Pushing the Limits and Lifting Others Along the Way — Honoring Kristin Lendardson

The following is a personal message from the Associate Director of the Center for Protective Intelligence, Travis Lishok, regarding Kristin Lenardson’s nomination as a Pioneer in the Protective Intelligence Honors Program.

Security practitioners are a different breed — they are uncommon people that tackle impossible challenges daily. Kristin Lenardson is one of those practitioners who is “uncommon amongst uncommon people,” as we say. It takes more than the average security practitioner to immerse themselves in all things security, build up a broad skill set to solve nearly any corporate security challenge, then share that knowledge with their peers to help them be successful in their own organizations.

Kristin leverages her knowledge and experience from both the public and private sectors — having led teams in the FBI for 10 years, and then developing intel and executive protection teams in the private sector. Along the way, she’s consistently dedicated energy within varied professional organizations to build up those around her, taking on several leadership roles within the security community.

Specifically, for AIRIP, she leads our Protective Intelligence Council. She is also a founding member and active board member of the International Protective Security Board (IPSB). For ASIS, she’s working with a team to develop standards for the executive protection discipline as Chair of the ASIS Executive Protection Community subcommittee. Lastly, she is a mentor for the Department of State Overseas Advisory Committee, Women in Security program.

But it’s not just her contributions to these professional working groups that make her uncommon — it’s also the support she lends aspiring professionals and young professionals in our industry. She does this though traditional mentoring groups such as those of ASIS and OSAC — but she also does it outside of those groups by lifting up aspiring professionals by sharing their content on LinkedIn, inviting them to contribute to professional working groups, or even encouraging them to participate on panels or present at events. I have the privilege of working alongside her for our AIRIP Protective Intelligence working group, I’ve co-presented with her via ASIS sessions, and more. All along the way, I’ve seen how she unselfishly gives back to the community of practitioners around us.

In our industry you have your average practitioners, and you have your practitioners that eat, sleep, and breathe our craft — Kristin does the latter and more, setting an example for all.