This is the beginning of trade show season for the LP industry. Rhett Asher and the FMI team kicked off the year with their asset protection conference in early March in New Orleans. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time an LP industry event has returned to New Orleans post-Katrina since the March 2005 RILA LP conference.

One of the interesting aspects of the FMI event was it took place at the Hyatt Regency hotel complex that had only just reopened in October...six years after Hurricane Katrina. Given that risk management is part of the FMI agenda, hosting the event at the Hyatt Regency was more than appropriate because the hotel played a significant role in the days and weeks following the hurricane.

Disaster planning and business recovery were the subjects of several talks, but none more gripping than the general session presented by Ed Minyard, who was on the ground in New Orleans just three days after the hurricane with a technical team and portable satellite equipment. His team helped set up communications and an emergency operations center in the shattered Hyatt for the city-led first responders.

Minyard's anecdotes and photos provided a chilling context to a discussion of crisis management. His experience in New Orleans as well as with Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008, the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico in 2009, the Haiti earthquake in 2010, and the BP oil spill in 2010 taught him many lessons related to disaster planning. Minyard shared many of his lessons learned with the FMI attendees. The bottom line, especially with hurricane season approaching, is every organization should dust off their crisis plan, run exercises with the crisis team, and communicate plans and procedures with employees. In addition, every individual should have a family emergency plan as well.

Over the years, we've published quite a few articles on the subject. Search "crisis management" on our website for articles, including Minyard's cover feature "John Wayne Society—Preparedness or Paranoia?" in the July-August 2008 issue.

Speaking of trade shows, it may also be a good time to review expectations and ethics guidelines with those in your organization who attend industry events. One of the principle benefits of conferences is networking with others. However, when you mix alcohol, late nights, and attractions like Bourbon Street, networking can become less than professional. You don't want anyone in your organization to end up in an "LP Gone Wild"-type video on YouTube or worse.

I don't mean to sound like a prude. I'm the first to admit I enjoy sharing a cocktail or glass of wine with my industry friends. However, it seems like every year there are a few instances of conference participants...let's just say...embarrassing themselves, which not only reflects badly on their professionalism, but their company as well.

If I didn't see you at FMI, I hope to see you at IOBSE in Chicago, RILA in Dallas, NRF in New Orleans, NFSSC in Baltimore, ASIS in Philadelphia, RCC in Toronto, RETECH in Fort Lauderdale, and LPRC in Gainesville. Check the calendar in the Community section of the magazine website for details on these and other industry events.

Nearly 1,000 law enforcement officers and retail loss prevention professionals gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center February 16 for an education and networking conference sponsored by the Los Angeles Area Organized Retail Crime Association (LAAORCA).

Setting the Stage

Opening remarks by Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley included both good and bad news. "The good news is our crime rate is at a sixty-year low," he said. However, because of recent legislation know as AB 109 realignment that requires certain state-held prisoners to serve at local facilities, he warned the attendees to anticipate "the greatest spike in crime in our lifetime."

Dennis Zine, a retired thirty-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) who now sits on the city council, continued the discouraging words by flatly stating that local governments "have run out of money," so law enforcement "will have to partner with the private sector to combat crime."

Partnering of law enforcement with retailers to share information to fight retail crime was the focus of LAAORCA when it began three years ago. The organization was initiated by Captain Bill Williams and Detective Kent Oda of the Commercial Crimes Division of the LAPD in conjunction with a number of LA-based LP professionals from companies that included CVS, Target, GAP, JCPenney, Lowes, Vons, and others.

Educational Sessions

This third annual conference included numerous educational sessions presented by both law enforcement and LP professionals on topics such as

•  Joint ORC investigations,
•  Highway heists,
•  Targeting fences,
•  eBay partnership,
•  Online investigations,
•  Surveillance techniques,
•  Gang involvement in ORC, and
•  Defining the role of LP professionals.

Future Challenges

Joe LaRocca, senior advisor for asset protection to the National Retail Federation (NRF), presented the attendees with statistics from recent surveys of NRF members that spoke to the scope of the ORC problem. Following are some of the results:

•  95% of retailers say they have been victims of ORC.
•  64% say that ORC incidents are increasing.
•  13% of incidents turn violent.
•  47% are allocating additional resources to address ORC.
•  49% have been victims of cargo theft.

Beyond the statistics, LaRocca warned the attendees that new technologies will "change the game" to make retailers' loss prevention efforts even more difficult. The game-changing technologies mentioned included

•  Mobile POS where hand-held devices used by retail associates can scan and take payment anywhere in the store.
•  Near-field communication that allows customers' smartphones to pass payment information to POS devices without showing traditional credit cards.
•  Google wallet and credit cards with "chip-and-pin" intelligence that present new challenges to retail loss prevention efforts.

Awards and Recognition

The day concluded with awards for Law Enforcement and Industry Investigators of the Year as well as recognition of numerous individuals for contributions to the success of the LAAORCA organization.

Last year was our tenth anniversary and was a terrific year. You would think that after such a great year, I would experience a letdown. Not so. I'm really looking forward to 2012 just as much.

Maybe it's the good sales season retail experienced. It's great to see consumer confidence getting somewhat back to normal.

Maybe it's the word on the street that I hear both retailers and solutions providers talking about capital spending and purchasing rebounding.

Maybe it's our association partners talking about all the positive developments on the legislative and conference front, not to mention two trips to New Orleans this year.

Maybe it's our foundation partners excited about the momentum building as more and more professionals earn certification.

Maybe it's the fact that one of my sons is out of college and working in a terrific job, and the second is only a semester away.

Whatever the combination of reasons, I'm kind of giddy about this year.

I know one reason is that I have committed to getting out from behind my computer and visiting more of our retail sponsors on their home turf. It's always good to see friends and business partners at conferences, but there's something special about walking into their home office. Over the past several years I've visited Sears, OfficeMax, Belk, GameStop, and a number of other retail headquarters where I met with the LP executives and their staff. It's a great experience to listen to these LP professionals talk about their organizations and offer their suggestions for articles and other magazine-related ideas.

Last year I visited Atlanta, Dallas, and Boston where I moderated a series of "lunch-and-learns" sponsored by two solutions providers that brought together local LP professionals to discuss their experiences in implementing new technologies in their organizations. I'm working to do something similar again this year with tentative commitments in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis.

There's a lot to be gained by foregoing email and even telephone and sitting face-to-face with the people who are living loss prevention day-to-day and hearing their problems, successes, and aspirations. It's a lesson I've learned by observing my friend and business partner, Jim Lee, who practices this as well as anybody.

So, don't be surprised if Jim or I knock on your door sometime in the near future to say "Hello" and invite ourselves to share some time with you over a conference table, over a knife and fork, or over a golf ball. We'll do our best to give you something positive in return, but, frankly, it's what you give us that, in turn, benefits us and the magazine.

Thanks to all of you who helped make 2011 a terrific year for the magazine. We'll do our best to make 2012 a great year for our readers, sponsors, and advertisers. I'm excited. Hope you are, too.

Please indulge me as I mix both personal and professional observations in this article.

This year has been a significant year for a number of reasons. At the beginning of the year, we started our tenth year of publication. At the end of the year, I reached a dubious milestone. All this in a year where the economy seemed to rebound...or not...well, maybe.

Ten years of publishing LP Magazine has been a privilege and a challenge. We launched our premier issue in September 2001. Despite the economic turmoil that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11th, we successfully built both our readership and advertising base due to the support of a great many individuals in our industry.

Our original editorial board of eighteen key loss prevention executives provided their direction and credibility, several of whom are still sitting on the board, including Dan Doyle, Paul Jones, Bob MacLea, Randy Meadows, Claude Verville, and Keith White. Thanks to these individuals as well as all the other executives who have participated on our editorial board over the past ten years.

We were fortunate to have several accomplished individuals contribute columns and articles that provided insight on important issues in the industry. Again, several of them still contribute today, including Bob DiLonardo, Dick Hollinger, and Wicklander-Zulawski. Many thanks to these and all the many writers and LP professionals who shared their experience with our readers.

Without the support of solutions providers who bought into the vision of the magazine as both a means of promoting their products and services as well as promoting the education of the industry, we wouldn't exist. Thanks to several companies who continue to support the magazine, including ADT; ChoicePoint, now LexisNexis; Contact Inc.; InstaKey; Learn It Solutions, now Enabl-u; LPjobs; Palmer, Reifler & Associates; and Vector Security.

A special thanks goes to two individuals who have worked hard in very different ways to make the magazine a success—Bonnie Dodson on the advertising side and Fabi Preslar and her team on the production design side.

While ten years seems like a both a long and a short time, sixty years is definitely a long time. That's the milestone I reached this November. Turning thirty, forty, and fifty was not hard for me, but sixty was. Internally, I still see myself in my 30s and my father in his 60s. Maybe that's why I see my father in the mirror every morning.

Despite my misgivings leading up to sixty, my wonderful wife made the occasion special by taking us to Pebble Beach and walking the course with me. Thanks to Cindy (right) and our good friends Sharon and Jim MacKenzie for joining us. Mac and I both marked Pebble Beach off our bucket lists.

Everybody tells me that sixty is the new forty. Hopefully, that's true. One thing I know is true, I'll always be younger than Jim Lee. That means I still have time to figure out how to beat him on the golf course.

All the best to our readers and supporters. May 2012 be a productive, profitable year for you both personally and professionally.

Jack Trlica

Editor and Publisher

To say that September 11th, 2001, was a watershed moment in history borders on understatement. The impact of the tragic events of that day was felt throughout government, law enforcement, and the broad security industry, not the least of which included retail loss prevention. As Jim Carr, director of loss prevention at Rent-A-Center, succinctly put it, "Professionally, 9/11 changed everything immediately."

By definition, a niche is (1) a special area of demand for a product or service, or (2) a situation or activity especially suited to a person's interests, abilities, or nature. LP Magazine is an example of a niche publication in that when we started this magazine ten years ago, there was no publication dedicated to the loss prevention industry. With a little research we determined there was an untapped demand for information and educational material on LP topics, which we set out to fill and, hopefully, have successfully done so.

The second part of that definition is what I want to address here—finding the career niche that you can identify and fill that suits your personal and professional skills and interests. This topic is top of mind for me right now because I have 26- and 23-year-old sons finishing degrees and searching for career opportunities that fit both their skills and interests. Hopefully, in today's job market identifying their niche may be a way to differentiate themselves from the many applicants for the few jobs available.

Specialist vs. Generalist

Over the years there has been an ongoing debate around the importance of being a specialist versus a generalist for professional success. If you look at loss prevention over the years, one could argue that successful LP professionals have moved from being strictly security specialists to business generalists, albeit with an LP specialty.

I would suggest that a combination of specialized skills with general knowledge is critical for success at every level of the organization. For example, an entry-level store detective must have special skills to identify theft, uncover the facts, interview the suspect, and close the case. To move up in the organization, the skilled investigator must acquire additional skills, such as managing people, as well as general knowledge of retail operations and business principles. The LPQ and LPC certifications are built around this concept.

Even if you are one who has this combination of specific and general knowledge, finding your niche can help differentiate you and potentially find a more fulfilling position. Going back to that entry-level store detective, what if he or she is especially interested in computers? Combining those skills could very well help one move into a niche position as a forensic or online investigator. Or perhaps that investigator has a passion for coaching others. Combining those skills could open the door to a position in LP training.

Growing Opportunities

As loss prevention gets more and more integrated into the overall business, there will continue

to be more and more niche opportunities available to those willing to look for them. Data and information security is a growing need. Brand protection and online investigations is gaining importance (see "The Threat of Social Media" on page 17). RFID may create new opportunities in logistics and inventory management. Our global economy will certainly open up international opportunities for those who are adventurous or have language skills.

Finding your niche takes introspection, self-motivation, ongoing education, risk taking, and looking outside your box. But as every parent tells their child, if you can combine a job with what you are passionate about, you will love going to work every day. Finding your niche will not only give you more personal satisfaction, but also give your company a more satisfied, more motivated employee.

Jack Trlica

Editor and Publisher

April is a great month for me both personally and professionally. Twenty-eight years ago in April I married my best friend and very special lady, Cindy. Ten years ago in April, I committed to another relationship with Jim Lee, and we began work on a very special project—LossPrevention Magazine.

Over the past decade, much has changed in loss prevention. As we look back at the transformation that has occurred...even to this magazine...we see a history of evolution in process and technology as well as an evolution in criminal activity.

I was invited into a NCAA basketball tournament pool at the last minute with a group of friends who get together every year to watch the tournament. Without much in-depth knowledge of college basketball teams, I knew I didn't have much chance of picking winners. And, I was right.

While I did luck into a couple of winners, it made me realize that it takes ongoing observation and study, not just of your favorite team, but of all the teams in the tournament to do well. The same can be said of your success at winning inside your corporation.

Like the basketball tournament, your company is made up of a number of teams, each with its own team philosophy, star players, strengths, and weaknesses. In this case, however, you and your team are not trying to beat the other teams, but work with them to win the retail game. (Yes, I realize the analogy is not perfect.)

Think about all the various teams with whom you interface—operations, finance, logistics, merchandising, HR; not to mention those other teams out there who are trying to steal from you. Unless you know how operations works, for example, how will you know where to pass the ball to hit them in stride for a layup? Likewise, unless you know the latest shoplifting techniques, how will you know how to cut them off before they reach the basket?

All of this takes experience, knowledge, and ongoing study...not just of loss prevention techniques, but also of all the various offensive and defensive plays all these teams employ to be successful.

That's why you hear so many loss prevention executives encouraging the LP professionals in their organizations to become knowledgeable of the entire business, not just loss prevention. That's why the LPQ and LPC certifications have been designed to address all the many disciplines inside of retail. That's why college degrees require courses in a large variety of subjects [see "Making LP a Talent Destination for Retail Careers" on page 29].

Because team members and strategies change over time, it also requires ongoing study to keep up with the changes. While Michigan State and Baylor were strong picks in 2010, that doesn't mean they were good picks this year. (Michigan State lost in the first round, and Baylor didn't even make the tournament.)

If you are committed to advancing your career to the Sweet 16, the Elite 8, and ultimately to the Final Four, you need to commit yourself to the study and work it takes to get there. Fortunately, your company and the LP industry have a number of resources to support you. But it's up to you to make the time and invest the effort to be a winner. And don't overlook the many coaches inside your company who will gladly help you become a better team player and potential star.

Jack Trlica

Editor and Publisher

Securing the Supply Chain Against Terrorism