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With every training course we conduct from the one-day seminar to a 32-day academy, we always have those special guests, SME’s and others we like to identify and thank. And for the March 2018 Dignitary Protection Course hosted by the George Mason University Police Executive Protection Unit and sponsored by Red Five Security LLC, we have quite a few.
But one particular guest speaker stands out, On March 15th, 2018 Mr. Kris Coleman the founder and CEO of Red Five Security LLC, took well over an hour of his day to speak with the students, answer questions and provide advice. He also gifted each student with a copy of the executive protection handbook.
Now for many, you may think that as the sponsor of this class naturally Red Five would have their ownership or management drop in. But this was the first ISA Training Division EP course Red Five had ever sponsored. What if our program was poorly run, the students uninvolved, the curriculum archaic or out of date, you don’t want your company or the CEO associated with something like that so it would have been completely understandable if they sent someone from middle management to sit in and provide daily oversite.
Instead, Mr. Coleman displayed a level of confidence and respect for our program not normally seen in today’s corporate environment by visiting himself, and by doing so he also displayed an important factor of leadership that didn’t go unnoticed.
Trust in your subordinates. Red Five staff had vetted our program, Red Five agents who had attended previous courses were asked for their feedback as to the training they received. But we are talking about your founder and CEO dropping in, it may have seemed prudent to require additional vetting, on-site inspections, and Red Five co-instructors and training specialists covering key material.
But instead, Red Five provided lunch for the class and Mr. Coleman showing trust and confidence in his staff agreed to be a guest speaker. EP work is about trust; trust in your team’s training, experience, and dedication to the mission as well as each other. We need to trust our advance agent has done his/her job and we are not taking our principle to an unsecured or compromised location. Trust our drivers know the route, and our agents are prepared to address the threat assessment.
So I want to thank Mr. Kris Coleman for his time, for sharing his knowledge and for demonstrating that factor of leadership. But also of critical importance to me as CEO of ISA and Director of the Training Division I want to thank Mr. Coleman and Red Five Security for their confidence and trust in us by sponsoring the course.
Matthew Parker
CEO, ISA
http://www.red5security.com/about/leadership/r-kris-coleman-president-and-ceo