 Hey, welcome back to the think tech Hawaii studios for this episode of security matters. So why I'm your host Andrew the security guy And today we've got Ty Smith from vigilance risk solutions joining us out of sunny, San Diego Where I was just visiting and it was beautiful, but hold Ty welcome Did it did it finally warm up up there? You know it's warmer, but I think we're expecting a pretty big storm to come through this week So you may have just missed it. Hi guys. I was on the beach at um that I was at an event and it was at the Coronado and there was I'm on the beach And they were laughing at me because I had a hoodie and a jacket. I know it was freezing. Anyway Thanks for joining us. You know you are coming from Hawaii. That's right You can't tell from my accent, but I really truly my blood has run thin after 30 years out here. I'm sure Um, I tell you Ty go ahead and give us some I like to kind of give our guests a feel of you know, your background your history as much as you feel like sharing Kind of bring us up through I might might jump in on a little bit of your career there and then You'll get us up to the company you have today Of course, yeah, so I was born and raised in east st. Louis, Illinois Join the navy at the age of 17. I just didn't see myself Really growing growing up in east st. Louis, Illinois So I wanted to get out and see the world join the navy Within the regular navy for about four and a half years as a military police officer criminal investigator and an Italian translator stationed over in sardinia, Italy When the towers fell and so after that, you know, I applied seal training was fortunate enough to get accepted And made my way to Coronado, California where I promptly started basic underwater demolition seal school Unfortunately, I successfully navigated that course And wound up going to an east coast seal team shortly thereafter and the rest was a blur I had a fantastic career in the seal teams. I completed six combat tours to the middle east Got a chance to operate at some really high levels and I just had a really really really cool career And at the end of my career in 2016, I knew I wanted to go into entrepreneurship And as as timing would have in my timing was right because I discovered a new and rapidly growing market that needed Very specialized skill sets in order to address a massive problem and that problem is workplace violence Yeah, so for sure you and you went into grad school Did was the navy paying while you were going to grad school or did you because that was a really nice deal when I was in They covered about 75% while I was on active duty, which helped a lot Yeah, the navy is well the military as a whole is really really good about that and especially current day The military is very pro education Even for the enlisted men and women a lot of people don't understand that Historically the difference between an officer in the military and an enlisted person in the military Is that historically the officers had at least a four-year degree? Whereas current day, that's not the case anymore. In fact, when I was a platoon chief at SEAL team one I had 14 enlisted SEALs and when I inherited those boys Half of them already had a four-year degree. These were enlisted men And by the time, you know, I finished with them the rest of them had at least four-year degrees. So I was really fortunate that I had great mentorship when I was in the SEAL teams Master chiefs that helped on me all the time about making sure that I got my education knocked out prior to retiring So I was really fortunate the navy paid for all of my education I didn't pay a single dime for my undergraduate degree at ashram university And then the navy said to grad school at usc to get a master's in business and they paid for that as well And I actually wound up launching vigilance risk out of Graduate school I was going into the last semester of graduate school when I launched the company So I got a lot of help From my entrepreneurship professors and my strategy professors when I was in grad school As I was standing this company up and that was about 3.4 years ago Wow, that is that's an awesome story. So you're you're transition out of military It sounds like it was a little easier than mine and I went I had it sort of backwards I went to the fleet and then they tried to send me off to the desert and I went for the 95 45 So I ended up down at Lackland Air Force Base at that police school there But I got to stay in Hawaii do a military police after that and Then I that was that was enough for me. Give me a sense of You know how how daunty it may have felt to get started with your own business because that's quite a leap You know when you come out of the military and sort of everything's planned everything's known what to do Except the mission of the day You know What was that? What was that like for you to get that started up again? Or to just to Just starting out Was was easy And I can laugh at it now, you know, because knowing what I know now is the amount of stress I'm under on a daily basis now it's totally laughable because Going into entrepreneurship I sort of had delusions of grandeur where I looked at it like well, this is no different from mission planning I'm going to build my con up. I'm going to plan for all the contingencies I'm going to identify all the players are involved make sure that the communications are set up so that Everyone's going to know and I'm just going to go And I really went into entrepreneurship thinking that Okay, this is going to be maybe a little different, but no worries. I got this yeah I build it and it'll come that every every beat is going to be fine And it's going to be smooth sailing and that's for 3.4 years And I would back on that time and I laugh because I had no idea it was going to become as hard as it is Welcome to the business world. So this is interesting to me because you you pointed out that you I believe you found a highly underserved market I talked to organizations on a constant basis That are very unprepared and don't understand the implications of what it is that you do and what it is that you bring to the table and they absolutely gloss over Employee engagement and all these things that can become the beginning of workplace violence Um, so how did you is it was that from your training that you knew that or did you identify that while you were in grad school As the sort of path you wanted to take your company down So when I was building the business model canvas for vigilance first when I was in grad school I thought At the beginning that we were primarily going to be a service model company or a training company We started immediately building active shooter response and awareness curriculums because we identified that to be a huge pain In the market, but once we started actually closing contracts and gaining customers Our customers started asking us for more and that caused myself and my two co-founders to look at one another and realize Hey, we've got a lot more To offer this problem than just training And that's when we actually moved forward building out the threatened vulnerability arm of the company as well as the emergency planning arm Of the company and now we even have a blended model because we have What they train for our customers as well But the deeper I got into the research that the deeper I got into this business The more I realized that active shooter is just a very small piece of a massive problem Workplace violence as a whole is the mountain and active shooters really just the molehill And as we started working with bigger customers I really started to open my aperture a lot more And realize how these problems actually come to be The different types of workplace violence and like you were saying how each of them could have different triggers and therefore What we found is that in the market there are Several companies that are working in this space of workplace violence mitigation But most of those companies are at jack of all trades Which means that they can't master workplace violence mitigation And that's why we decided that we were going to be extremely focused But we also started to discover that In a lot of middle market and bigger companies a lot of those companies just went up so quickly that Physical security was at the very bottom of the totem pole as they were building those companies out And for obvious reasons I can't blame them when you're starting a startup company You're worried about really important things like marketing and strategy and Who's going to lead sales and and all this other really important stuff? And so a lot of these bigger companies are now playing catch up and that's where we help Yeah, is there um, do you I I'm just going to guess Give us a feel for the percentage of teams or groups that you walk into that have I'll just say zero policy Around this particular question be it physical security or or workplace, uh, you know violence mitigation Have they even begun? You know half of them have started none of them have started What's your what's your take on the percentages you're seeing today and maybe today versus a few years ago So i'm gonna i'm gonna be nice when I say that currently today I would say that It's still probably around 90 to 95 percent Of companies that don't really have anything in place several years ago I would say that number was closer to 99 percent But currently there's a lot of urgency in the market Especially here in the state of california because Primarily because of the active shooter threat these mass shootings have gotten so out of hand that it's forcing The leaders of of power not just our country, but even down to the individual states To take a look at hey, what are we doing in order to mitigate the risk? Violence in the workplace for example In here in california in april of 2018 Cal usher released an addendum to the general duty clause is it's section 33 42 The general duty clause that states that any Health care organization that has direct provider of patient contact Annually is no longer a a nice to have you are required to be aware of all of your You're required to be aware of all of your organization's threats and vulnerabilities You also have to communicate with your employees regarding what those threats and vulnerabilities are because gross negligence Is no longer going to be acceptable in a court of law And you will be they also have to have a workplace violence prevention plan Within their injury and illness prevention plan or an emergency operations policy that actually addresses workplace violence mitigation And they have to provide interactive training to every employee Regarding workplace violence mitigation while following april 2018. We've seen how many more mass shooting events that have killed how many more people We've seen las vegas. We've seen youtube. We've seen san antonio Marjorie still in Douglas high school down in florida They just keep happening therefore that's caused cal osha to go back to the table and start the discussion and the draft of Addendum 33 43 which will be an extension of 33 42 Except this new addendum will cover general industry So I think that really soon possibly within the next 365 days here in the state of california All companies regardless of industry regardless of size Number of employees all companies will be required to at a minimum Do those things annually in order to mitigate the risk of workplace violence? Yeah, and it don't you think it's like for some reason a little too late and it makes me sad that it took You know regulatory guidance or mandates from osha to do these things give us We're gonna go take a break pay a few bills We'll be back in about one minute and we're talking about workplace violence and mitigation. So hang around Hi, i'm rusty komori host of beyond the lines on think tech hawaii My show is based on my book also titled beyond the lines and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence Leadership and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business sports and life Which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness Join me every monday as we go beyond the lines at 11 a.m. Aloha Aloha, this is winston welch. I am your host of out and about where every other week Mondays at three we explore a variety of topics in our city state nation and world And events organizations the people that fuel them It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows You got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome Studio here where we can get your ideas out as well So I look forward to you Tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're going to learn a lot You're going to come away inspired like I do So I'll see you every other week here at three o'clock on monday afternoon. Aloha Hey, welcome back to security matters away. We're talking with ty smith and we're going through a professionals perspective on risk of workplace violence mitigation and A lot of companies as we've discussed really haven't taken steps and from the top down haven't taken the time to build policy To put in procedures to do the training and so california is taken upon themselves through osha Occupational self and health safety and health association To dress some legislation around this in the healthcare space and ty you're thinking that's going to flow right on down into the rest of industry Which I think we need Absolutely, we do need that because The leaders of companies regardless of the size of that company regardless of how many employees you have or what industry you're in Leaders of people have to claim responsibility for the safety and security Of the people that are working within their organizations. So I agree with you. It's a little it's a little sad that it takes You know the california occupational safety and health administration actually putting out guidance and requirements, but It's better late than never because this is something that we absolutely Have to address and we have to address it right now because what we see from the data that we're gathering is that It's not going away. Yeah, it's not Increasing when I say that it's not I'm talking about the active shooter threat Is it so bad that people need to become paranoid or you know not do the things that they enjoy doing But we absolutely can no longer afford to ignore it Yeah, and you know on the on the government side we talk a lot about the insider threat And this insider threat rather comes from someone who becomes disgruntled or someone's coerced them by payment The fact that you've got these Workplace teammates who can allow another teammate to get So far out on the ledge or be under so much duress or so much You know without saying something without offering some help because workers notice that their fellow workers Act in different. He's having some troubles and this is where this conversation has to start You know you you'd like to see family engaged with family But oftentimes today people aren't even working in the same city where the rest of their family is and you may not know That they're disenfranchised What's your what's your take on that because the I think the military was quite a bit better about Taking care of your shipmates In the workspace. Why do you think it's so different? Well, I think that companies have to focus on And not just companies and their companies schools and our religious organizations We as a whole have to focus on The continuation of the development of interpersonal relationships We we live in the day And in age of technology where people would much rather talk to one another via email chat boxes and texts Then to actually have an in-person conversation with someone because we Teach our customers that it's really difficult To notice Especially right away if one of your colleagues is deviating from their baseline behavior If you never spend time actually talking Yeah to that person or those people and that's really really important. So First and foremost, we have to get back to talking to one another. We definitely have to become Much more situationally aware if you think about You know when 9 11 happened in the united states every american in this country was as Situationally aware as a human being could possibly be. I mean we were watching one another like hawks But we have short-term memories And so we have to become a lot more situationally aware Not paranoid But just situationally aware of what's going on around us at all times Who is around us? What objects are around me? Where am I right now? I'm going into a movie theater. Do I know where exits are and again, it's not paranoia. It's just Pulling your face away from your cell phone for even three seconds Every 30 seconds just to look around and see what's happening around you Yeah, they they had to pass a law here that you can't use your cell phone when you're crossing the street Because people would just walk out in the street and get run over. That's how bad that That habit's gotten. Yeah, it's actually there's a law against it now. So Um, I wanted to touch on some things. So you're you know, you're you're creating this Training, you know, you're focused on on on bringing this to people And I know you guys are started to develop some I think it's like e-learning or is it remote where where you can Send this training into an organization and then maybe come in and do some live work groups Or how are you? How are you deploying some of these solutions that you've developed? Yeah, so I'll answer that by telling you a little bit more about Vigilance risk solutions. So they are a physical security and risk company that specializes in workplace violence mitigation Okay, that's all we do and we help our customers to mitigate the risk of workplace violence by way of Building threatened vulnerability assessments. And so what that means is that we go Into a customer's organization and we identify all of their physical digital environmental and human vulnerabilities and then we build a customer's emergency operations policy We identify all of the threats and the vulnerabilities and then we build strategies in order to mitigate the risk of those vulnerabilities becoming threats and those threats actually Becoming violence and that emergency operations policy is something that the customer can use to help State to the left a boom and mitigate the risk of a violent scenario actually happening but also I think it's really important that I take a short sidebar here And mention the fact that there is no such thing as prevention So if you ever hear of a security professional or a company saying that hey, we are going to prevent Violence from happening within your organization That's just not true because a motivated individual will find a way So we help organizations to mitigate the risk of violence happening within that organization So that emergency operations policy also serves as a playbook That the organization can use in the wake of a violent attack In order to get back to normal operations as quickly as possible Because every day that that organization isn't operating the way it was designed to operate That organization is losing money Daily sure so once we build the emergency operations policy We then start looking at training the employees training employees regarding what is in the emergency operations policy so that In the event of an incident Not only does The employee understand what leadership of that organization expects of them But also the leadership knows what the employees are expecting of them This is what we are planning to do in order to End this event and keep you safe and to help you recover Some bad event So we train the employees regarding what's in the emergency operations policy And this is why this is important andrew going back to the question you asked a couple of minutes ago We the companies that we find that that do actually have A process or a policy built to address workplace violence chances are Once we track it down It's got about five years of dust sitting on top of it and we actually do this We randomly pick employees and we ask them what's in your your organization's emergency operations policy And you can probably get the number of employees that have no clue what we're talking about When we ask that question. So we train them on the emergency operations policy. Then we also train them Regarding workplace violence mitigation. So we train courses like workplace violence mitigation and awareness active shooter awareness and response Corporate travel safety things along those lines and we do that training in person So that employees actually get that interactivity They get the ability to to ask questions of true subject matter experts Our subject matter experts come from the highest qualified physical security global security experts On the planet from Navy SEALs all the way down to United States secret service agents SWAT police officers And then lastly We have to ensure Sustainment of the training and that's where our web-based training comes into play because we want employees and students to have Year-round unlimited access to this information So that they can also take ownership and their own safety In security when they shouldn't have to wait around for their boss to say hey It's that time of the year you need to do your your web-based training for workplace violence. No, that is not enough We want them to have unlimited access to this content So that they can be responsible for their own training and they can train as much as possible And we have a few minutes left. So I want to get your thoughts on one thing We we spend a lot of time in our organization teaching people how to have that difficult conversation You know that one that where you have to come to someone say hey Are you okay, you know and and try to have that with some empathy and and try to Is there's some skills? I think in this interpersonal stuff that that you mentioned that Interpersonal relationship that I think we've sort of lost And so we spend time teaching there hoping that that's the the base of that Is this something that you you bring in into the training that you're giving as well as it started that low Absolutely, so especially within our workplace violence courses in our active shooter courses We have modules where we discuss human behavior And psychological and physiological indications of violence so that people learn how to read other people For example, we talk about You know a human being's eyes and how what a person is doing or failing to do with their eyes Be an indication that something is amiss. Maybe that person isn't preparing for violence, but something is definitely wrong for example In the united states of america, it's it's in our culture that if you're having a conversation with someone You have you practice eye contact with that human being Whereas we know that if if a person is refusing to make eye contact with you and you're already having a conversation That is an uncomfortable conversation Chances are there's something off about that person and again It doesn't mean that that person is contemplating violence Right, but that person is definitely showing you Physically that their mind is moving somewhere else and they Don't really want to have the conversation That they're having and a good example of that is think about it For all of you out there that have kids Consider this how many times have you asked your child a question and you already know the answer to that question And you look at him and you say hey timmy Did you take that cookie off the counter? And when timmy goes to answer you and you know that he's not going to tell you the truth Where does he look does he look down at his feet as he says no or does he look at you in your eyes? So we go through Those types of modules where we train individuals to understand human behavior And to be able to pick up on those some of those verbal pews as well as those those physical indicators like Noticing if you're communicating with a person and that person's may be closing off to you folding their arms or You see their hands are down at their side But instead of their hands being relaxed their hands are clenched into this Those are indicators that that human being is becoming really uncomfortable and that's a really important thing That has to be taught when you're talking when you're talking about Active shooter awareness and response and workplace violence mitigation Yes, that's a fact interpersonal communication is where it starts Workplace violence mitigation is possible Get to work on it if you don't know how to work on it Please reach out to vigilance risk solutions tie smith and his team can take care of you They've got a lot of answers. Thank you so much because security matters aloha