Posts by Fred Burton
How to Retain Your GSOC’s Most Valuable Asset: Employees
Hiring and retaining top talent ensures your GSOC continues to play a vital role as a strategic contributor to company operations After over forty years in the industry, the one thing I’ve learned is that tragedy forces change. For example, the murders of our diplomats abroad in the 1970s, caused my old outfit (DSS) to…
Read MoreHow to Elevate Your GSOC’s Impact in a World of Rising Threats
Keep your organization safe and drive real business impact with better situational awareness, threat monitoring, and communication As a student of protection history and former counter-terrorism special agent who investigated countless embassy bombings, kidnappings, hijackings, and assassinations, I know all too well that the threat landscape has always been dynamic. It ebbs and flows, primarily…
Read MoreApplying the Intelligence Cycle in our New Days of Rage
Learn how the time-tested framework can help you understand and manage threats that may arise during this election cycle Former President Donald Trump survived a second assassination attempt by a sniper, this one on his golf course. In Springfield, Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine has sent in state troopers after extremists began marching through town, and…
Read MoreProtection Never Rests: The Deaths of the Iranian President and Foreign Minister
Hear from Fred Burton, Ontic’s Executive Director of Protective Intelligence and former special agent, on his experience with aircraft disaster investigations. The May 19, 2024 crash of a Bell helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian appears to have been a tragic accident. When the crash occurred, Raisi was returning to…
Read MoreFred Burton’s 2024 Summer Reading List
Protectors read books, while travelling, in airports, follow-cars, hotel rooms, or during down time in GSOCs. We especially love a good thriller in our industry, along with thought provoking non-fiction. With that in mind, here are a few perfect summer reads, combined with books that have been turned into television and streaming. Nuclear War: A…
Read MoreFred Burton’s 2023 Holiday Reading List
Take a look at Fred’s must-reads for the holiday season. I always enjoy thinking back over the last year, remembering the new books that I’ve enjoyed and learned from, but also the books I’ve read in the past that resurfaced in life and work this year. When putting together a book and film recommendation list,…
Read MoreOrganized Retail Crime in Focus
Fighting ORC is possible, but without a holistic view and fully resourced corporate security teams and law enforcement partners, it can be an uphill battle. This article was originally featured in Security Magazine We’ve become all too familiar with the social media videos capturing a shoplifter running out of the store with a haul of…
Read MoreSeparating Signals From Noise: The Biggest Security Challenge Moving Forward
See how generative artificial intelligence is revolutionizing threat detection and risk mitigation. This article was originally featured in Forbes When I started my career as a counterterrorism investigator, information was much harder to come by. A single clue was hard-earned and often involved following breadcrumbs and retracing steps. Real-time data was even rarer since the…
Read MoreCollections from a Lifetime in Protection
Anyone who has read my memoir Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent (Random House, 2008) knows I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a different era when blue-collar families like mine could afford to co-mingle with the Washington power brokers and elite. Geography is always important, and…
Read MoreFrom Coronations to Corporations: The Hidden Nuts and Bolts of Major Event Security Planning
This article was originally featured on IFSEC Insider When Queen Elizabeth was crowned in June 1953, the procession of dignitaries that followed numbered 16,000 people. It took the procession approximately 45 minutes to pass any one point along the route. When she died nearly 70 years later, London’s Metropolitan Police Service said her funeral was…
Read MoreFamily Offices: What They Get Right About Security, and What Companies Can Learn from Them
This article was originally featured on ASIS Security Management Family offices are privately held companies that often handle wealth management and investments for heads of companies, executives, and high-profile individuals—many of whom are quite wealthy. But these organizations often have broader responsibilities. Over the years, they’ve become among the best when it comes to protective intelligence and…
Read MoreFred Burton’s 2022 Holiday Reading List
This holiday season all of the books on my list focus on espionage, cops, crime, and disasters. Would you expect any less? As usual, I’ve included a few of my favorite classics, some books that are new to the bookshelves this year, and two soon-to-be released books to fill your holiday list. Do you have…
Read More4 Ways Corporate Security Teams Can Better Respond to Rising Crime Rates
Fred shares how corporate security teams can enhance their response to escalating crime rates, emphasizing proactive measures and collaboration with law enforcement. Since 2019, the world has experienced a lot of unexpected and unprecedented changes. For corporate security professionals, shifting trends in criminal activity are becoming a persistent and ongoing concern. This is especially top…
Read MoreReining in an Epidemic of Workplace Violence in Healthcare
Fred Burton offers strategies and solutions for navigating the surge in workplace violence incidents within the healthcare industry. This article was originally featured in MedCity News The murders of four healthcare workers earlier this year, including two physicians, by a patient at a medical center in Tulsa was a grave reminder of an ever-growing epidemic:…
Read MoreWhy Corporate Execs Should Prepare For Heightened Polarization
This article was originally featured on Forbes This year alone, the Department of Homeland Security has issued over half a dozen National Terrorism Advisory Bulletins. The latest warned that the U.S. remains in a heightened threat environment. Sadly, the DHS’s bulletins aren’t a new development. For the past few years, domestic extremists and foreign adversaries alike…
Read MoreWhat’s a Threat? That Depends on What Your Job Is
Extreme weather can stop trucks on the road and prevent key personnel from getting in the office, disruptions that can cost millions. Failure to comply with regulations can damage a company’s reputation and drive up operational costs. These situations present real risks to the business. Too often, executives in charge of managing one type of…
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