, most people who know me know that I joined the police after nine 11. And I think it inspired a lot of people to do service for their country in lots of different ways. But also I read recently, and obviously we've had the remake of Top Gun that came out, but it's widely known now that during the first movie that they used to put military recruitment officers in the lobbies of cinemas to sign up young men, into the Army because they came out from watching the movie and were like, I want some of that. Right. I mean, it's good marketing, right? I know. I wondered if it happened the second time around. But look, it's not often that I talk to snipers, train snipers on the Security Circle podcast. Sure. As it takes a certain type of person to do that, doesn't it? Because there's a certain type of skillset. Tell me about what it is about you that made you a good sniper. First, I always like to set the stage cuz I know there's a lot of military types out there. I was like, oh yeah, he was a sniper shirt. No, I was school trained. Went to Fort Benning. Did my four weeks, got my my Bravo four in the army, we call it a Bravo floor identifier. This wasn't my only deployment as a sniper, but it was probably the longest. But yeah, I mean, it takes a bit of dedication and understanding of what the job is. The reality is that as a sniper, it's 95% of it is reconnaissance and making sure that the, guys and gals on the ground are safe. So we did a lot of Overwatch of military operations. We did a lot of i e d interdiction, looking for those bad guys that are placing IEDs. So when you go into it with that mentality of. We're doing something alone cuz there was only two or three of us at the most in our team. We're out there doing something that is going to potentially save others from being injured or worse. So you go into with that mentality, it makes the job easier. And it was just something that you know, me and my team, we were good at, we were good at our job. And if you're good at it that was one of the reasons why I came back in is I knew I had a special skillset, I had special training. And at the time, I think even now snipers are underfunded and there's not enough of us. And we are even in a, a term that the security uses is we're force multipliers. A two man team can really disrupt an entire area of bad guys more so than a platoon or a company can regular military. So, keeping that mindset of, hey, you're a force multiplier and what you're doing is for the greater good. That's, that's That's what you do the job for. That kind of top cover is incredibly valuable, isn't it, to boots on the ground and you are not just watching what's going on the ground, you are watching the environment, aren't you? You are watching, you have to have this amazing discipline to, to look for, especially in built up areas where there's lots of buildings and windows and things like that. Can you take me through a situation that is particularly memorable for you? Well, I mean, I,, we have a lot of them. But I, I will, when you talk about providing top cover I had returned to Fort Benning for some additional training years, around 2005. And I was stopped at the store at the, in the Army, we call him pxs post exchanges. And I was stopped in there and this guy comes up and I don't, I didn't recognize him, I still don't know what his name was, but he comes up to me and say, Hey, you're Sergeant Cameron, aren't you? And I was like, yeah. How can I help you? And he's like, yeah my name is and I was one of the guys on the ground that we were conducting raids and we knew you guys were on the rooftop. And I'll tell you, we always felt so much more comfortable going into a location knowing that you guys were out there. And so, years later, that's when it comes back to you go, oh, well, cuz you don't get that on the ground from people, you just, you're just doing your job and you're not looking to for that pat on the back or praise or anything. But when you get it, you're like, oh, well, okay. So there was an impact. So, and he knew your face. Why? Yeah. I mean, he, I mean, I was in civilian clothes, I wasn't in my uniform and so he knew my face. And that's how incredibly important it was for that individual yeah. Of the job that we were doing. And again, we just do our job. And it's great to know that you do have impact. Even if it's a minimal impact. So I'm English as you can tell and I won't have an understanding of what the Bronze Star is what you have to do to obtain one of those. So help educate me and anyone who doesn't know what a Bronze Star is and why it's awarded. Well, there's two different variations. The Bronze Star or the Bronze Star. And a Bronze Star with valor. I have it's kind of unfortunate cuz like anything nowadays I think the award has been diminished greatly. When you see a World War II vet that has a Bronze star, you're like, oh. Wow. Or Vietnam vet with a bronze star. You're like, oh, wow. I was a low ranking E five sergeant when I got mine. I didn't get mine for and we saw this a lot in Iraq, a lot of admin officers were getting bronze stars for, Hey, great job. And that's not really what it's meant for. It's meant for, you went, above and beyond in a, in difficult situations to help others or whatever the case may be. And that was that. That's how I got mine. We were for one free deployment, I set up sniper teams. So I sent guys to sniper school had them prepared. So that was the train up. But when we were on the ground, really took taking the lead and leading other teams out on the ground to the point where we'd actually not, if you listen to news, it doesn't happen. But in 2004, we found a terrorist training camp that was in Iraq. And, we went out there multiple times for. Various reconnaissance and even made contact at one time if you can imagine a terrorist training camp. And there was three of us on the ground and we got engaged and that entire training camp was looking for us. So, moving quickly is isn't a good enough way to put how we moved out, but You did what they, we say here in the uk you poked the bear. Yes, very much so. And it wasn't intentional. It was we got really close to the site to the point where we could look through the walls to see inside and how many people there were. And an outside farmer had seen us and was about to take a shot at us. So we. Did what we had to do, but in doing so, we compromised the entire position. Let's just say we had trucks full of people looking for us with hostile intent. You neutralized the risk, is the way to put it. Yes. Everybody that I've spoken to and it's easy think being in the security industry, a lot of my colleagues have migrated into security from the military in some form. And a lot of people don't like talking about Iraq. And there's no doubt about it. And whatever level of person I've spoken to, whether it's somebody very senior in the military or somebody that was just boots on the ground doing a, good army career, it's not a pleasant environment at all. It was hostile, wasn't it? It was not really good for any type of normal living standards. There, were lots of adjustments that you had to make, weren't there? Yeah, I was just to say the least. I mean, the one is, we got in late oh three, early oh four, and I would say the biggest adjustment was the lack of food supply trucks kept getting blown up. So we, you have to ration things out and our operational tempo was very high. My team specifically, we worked dusted dawn almost every night. We didn't have enough people in our position to rotate out where, hey, take the night off. It was operations had to be going. And then when you throw in the fact that you're working dust to dawn, that means you're sleeping during the day in a tent that's 150 degrees cuz there's no air conditioning. Oh, and by the way, your rations have been reduced. But hey, keep going. I guess even conversation runs out after a while you stop talking about things that really, cause you've been with each other so long. Yeah. It's like, yeah I remember that story. Yeah. I got it. But there, there was other things that pass the time. You go down to the little market and you get the the burn copies of Sopranos and you throw that in the old laptop and you're watching, Sopranos or, whatever the TV show of the time was. Yeah. But, but it comes with the job. You understand what you signed up for and you just do the job. So after leaving the military, and that must have been a really nice break, to be honest. You then went to work with the US State Department. Now tell us for anyone who doesn't know what the US State Department is and what your role, and that must have been super exciting to, go and join such an organization. Yeah, so I, one thing I wanna be clear is I contracted with the State Department, so I worked for, very proud of it. I worked for Blackwater starting in the beginning of oh six. And I think I left there maybe 11, 2010, 2011, somewhere around there. So contracting with the State Department for the WPPs program, which is the Worldwide Personal Protection Services that State Department is the. The wing of the government that does all the diplomatic talking, right? They try to find diplomatic solutions. So the military doesn't have to find those solutions in a sense. When it came to Iraq, it was about rebuilding the country and developing those new diplomatic relationships, having very high level meetings. And what my job was as part of a larger element in, in, in Blackwater, was to provide security for all those diplomats. From the ambassador to the chief ambassador or chief of Mission, down to the Deputy Amba deputy Chief Mission, and any congressional delegates that come out there, other state Department individuals that are trying to rebuild schools. So they're dealing with the the ministry of Education over there, or people that are trying to deal with the petroleum they're dealing with Ministry of Oil. We provided all the protection and transportation for all those individuals to go do that business and try to get the country stood back up. one of the biggest criticisms I hear is that, people say, oh, why have we got so much military insecurity when really knowing how to hide yourself in a hedge near night and live out of a tin isn't necessarily gonna make you good in the security industry, but you make a very compelling story for just exactly how those skills are incredibly transferrable. You are on rations, you're working long hours, you are demonstrating that, a number of your colleagues had great resilience, personal resilience and mental strength and you, and this isn't about giving up and saying, oh, I've had enough. I need to go and chill out and have a sleep. This is about doing above and beyond on a regular basis. And how did your skills in the military serve you? Well, here in this role working for the worldwide Personal Protection Services, Well, I think it's about discipline. When you got, when we, when you get over to that area or that line of work you're dealing with seasoned professionals. It wasn't an entry level position. So there was jobs to be done and you had to be trusted that the job would get done. With or without instruction or leadership. Now we, of course, we had leadership there, but anybody that's been in a combat zone knows that things can fall apart quickly. And if things fall apart quickly, you need to have individuals that aren't looking for guidance, rather, that are able to take charge and, solve those problems, those immediate problems that are facing you right then, right now. So, that was a big difference. It was different than the military. Military obviously has a very structured chain of commands. you could be a regular rifleman, a team leader, a squad leader, platoon leader. Company commander you're answering to somebody in some form. Not that we didn't answer, but everybody on the teams were all senior level either in the police or in senior level positions for the military. You didn't have to tell me how to do something you just said, something needed to be done, Hey, I need you to go do this. Alright, fine. I know what needs to get done. I know how to get it done. It doesn't need to be broken down to me. as a new police officer, you all, everybody goes through a post training or some sort of training, but you ha you have those, it's like anything else. What you learned in the schoolhouse doesn't apply in the real world and you have to relearn that. Right? There was a bit of learning curve, of course going back overseas, but the discipline was already there. it was already instilled in all of us that tasks need to be done and we need to get it done. I remember getting to my first police station, having left police training college, and my sergeant literally said, and it was pretty tough, police training, you have to do lots of law, lots of practical roleplaying, they throw situations at you see how you co you're getting assessed all the time. you're assessed on your attitude, on, on your values and lots of law and writing statements, all of those really critical things. Even radio etiquette. And you finally get to the police station you're gonna be working at, and your sergeant says to you right now, just forget everything that you've been taught. And it's like the most soul destroying thing. Like I've what months to get this? Like, so forget everything. We operate with a different rule book here. And it's like, oh, okay. When we see movies and TV and read books around executive protection, bodyguarding, for example, we'll just use that term for now. And I appreciate this a lot more than that. There's always a huge amount of personal responsibility isn't there on the individual. The protectee the protector can quite often become almost over-committed to that person's safety. Is it really like that or do they just do that with Kevin Costner in the Bodyguard to just make it more compelling that he's really invested in her staying alive or is it a lot more professional than that? I would tend to like to think that it's a lot more professional that you have those one-offs where you're gonna see, an actress or an actor, run off with their quote unquote bodyguard., the reality is you have to walk that fine line. As a professional. You can't be cold to your client as in, my arms are crossed, I got sunglasses on, and I got my earpiece in, and I'm just security. You can't do that. you need to be able to find that happy medium where you can have those casual conversations with them or not. Right? And every client is different. Everybody's got a different personality. Some people want to talk to you because in their role, everybody is wanting something from them or trying to achieve something from them. Whereas if you're their security, You're doing the job, you're not trying to get anything out of them. So sometimes there's a relaxed environment that those clients, I'll speak for myself, where I've had clients that can kind of let their guard down and just kind of talk to you on a normal basis. They're not asking for your feedback, but you're, it's a good opportunity for you to sit there and nod and shake your head and Yes. And, and listen to their stories or listen to what they want to talk about without, really interjecting your own opinions, just listening. So there's, you do get clients like that. You get clients that you can talk about shared interests. I've had clients I like to do deep sea fishing, and there's been clients that I, I can connect with on that. Again, not crossing any bounds, it's just Oh, you like to fish. Oh, I do too. I go here. Oh yeah, we do. Now you've got that connection. But then you know when to step away from that and be like, okay, we've talked for five minutes, and remove yourself in a professional manner. It's the people that think that those conversations are turning into a friendship that's the problem, because you have to know you're not their peer. you're not one of them. You're doing a job and, sometimes that job requires you to be personal with them. And sometimes even somebody you could be personal with, you still need to know when this is not the appropriate time. your team, and I think even yourself, we talked about this in the pre-chat. you've been asked some pretty strange requests, haven't you Take us through. I mean, only because it's incredibly funny. Yeah. So, I mean, there, there's plenty of schools of thought of how to do the job and things like that. I still to this day, probably one of the most worrisome position that I was ever put into. I was, I had a client and he was having a dinner party and I was asked to cook, I think it was about 17 Wagyu steaks that he had flown in$500 a steak. And he's like, Hey James you can cook these for me, right? For the party. And I'm like I'm sorry, what? And he is like, yeah, there's a barbecue outside. And now this client had a chef just wasn't there at the residence at the time. There was other people cooking other things, parts of the meal, but he just came up to me and said, Hey, would you can cook this for us. And petrified I was petrified cuz it was a normal outdoor barbecue. I was on the phone with his Michelin star chef and he's trying to gimme instructions on how to cook the steak and. And I'm trying to explain, I'm not on a executive grill. I'm on an out store barbecue, and you want me to do what? So it was petrifying. I did not take anybody's order. Everybody got medium rare, so I don't know if they ate the steak, so apparently they were good. But yeah, so that, and again, it's, those are the touches that you can't teach that. Right. And you can't have the attitude of, well, that's not my job. I'm not gonna do that. I'm security. Well, yeah, your client asks you to do something as long as it's not illegal then, you try to accommodate as best as your ability. I could have told him no. I don't know what he would've done at that point, but, instead I slapped on the apron and I was out there grilling some steaks and thank everybody got fed. Is, that's what I can say, but I think, look, it's about relationships, isn't it? And one of the common themes that I think really works in security is relationships. And clearly you've demonstrated there that even though the relationships can be very different, there still needs to be a relationship there for it to work. You must have faced some very difficult situations along the lines of, planning, where you've thought okay, this is gonna require a little out the box thinking, this isn't so straightforward. We need to review how we approach this. I would say almost every client requires that in some form or fashion cuz our job in security is to make things happen as difficult as last minute. As they can be. It's our job to make it happen. Even, sometimes it may seem impossible and that's actually a detriment to us because then the clients, they make up crazier requests, well, you got this done, so now I can really request something. So I mean, it really depends on e every client has different I don't know, different things like that. we took a client from, I, I'm here in Las Vegas, but there was a client that was here in Vegas. And again, understanding that these are different people than us, and I say us, I mean, like me, like I, there's no way I could do this. But they stayed here for. They were in Vegas for 30 days, so we're already a long detail cuz it was 30 days, seven days a week, 16 hours a day nonstop. And she said, well, I want to go shopping. And I was like, well, we've been shopping everywhere up and down the Vegas strip. She's like, no let's go to Milan. Okay. All right. So we flew to Milan and took the detail with us and everything that came along with it. And then while we were in Milan, she's like, and she knew I lived in Italy for a little while. She's like, well, how nice is Venice? how difficult would it be to get the Venice from here? And they're like, okay, well just lay, layer that on. And she didn't wanna fly to Venice. She wanted to take the train to Venice. So now, you're trying to plan a bunch of, multiple moves with. Hotels that you haven't been able to check out you, you're doing all this stuff by phone as much as you can. So clients will continue to throw stuff at you. So I think those are challenges that are always present because these types of, these clients, they have the money and the resources to kind of do whatever they want. And if they wanna go from Vegas to Milan to go shopping, they can. And if they wanna take a side trip to Venice to go see Venice, they can. And you've gotta make it happen. you've described really their you that you have to have very fluid approach to things. And I guess having a well executed rigid plan isn't always gonna work in every single circumstance, but have you had a client that's had a very significant threat against them that maybe that's made your risk assessment a lot more in depth about the safety. So for me I generally stay away from those types of clients. The clients that I normally tend to, you wouldn't know necessarily who they were or how much they're worth. Folk disclosure I lived in Dubai for five years and the reason why I did that was I had a client come into Vegas and we took very good care of him and his entire team. And a month later they called me up offering me a job. You would never know who that person is if you saw him on the street. Right? And sometimes, to be honest, there's also ways to help our clients out like that. So I had another client from another country here, and it was a beautiful night out in Vegas, and we were going from one hotel to the next for dinner, and it was right next door. So it, and next door in Vegas, for those that haven't been here it could be a 20 minute walk. It's a walk through some of these venues, but we had the cars lined up and it would've taken us. An hour by car just because of the traffic getting in and doing all this. And I made the recommendation. I was like, sir would you like to walk? James? We can do that. I was like, well, yeah, of course. Because I knew the threat level wasn't very high for him. Nobody knew who he was. And it would be an opportunity to I think as security we often try to encapsulate our clients with a security bubble and we lose them having an experience, right? So when they come to Vegas, and I try to teach everybody when they come to Vegas, the book answer may say, we need to do this, and that, but are we restricting their experience? Are we reducing their pleasure? What they came here to enjoy. We can't just bundle them up all the time. we have to make it possible even though it's a stress on us. Right? So a foot movement took us 20 minutes, but the stress of that was having a car available. If something was to happen, then we can get him in the car rapidly. Well, that's a difficult task for the driver and for the other people. But for me, I'm just walking on the street with the client with, with the security detail and nobody knew who he was. There was no threat there, so that's kind of how, we approach it. There are different clients that have different threats. Again, from my personal and my professional we stay away from the really high profile. We don't generally support athletes like high profile athletes or movie stars or anybody that's really in that kind of light. So. My personal experience, other than being in a high threat environment with the ambassador overseas, which everything was a high threat kind of thing. Yeah, we really try to stay away from that. And that's our own risk assessment of, I also have a responsibility as a security owner to take a look at what's threatened by putting my guys and gals into, by having this client, back in the day when Britney Spears was out, well, she's and I'm just using her as example, we never did security for her, but I know that detail was very challenging because she was a challenging client and she would put everybody in compromising positions. And for me, those are just situations that I just assume not take on. And that's my choice. I know there's other companies that will do it and they do a great job, and that's really kind of where you separate out, and it might hurt some feelings, but bodyguards from executive protection. where those kind of realms cross a little bit, that physical brute presence of, Hey, don't mess with my client. executive protection is like, yeah, okay we're low and loose. They're pro, they're enjoying their time and things like that. So, In fact, if we go back and we say to a point about Brittany Spears, I think, even we're going back a few years now, she wouldn't have had the same social media challenges that very high profile VIPs have now, in the sense of they have a pressure to say where they are, where they're going, and therefore that can very much affect the plan for their team. And then especially in relation to jewelry. And then you look at, the uk we've had incidences where high profile football players in your terms, I think soccer. But high profile football players, their ho their homes have been burgled because everyone knows they're an away match. And, just stuff like that really. And you think, those are some obvious things that you can mitigate against. And to be honest I don't think any of those incidents should have happened, but when you look at the pressures of social media and how that impacts on keeping somebody safe but telling them where you are going at the same time, that's got to be, I can see why that presents a bigger risk. Yeah. And regardless how much we try, clients don't listen to us. I had a client and there, there was one client that I did have he was a gambler out here. This is what he did for a living. He gambled, but he also he would also for his memberships he would sell a membership. Via social media and say if you're a member and you pay me x number of dollars a week or a month, I will tell you what my picks are and you can see that I'm winning or, it's gonna take some losses, but over time we win. So be a member. Well, with that, he would post on social media, his ticket with his, with the numbers lined out, but it would say the Bellagio, the hotel that he was getting at. Yeah. And then the next post is with him, with tens of thousands of dollars at the cash cage. Well, he was at the Bellagio because that's where the ticket was. It was no surprise to me that he had found we had found some air tags, some of the Apple air tags on his vehicle. Well, that's a no-brainer. People know you're posting you're carrying a lot of money, you've got a lot of flashy jewelry. And so those are the difficult situation that you get put in when clients. Put themselves at risk. And then, in the case of homes being burglarized, we have that out here too. And it's the fact that they don't wanna pay for the estate security. They see it as an insurance write off anyway, not, they don't look at it as, well, what if your wife or child were there when this took place? Granted things can be replaced, but family members can't. And I dunno how it's in the uk, but in the us criminals are awfully brazen now. Yes. To the point where, you know, even to the point where we're having a, we're having an issue with clients and we tell'em they, they're excuses. Well, we have video cameras. We will catch'em. People don't care anymore. I mean, people are getting beat in the street in broad daylight knowing that they're on camera, their friends are filming it and putting it on Instagram. They don't care if there's a camera. All cameras are evidence. They don't stop anything. They don't deter like they used to. It used to be, back in the day, a camera system was a deterrence. Oh, I'm not gonna go here because I see that they've got coverage. Now it's like, ah, I don't care. Whatever. Especially after Covid. Now there's a reason to wear a mask and a hoodie and it doesn't matter if you're on camera anyway. How was Covid for you, James? I mean, it was interesting to see Las Vegas closed down. We maintained some of our clients but I think like everybody in the security industry travel stopped everything stopped. So if that stops, if events stop and people are at home, they don't really know us too much. What we did, we kind of flexed a little bit and continue to do risk assessments for individuals on the covid. So we would be monitoring all the various websites with all the latest information and try to provide that to them cuz some of the areas they were actually supposed to be traveling to. I had one client that was supposed to travel to Italy right where it was blowing up in the northern part of Italy initially. And we spoke to them before their medical team did and we brought it to their attention saying, Hey, this isn't a good idea. One, we don't want you to get sick, but two they're locking people down as, as far as quarantine. So if you go over there, you might not be able to get back for who knows how long. So that's, there's other things to consider aside from of course, being sick but and they didn't see that potential. They're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. They're like, yeah, you go to Italy, you may not get sick, but they're quarantining everybody for, an extended period of time where you can't leave a hotel room and you're stuck. It doesn't matter if you wanna go home. And it doesn't matter if you're an American citizen, they don't care, so, having to flex and do things like that during Covid, but I think everybody kind of suffered during that time. Yeah. And it was a difficult time. It's a bit, when old people used to say that they remembered where they were when J f K got shot, right? Right, right. We're the generation that all remembers where we were when nine 11 happened. And these gen Z now are probably saying nine. What? Yeah. They're, yeah, they're, yeah. And and don't even show them a landline phone. They dunno how to use it. Have you seen the memes on the internet giving somebody who's like 11 years old an actual landline phone saying, can you make a call? Right. I don't think it's, I don't think it's affected you guys yet, but I know it has over here and they say the anti-car theft devices having a stick shift, people don't know how to drive'em here anymore. Yeah. I saw that. I, maybe we are watching the same thing on Instagram, but Yeah, I saw that it was a, I think it was petrol station and these two guys pulled a woman out of a car. Didn't they jump to Yeah. Tried to steal it and they got out. Cause they're like, I don't, you know what to do. I don't know what to do. Okay. What's this third tell? I don't understand. Yeah. So funny.

34:28

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Yoyo 34:41

look, executive protection is a widely un legislated, unregulated industry, but you've kind of changed that to a degree, and I think this is fascinating because you are leading the way here as a trailblazer. All right. So, give a little history. I sat on the A S I S Executive Protection Council. I wanna say it was like 2016 to 2018, somewhere around there. And, I'm still a member of a S I s supporter of a S I S. And at the time in this council there was a group of us that said, Hey, a s I S you guys write standards. You write guidelines. We need a standard and guideline on how to provide executive protection. Here it is that we are providing security and safety for individuals and their families. Yet there's no way, there's no documentation of how to do it. There's no best practice. There's nothing out there. Whatever reason they decided not to pursue that as as something they were interested in. Fast forward after Covid, well, during Covid I started thinking about it, but in 2021, I opened up another company specifically devoted to helping the executive protection industry. And we call that the Board of Executive Protection Professionals, the B E P P. And we started that company in March on 2021. Over in the in the states we have ansy, which is the American National Standards Institute is very similar to your I S O overseas. As a matter of fact they work together on several projects together. So antsy they monitor and regulate or not regulate, validate all standards that are produced in the US if people want them to be third party validated. Antsy is the same organization that. Pretty much all everybody uses in America from fire safety to security to how a refrigerator is put together. There's standards on all of that. And they maintain those. So we put in our application and got approved to be a standards developer through ansi, and now we are writing the first American National Standard or proposed American national standard for how to provide executive protection. We've got about 180, a little more than 180 volunteers, practitioners that are working on this document that we are writing. There's a very strict way to do it, to meet the anti requirements. And we have to be able to prove all of that. And that's what makes, what we are doing is so much different than somebody say, writing a book. I could write a book on executive protection and call it a standard. But that doesn't make it a standard. That makes it the James Cameron standard or the, my technique could, because let's be honest, I mean, if. Even with my experience it, my experience comes from a certain way of doing things, whether it was through the government private sector. So it's got a tainted view of how to do things right? That's how I was raised on how to do it not necessarily military, but I was raised in executive protection. this is how you do things well that could be different than somebody that works safe for Microsoft. Microsoft has a different organizational culture, and that culture then bleeds into how you do business or how you do certain tasks. So by gaining, by using 180 individuals, it kind of washes out all that fringe stuff, right? So you could have the Microsoft side, you could have the government side, but you have to meet in the middle because the way Microsoft does stuff isn't the way the government would do it and the way the government does it. Microsoft wouldn't like that, but you have to find a way to come together and say, okay. I agree, this is what we need to focus on. And that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing now. This is gonna be the first, I mean, there's plenty of books on EP or CP overseas, right? Close protection or executive protection here in the States. There's plenty of books on that, but again, those are more of techniques. And then it's not to say that they're wrong, it's just a it's not peer reviewed and validated. And what ours is gonna be doing is peer is gonna be totally peer reviewed and it'll be validated by antsy. And to maintain the antsy standard, we also have to update that every three to five years. So it's not something that you write once you put on the shelf and go, oh, Job done. We wrote the standard. It has to be continuously reviewed and if there's any changes, and then there's an entire process that you have to go through to get that done. So yeah, it's a huge monumental lift. We do have a lot of international interest as well. We've got people from the s I a that are interested in what we're doing. We've got people from Mexico that are interested in what we're doing and are partaking. Even though it's an American national standard, we're still trying to we're gonna try to weave in what we can to make it as user friendly as possible for everybody. Because again, CP in the uk it's not all that different from what we do. The terms would be different. But the overall job that needs to be done is the same. We're protecting high net worth people, right. Or people that need our protection. And when you consider that high net worth, They deserve the best. They're paying good money and this should hopefully help rule out rogue operators. And you are obviously clearly demonstrating to me already that you are operating at a very high standard. So to create a standard with amsi, American National Standard Institute, I think you're sending out a really strong message and it's preferable, isn't it, that a high net worth client who can afford the best, chooses organizations that meet a standard of regulation because they surely know they are safer. In fact, it should make their insurance less if they're using That's, that, that's a great point. And that's one of the areas that we're looking to help and stress upon. You're always gonna have those that don't follow standards. Standards are not it's not a mandate, right? It's, you should follow standards. Of course. But what organiza what we're finding is our stakeholders, the organizations that have CP teams or EP teams they're very interested in this because that lowers our liability of their teams. Right? If they can affirm that they are following a standard, then. One, it makes it easier for the security team to ask for those budget increases, right? Because it's not me saying that you need this, it is the American national standards that is saying this is how we should be doing things. And it also provides cover for companies like mine that if you make those recommendations to the clients and they decide to opt out of it because of budgetary reasons, Hey, we made the recommendations and this is what we based our recommendation on, which is a American national standards, right? and it'll also be a way to educate the clients, to inform them if you want to do this task, if you want us to do this, then we need X number of people, which means we need an increase in budget of x number of dollars. So there's that. Again, you're never gonna get everybody a hundred percent on board with it, but those people, like you said the client will make the decision on who do they wanna meet? Who do they want protecting them? Do they want somebody that is the stereotype bodyguard that is all about the flash? Or do you want the professional that says, yeah, we follow the standard. We exceed a standard. And this is one of the things that I always try to tell everybody when we get criticized, cause we do, anytime you introduce something new, you're gonna have the people that don't like it. The standard is not the the top level, the standard is the foundation. And I'll give, I always like to give an example of this in our standard, if we're providing safe and secure transportation for our client, the standard focuses on the must dos, not the should dos. So the must dos are the tires properly inflated? Does it have fuel? Is it insured? Is the driver's license all of these, those are the must dos. Now the should dos, which are not in the standard are. Is there hand sanitizer for the client? Is there a phone charger? Is there newspaper in the back? Is there a medical kit? Those are the should dos and we separate those out. So anybody, everybody should be able to say we exceed standard, but at least you know that they're working to a certain level of standard. Does that make sense? I really appreciate that. I'm personally taking that and I'm gonna use it because even in my line of work where governance risk and compliance is incredibly important, I will now be saying why are we just meeting the standard? Those are just the must dos. We should be exceeding the standard all the time. What are our list of should dos and I'm thinking I could do well with that. Thank you, James. Yeah. Well, we actually found, I mean, when, there's a lot that we've been learning through this entire process of writing a stand and when we found the comments that we're getting back, A lot of people are interjecting, and I'm not knocking it, but they're giving us all the should dos. Well, that's great, but that's a technique that works within your organization. I need the must dos. I need to know what is the absolute minimal that we need to do it. Because also when we write this standard, it needs to be, it needs to be something that a solo practitioner can do or. Somebody that has a 15 man detail can do. Now obviously you've got more resources, but if you're talking advances the should dos or the, sorry, the must-dos are you need to make contact with the restaurant before you arrive. You need to make sure you know where you're gonna be seating. You need to know all that well. And a solo practitioner may or may not be able to go there physically and find those situations or find those answers. But what he can do or she can do is pick up the phone and make that call. And that's still a form of an advance, but you still need to check certain boxes. And those are the must dos. The should dos would be go there in person meet the mare d in person. That's a should do. But if you if you are limited on resources, what are the must dos? The must dos are, I need to know where it's at. I need to know who the points of contact are. I need to know that we have a table, and so on. You're talking about a type of excellence, aren't you? And I think, and this is why we only interview best in class on the Security Circle podcast. Well, I appreciate that. Good. Yeah, well done. No, honestly, I'm really finally tuned into this. This is like a one-to-one workshop. But no you're absolutely right. And I think that's a huge take home for everybody. Before we finish up at the top end of this podcast, you were talking about Blackwater, and I was negligent. I should have asked you what Blackwater was. Blackwater back in the day could have its Negatives, but it's got a lot more positives. Obviously I'm biased cause I was working there, but but because I was working there, that's where my bias comes from because I saw what was on the news was not accurate. They, this was at the time when the war was becoming unfavorable. The the invasion in Iraq had been going on for a little while. I think universally people were getting tired of seeing the news all the time of the war in Iraq, the war in Iraq, and they needed a scapegoat. Scapegoat being Blackwater, oh, these are mercenaries that are overseas, just killing civilians. And I can affirm that was just not true. That and the fact that we took the brunt of everybody, any private contracting company over there, the term Blackwater. Got thrown at it, it didn't matter who you worked for, oh, that must be Blackwater. Oh, this happened. Oh, it must be Blackwater. And it just wasn't true. We had the most important critical mission over there, which was keeping the ambassador and State Department members safe. I'll let people do the research if they want, you can go back to congressional testimony. During those times. I think even though this, for forever is we didn't lose any clients or have any of our clients injured. But we lost a tremendous amount of men and women doing it. Not only gave their lives, but also, left limbs and body parts behind. Doing the job. So there's really something to say about you can talk, I guess to our detriment I guess. Back then we worked off of kind of a special operations motto of the silent professional. So instead of ever punching back, it was like, just let'em, we know what we're doing here. As far as we know the good work we're doing, we know the positive impact we're having. And so they can talk all they want as opposed to just pushing back a little bit. And I think that was, that's hindsight. If I was running things I probably would've pushed back a little bit more. Cuz during congressional testimony, it came, comes out that, you've lost X number of people, but you've done 200,000 missions. With, and if you wanna talk about weapons discharges, that's less than 1% of our missions that have ever required a weapons discharge. That's tremendous. That's better than any military has ever done. Yeah. And it goes to the discipline of the individuals that were there along with the fact that, our diplomats were highly targeted individuals, so, and it's highly likely that there were more discharged weapons back in the states, in every state than you executed throughout the whole of that period. Right? Yeah. And I mean, unfortunately I had spoke to other contracting company individuals and the, they got into what could be called questionable shoots. And of course they just blamed it under the tarp of, oh, those are Blackwater guys. No, they weren't. Yeah. So, again I stand by Blackwater. I mean, anybody that's was in the military in that time, they all had our phone numbers because they knew we would go. And there was plenty of times where the Army for example, couldn't respond as quick as we could. if there was somebody in trouble, we would go and no questions. We would just go to, wheres the military? Well, we gotta get permission here. We gotta get this clearance. We gotta do this. Well, in a firefight, you don't have that much time. You need that rapid support. And that's kind of what we did along with the diplomatic mission over there. Awesome. James. I always ask these two questions just before we finish up. What keeps you awake at night? Nothing. I sit pretty good. Cool. No, that's really good. It's really good. It depends what jobs people are in and how operational they are, but, and who I talk to across the board, but clearly that's a good place to be. Right. Well, I think if you've got the mindset that you're prepared for, a variety of different situations, then you know it is what it is. You can't necessarily control it, but what you can do is react to it. And yeah. As long as we have that free flowing mindset that I do anyway, I I mean tomorrow the CCP could throw an E F P and everything goes out. Okay. there's nothing I can do about it. You just gotta deal with the situation. And that's really the way EP is as well. Right? Or the military is you get thrown at you. You just go, okay let's handle it. Let's, what do we gotta do? Let's problem solve this. Well, you've demonstrated that mam with plan sleeps well at night. Yes. The last thing I ask everybody is what makes you happy? Now I get it, you're a little bit Darth vay in the good sense of having order in the universe. I am as well. Right? But what makes you happy? I think what makes me happy is when things come together and others can see that they've done a good job or there's recognition for, I don't I think we're too eager to point out all the negatives and not eager enough to point out, Hey, you know what? You did a really good job there. And just changing that I always tell no matter where I'm going, if I go to a grocery store or a fast food place or whatever, whenever somebody helps me, I go, all right, thanks a lot. You're awesome. I appreciate that. And they just go, what? Like, oh, well thank you. I am awesome. Kind of deal. So, I think there's not enough of that going around so that makes me happy. Just I think you're right. And I think when you consider that so much of the security industry now has such a heavy percentile migration from police and military, and those are two institutions that don't praise people. Ever, no. And even in the command structure or the management structure or the leadership structure, there's not enough of great job well done. And I'm a bit of a nutter sometimes, if I can't think of anything specific and I see I'm in the office and I see people leaving. I'm like, thanks for coming in today. They look at you as you have to say, of course I'm here. I bloody work here. But no, it's just nice saying thanks for coming in. Yeah. Well, like I say I always tell everybody they're awesome. I, Hey, thanks, I appreciate that. You're awesome. Okay, well cool. Thanks. James, I think you are truly awesome. Thank you. I appreciate so much. I really enjoyed our chat today and I know other people will as well. Thank you so much for your time, for joining us on this. We do have a executive Security Operations conference. The first of ours inaugural, which will be holding June 7th through the ninth. And that's gonna be in Missouri or Kansas City, Missouri at the Lows Hotel. All the details can be found on our website, which is the e ep hyphen board.org and slash conference. We've got some amazing speakers, really high level government speakers that'll be presenting. We've got two networking mixers so people can introduce themselves and get to know one another. It's gonna be a phenomenal event, really looking forward to it. And that's gonna be in June. Yes. I'm counting down because it's a massive undertaking as well as if writing the standard wasn't a big enough lift. Just throw more stuff on there. There's just the more trailblazing accolades for you, James. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we'll make sure we provide the links to all of what you've got going on, including all your social media handles. I appreciate the the opportunity.