Bodyguard Careers

Bodyguard Careers is an informational site with the purpose of providing bodyguards with all the information and tools necessary to succeed in the executive protection industry.

What’s Under Your Coat – Tools of the Trade

Featured Bloggers, Mark Six James

By Mark “Six” James, EPS, CPO

Just like building a house or repairing a car the right tools often make the job significantly easier.  While agents and operators possess varying skills levels your tools are designed to help enhance your operational capabilities and maximize your efficiency.  Below is a selection of commonly used tools of the trade, which can help you, become more efficient in conducting your business.  They are listed in alphabetical order and not tactical importance.  Just as the situation should dictates your tactics, your individual skills, threat level, detail and environment should also help dictate your tools.  It is not expected that an agent would carry all of the tools listed below on every detail, but ideally the ones which best compliment the assignment.

Body Armor – sometimes the shield is more important than the sword.  It is a must have for protection specialists.  It is more important to not get you or your client shot, than it is to shoot, shooting is extra credit.  Personal armor is designed to absorb the impact from handguns, some shotgun projectiles and shrapnel from explosions.  All body armor is not created equal so please do your research.  Metal or ceramic plates can be used with a soft vest, to provide additional protection from rifle rounds.  Soft vests are commonly worn by protection specialists and law enforcement whereas hard-plate reinforced vests are mainly worn by combat soldiers, police tactical units, and other high risk protection teams.  Typically the slimmer the profile and lighter the weight the more expensive the vest will be.  Understand your vests rating capabilities – Level 1 through Level 3.  Most vests will provide minimal assistance against a knife slash, but almost no assistance against a stab or puncture.  There are some very good high tech vests which are stab resistant however they are priced accordingly.  Buy the best vest your budget can afford and upgrade as soon as practically possible.

Communications – in some cases a two way radio is a great communication tool in other cases a cell phone with a good Bluetooth ear piece is a better low profile communication option.  As the public is use to seeing professionals chatting on their cell phones.  Make sure if your cell phone or your PDA is your primary communication tool, make sure your cellular provider is as good as the rest of your equipment.   It doesn’t do you any good to have high tech phone or PDA and a low tech provider.  Make sure whether using a two way radio or cell phone your ear piece has good noise reduction capabilities.   During your advance work make sure your communications will work in the region you are traveling or in the event facility.  If working with a team, make sure you have hand signals in the event you lose verbal communications capabilities.

[Read more…] about What’s Under Your Coat – Tools of the Trade

Protecting The Rich

Bodyguard Careers Staff, Featured Articles

By Bodyguard Careers

The types of people that come to one’s mind when thinking about executive protection are celebrities, politicians, and wealthy business men with a net of over $1 million a year. That is partially correct, but the truth of the matter is that high net worth individuals are those who earn $500,000 or more per year.

Let’s take a look at celebrities first: There are numerous cases of actors that have been subject to stalkers because of a role they have played in the past or just because of their spotlight status.

Public awareness of stalking increased when public profiles, victims of stalking, began to speak out. An example that comes to one’s mind is Jodie Foster’s stalker by the name of John Hinckley Jr. who in order to gain her love he stalked President Carter with the intention of assassinating him-a plan that thankfully never came to fruition; later, the same individual attempted to assassinate President Reagan.

People who don’t live in the spotlight would think the solution to stalking would be to obtain a restraining order against the individual. Is that a sufficient and safe solution for a public figure?

Not really.  An executive protection agent knows that the people he should be soliciting his services have already identified that there is concern about their safety that cannot be left to chance: the lives and potentially the lives of their loved ones may be in jeopardy either now or the (near) future.

 

[Read more…] about Protecting The Rich

Executive Close Protection

Bodyguard Careers Staff

Executive Protection

By Bodyguard Careers Staff

Executive Close Protection also known as bodyguard services, or close personal protection refers to the security measures taken to protect high profile individuals from adversaries wish to cause them physical harm or mental distress.

The list of people with high profiles includes, but is not limited to, politicians, celebrities, wealthy business executives, etc. Robert Oatman in his book, The Art of Executive Protection outlines the range of threats an individual and his family may face: “assassination, kidnapping, street (workplace) violence, attacks by insane persons or zealots, embarrassment, injury, illness or medical emergencies, and that which is least expected.”

Oatman also explains the philosophy behind executive protection and the 6 principles associated with this philosophy: “1) Shape destiny, 2) Anybody can protect anybody, 3) If you have to stop and think about it, it’s too late, 4) Executive protection specialists get their clients out of trouble and keep them out of trouble, 5) For the executive, security and convenience are usually at opposite ends of a continuum, and 6) The greatest tool in executive protection is the Executive Protection specialist’s mind; technology is of limited use.”

Executive protection for high profile individuals is highly recommended prior to danger knocking on the door. It is imperative to take measures to prevent an attack from happening rather than trying to remedy a dangerous situation. Prevention and anticipation is the recipe of success for all executive protection specialists and the mantra to live by would be: “leave nothing to chance!”

 

Formal and advanced training are synonyms of success for all executive protection specialists. Click the link below for more details:

www.executiveprotectionschools.com

 

How to apply for bodyguard work (and how not to).

Featured Articles, Featured Bloggers, Jerry Heying

By Jerry Heying

You’re new to executive protection and bodyguarding or you’ve been working in it for a while and you’re out of work, how do you find work? That’s a question asked by so many in this field. There is no magical answer but I can give you some sound advice.

As the owner of a security company who employs protection professionals, and as an Instructor at the Executive Protection Institute (EPI), I am often asked to help people find assignments or full time employment.

Resumes

Let’s start with your resume. Your resume consists of paper with a bunch of words on it, sometimes lies. It’s estimated that over 50% of resumes contain lies, or misrepresentations. So first point; be truthful. Integrity is so vital to our industry that it starts with your resume.

Don’t overstate your experience or qualifications. You’re entry level? That’s ok. It’s the honest truth. One page is best, two maximum.

You can prepare a CV which stands for curriculum vitae, which is latin for; “course of life” (also resume). Hey, isn’t that the same thing? Generally, a resume is a brief and concise one or two page summary of your skills, experience, and education. A CV is more detailed and longer.

[Read more…] about How to apply for bodyguard work (and how not to).

Physical Fitness in the Protective Security Industry

Featured Articles, John Morgan

By John Morgan

Those of us in the Executive Protection industry spend a lot of time, energy and money training – and rightfully so. We live and work in a world where we can’t afford to be wrong. Therefore, repetition and training is vital to our long-term success. However, one area seems to be consistently overlooked or neglected and that is our physical fitness.

Be honest with yourself; if given the choice between trigger time at the range and busting your butt in the gym, which one are you going to choose? In no way am I suggesting that range time is unimportant. However, I want us to take a step back and put things in the proper perspective as we make decisions regarding our training regimens.

Any detail that you are on is probably going to consist of long days, spent mostly on your feet, getting in and out of vehicles, potentially walking long distances while carrying a fair amount of weight on your belt and/or back and, of course, a heightened sense of awareness which naturally increases your stress level and heart rate.

And that’s a normal, uneventful, detail.  Now consider a “worse-case-scenario” where you have to spring into action, run those long distances you were originally planning on walking, man-handling your protectee into a vehicle, and even potentially engaging in close-quarter combat with an assailant.

As professionals, we have to be prepared to handle both of these scenarios…and both require a certain level of physical fitness.

[Read more…] about Physical Fitness in the Protective Security Industry

The Assassination Of

Executive Protection Articles, Featured Articles

I came across a very interesting article over the weekend. It’s entitled “Can an Executive Protector Really Prevent an Assassination”? It was posted by John D. Byrnes, here’s a snippet from the article.

In famed author, Gavin de Becker’s well researched book “Just 2 Seconds,” he chronicles the seconds between an assassin’s “Moment of Commitment” and the Executive Protector’s “Moment of Recognition” and the resulting ability of that Protector to save their client from assassination.

His research is explicit; if the protector is 15 feet away from the assassin he has only an 18% chance of protecting his client.  If he is 7 feet away from the assassin he has only a 45% chance of protecting his client. Only when he is within-an-arms-length from this assailant and he is completely “in the now”, can he offer a 98% chance of protection. If his mind is at all distracted, his percentages drop like a rock!

To read the full article click on this link: Blog.AggressionManagement.com

More Content