Report on Trump shooting blasts Secret Service for ‘troubling lack of critical thinking’

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/17/trump-shooting-report-secret-service-00184108

Many people who lead private sector security programs come from local, state, and federal government agencies; many suffer from the same lack of imagination, planning, and discipline that plague the Secret Service as do the corporate security programs they lead. And they often bring the same institutional turf wars they fought in the public sector to the private sector, further corrupted by careerism at the expense of professionalism. 

I often refer to them as “retired this and retired that’s” or RTTs. They sell their “expertise” in security because of their experience in law enforcement, especially federal, which may or may not be relevant to assessing and countering an organization’s actual security threats and related risks. In many cases, their primary qualification seems to be that they are experts in bureaucratic speaking and bureaucratic survival. 

So, bringing in people from the private sector needs to be carefully thought out. The people must be well-vetted to ensure it’s not just reintroducing a self-sustaining cycle of ineffectiveness and incompetence.

There’s no doubt that law enforcement and military experience, at all levels, is a great foundation to work in the security industry. But, their experience doesn’t make them automatically qualified to lead in private sector security or risk management….unless they’ve taken the time to gain the necessary experience and expertise.