The Great Conversation

Parents: Are you Listening?

We sit down with Joe Souza, Director of Security for the University of Florida and discuss his journey in helping the university in their quest to be a top five public university.

Joe is sold out on the mission of his university to be a preeminent brand within the public education sector. And that is the difference. He starts with the vision, mission, and core values of the university, and then determines how his program contributes. 

For those of you who are parents of prospective university students, pause for a second and reflect whether you and your child prioritized security and safety in your scorecard for evaluating a university. Do they prosper because you and they know they are safe and secure?

What I appreciated is Joe’s efforts to help his university leverage his program to ensure that all the other elements of the scorecard are not radically diluted by an otherwise predictable event or a poor response. That is value protection and value generation.

The Power of Story impacts how customers relate to your brand. The Power of Story impacts how employees buy into your purpose and vision for your business. Once you know your story and are able to articulate it, you have many avenues for telling it. One of those is business-to-business (B2B) Media companies. Pick the right one, and your story might be consumed and acted upon. We turned to one of the most experienced editorial directors in the risk, resilience, and security industry to have him reflect how he got into the business and what he is seeing as media is redefined in the age of digital transformation.

Steve Laskey is an experienced Group Publisher and Editorial Director with a demonstrated history of working with the marketing and advertising industry as a B2B Media Executive. Steve is highly skilled in Sales, Journalism and Corporate Communications. His company, Endeavor Business Media, is now one of the largest B2B Media companies in the world.

Whenever I review the security technology architecture of a business, I look for a simple answer to a nagging problem. Why can’t I hear what is going on before, during, or after an incident? You would think that most security organizations strive toward real-time situational awareness leveraging all the tools they own by embedding audio and voice into their business processes. But instead, many have cameras that are producing a silent movie.  

Why isn’t audio ubiquitous in the building, on the campus, and in our cities? 

I press on this question with Cameron Jadvani, the President of an audio technology company called SoundSecure, and I am pleasantly surprised and hopeful that we finally will see an acceleration of a simple premise: in a sensor driven world, I need to see, hear, be heard, and be understood now more than ever. 

2020, for most organizations, was a time to reflect, pivot, and live to fight another day. But during every crisis, there are a few leaders and organizations that are prepared for the moment and thrive. One such company just announced its 2020 results. They shared revenue growth of 177%, a 68% increase in Fortune 500 customers, a 319% increase in the number of users, and an exponential increase in their ability to scale through human and digital assets.

This is an organization that purports to have a “living threat assessment” based on their market, location, brand, and operational reach.

We speak with the co-founder and CEO of Ontic, Lukas Quanstrom, about his entrepreneurial journey into the risk, resilience, and security industry. It is a story that is as much about mining, capturing, and uniquely presenting the mind and the methodology of the risk leader as it is about qualitative and quantitative scale. Meet the digital transformation of “Protective Intelligence” through our great conversation.

Steve Caroselli, the CEO of Orion, joins us to talk about the next generation of entrance controls and his unique approach to innovation in collaboration with his clients. Just when you thought you were talking about turnstiles, Steve opens our eyes and minds to a new sensor driven world. 

Cascadia Capital is tackling the Fourth Industrial Revolution head-on with one of the nation’s first emerging growth investment banking practice groups dedicated to Robotics, Automation, and Artificial Intelligence (“RAAI”). Learn what they see as the market forces driving this and how you might evaluate your next steps as an end user, service provider, or technology vendor. We sit down with their Managing Director, Firdaus Pohowalla, in a great conversation about this upcoming wave.  With seven investment banking professionals and over 100 years of combined experience, the Cascadia team has significant industry knowledge and a successful track record of advising companies in the RAAI space. 

Not many security executives could balance a merger and acquisition of companies with disparate cultures, methods, and business models at the same time they were dealing with the pandemic, social unrest, and the economy. That seems challenging. But amid all of this, Tammi Morton, the VP and CSO for Raytheon, exudes an energy, focus and enthusiasm that is contagious. Enjoy this conversation that we had during the 2020 pandemic and pick up some tips on how to take your culture to the next level with composure and integrity. 

Mark Reid, Director of Security and Safety for Seattle Pacific University, recounts the tale of two fires that occurred on and near his campus. He shares transparently the lessons learned on preparedness, the right tools, and the inherent risks that must be considered to ensure the safety of his campus. 

To Mark, security should be measured in seconds, not minutes. And through his stories, you can see why. You will also get a keen sense of how he has leveraged the culture of his university and its people to ensure their safety and the viability of their education. 

When a Security Executive tells me he is reading a book on Disney (Be our Guest), Kahneman's Think Fast and Slow,  and a book on rebels at work, I sit up and listen. Clearly this is not your Father's security program.

Brian Uridge, Deputy Director of the Department of Public Safety and Security for the University of Michigan, sat with me in the middle of the chaos of 2020 to talk about his unique approach to people, process, and technology. 

He discusses his development as a leader and how it reframed how he looked at his mission. Through Brian, we look at our unique ability to honestly see ourselves and our unique contribution in a new way. And, perhaps, a more creative way in which to govern ourselves as well. 

We are always interested in pursuing leaders who are focused on employee engagement and powerful self-correcting cultures that promote innovation and change. Avoiding the peril of scotomas (blind spots) requires cultivating a diversity of thinking. Diversity of thinking comes from a melting pot of cultures, education, and experiences. Diversity is not about numbers. Diversity is about organizational strength.

One such leader is Eddie Reynolds, CEO and co-Founder of Iluminar. Iluminar is a specialist manufacturer and supplier of IR and white light illuminators and license plate recognition products. Co-owners Eddie Reynolds and Joni Hamasaki bring over 30 years of combined industry experience. Together they launched Iluminar in 2009 with a mission to supply high quality and reliable lighting and license plate recognition products to the video surveillance industry, backed by unsurpassed customer service.

Eddie happens to be black and a woman. We get inside her head on the value of diversity, how mentors make a difference, and her experiences within the industry. She is also a member of the Security Industry Association (SIA) and the SIA RISE Steering Committee. They are launching Talent Inclusion Mentorship Education (TIME) – a new mentorship program for early and mid-career professionals in the security industry.

The TIME program is designed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and empowerment of underrepresented identities in the security industry by creating a well-defined pathway for learning and development.