 Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. We've got a probably interesting, perhaps insightful, perhaps I meant that with the C-I-T-E site, like insight, but anyway, we're gonna talk about COVID-19 in the industry and Lewis Boogheriz is joining me today. We had a little bit of a LinkedIn chat and decided to put this episode out. So looking forward to your comments, looking forward to your thoughts and looking forward to your ideas for keeping us a lot safer. Lewis is with me from Olivier Corporation and he's the CEO president there. Lewis, I know you're a popular guy in the industry, but go ahead and give for our viewers who may not know you. Take a few minutes there and give us your background, your history and brag about Olivier because I love what you guys are doing over there. Awesome, okay. Well, I've been in the industry longer than I'd like to admit. I think we're at 31 years or something like that. I started out as a security guard, worked my way up in the industry. I worked on the guarding side of the business for about 20 years and then transitioned to the system side. So I'm kind of a rare breed of guarding and systems combined together. So at Olivier, what we focus on is providing holistic security solutions to our customers. So we're in Southern California, which means we have a lot of Class A high-rises, office, properties, large medical facilities. And so what we really focus on is bringing that security system and the personnel piece together so that the customer gets the best value for their buck. So that's what we're trying to do. People seem to like it and we're enjoying ourselves. Yeah, I've always been a fan of the human component. You know, coming out of systems background and weapon systems, right? Which were fairly well automated, but someone still had to tell us when it was okay to pull the trigger, right? And the security industry can get too techy sometimes and leave the people equation out, which you really need them at that moment of command and control or the moment of making a decision about what to do next. And I don't see how those two marriages haven't happened quicker. I know there's a lot of large global companies that are trying to marry those pieces up, but what you guys have done from it, like a forethought, like this is the package you roll in the door with, I think it's super valuable. And I'm sure that the success you're having, there's helping you grow the business. Yeah, I mean, the bottom line is people spend a lot of money on people and they spend a lot of money on systems. And a lot of times they don't get the most value out of either one of those, right? And the people component a lot of times is the most expensive part of a program. And especially in our industry on the system side is completely left out of the equation, right? Big, beautiful screens, fancy stuff and nobody knows how to use it effectively, right? So being able to bring those things together is for me, super important as somebody who used to sit in front of that stuff. And well, we changed the VHS tapes back when I was doing, but a little bit different. I love it, I love it. Well, let's say, this will flip us into our show. So do your customers, do you take customers or do they go out to the trade shows typically? And you take them around, maybe show them some newer things that they haven't seen before. Is that part of the business trades that you folks have? Yeah, so I mean, the way this whole thing started is when I was at Allied Universal running their systems division, we would take clients to ISE because we would talk about technology with them, but being able to allow them to touch and feel it, completely change the experience. And oh, by the way, they got to go to Vegas, right? Which they enjoyed. So we did, at Olivier, I continued the tradition. This is our fifth year of taking people. So we had a total of 25 people that went. 12 of those were my people and 13 of them were clients. We had a client advisory board meeting. We had a private room where we were hosted some vendors because not all the vendors were on the floor. And then the second day we went out on the floor and everybody was very optimistic. We told everyone that if they were vaccinated, they didn't need to wear a mask. And if they were not vaccinated, we asked that they wear a mask. We had one person out of our group wear a mask. So knowing that 50% of the population is vaccinated, we can see even within our group how that was received. But the show was great. Everybody was really happy to get out. You were there, right? Everybody was having a great time. And really the only check and balance that I saw while we were there were the little thermal screeners, right? When you walked in, you put your wrist on it and you got a dot. Other than that, I did not see 50% of the population of IAC wearing masks. I mean, maybe you saw something different, but I didn't see a lot of masks at the show. So... No. Yeah. There was utter, I think, freedom. I think PSA, we held PSA Tech six weeks ago or whenever that was kind of the first event. I thought sort of the industry tester, it was a little bit different environment, a lot smaller, maybe a little bit of a bubble there in the hotel and it was still masks required to be worn except like when you sat down to eat or whatever. And so that was adhered to quite a bit. There was a few times when I was sitting upstairs in the lounge and noticed that there was large groups of people and all of them had their masks dangling off their face and so we weren't really, really good. But the outcome of that event was that everyone was so happy to see each other. And we had a really unique thing there that I hadn't seen before, but there were different colored lanyards. So green was like, I'm vaccinated, you can hug me because I haven't seen you into a year and a half. I think yellow was fist bump, but keep your distance and red was like, no, stay back for me, keep your mask on. So that was kind of a nice visual indicator of people as I think comfortability with themselves and with being there. I come from Hawaii, so we hug a lot. So I was hunting down everybody with a green lanyard and I hugged them, that's what I do. And then afterwards we didn't, I didn't hear of any cases. So I was like, all right, it seems like maybe this is gonna be possible and ISC is gonna be a go. Now, we knew that the event was gonna happen. We didn't know how many people would show up. A lot of vendors had pulled out. But Christine had to speak. So we knew we'd be there that morning. So we decided to go arriving in Vegas. It was real obvious there weren't gonna be any masks born in Nevada anywhere, right? So that totally different environment from when we arrived in Denver for a PSA. So, you know, the next morning, the hand scanners, right? So nobody wearing masks but getting tested. So I'm like, well, I guess that's good. You know, I didn't, I thought it was odd. Anyway, I thought it was okay. I mean, it's nice to have some sort of scanning going on, but what were they going to do if you had a temperature? Do you know? I don't know. I didn't see anybody not passing a thing. No, I didn't see it either, you know, and there are various impressions of, you know, how effective those were anyway, right? Which we know. So, but, you know, look, we were all very positive when we were there. We felt, you know, we were, it was a very positive event. Really, I didn't have any negative feelings about the entire thing until I got home. And so, you know, we were home for two days and my phone rings and it's, I don't wanna call anybody out. It's somebody that was at the show and they said, hey, I got COVID. And my heart just went, oh God, like, you know, just stuff we didn't really think about because like you said, Andrew, at PSA, it was great. Like we didn't hear about any cases, right? I kind of assumed we had this thing figured out. And then I'm like, okay. And then the phone rings again. I have COVID. And so we had of the group we took, we had three people that got it. And so then I go into, well, okay. My, you know, anybody that works for me has to quarantine for two weeks. So, you know, we go into that process, you know, we'll let other folks deal with it the way they deal with it. But then we had to, you know, I felt the responsibility to notify people. So any vendors that we met with at the show, we notify, right? But that was us of our own volition, making phone calls and sending emails and letting people know. I sent then my entire crew that went, you know, at 150 bucks a pop to get rapid tested, right? Immediately. So everybody got tested, everybody, everybody came back negative, which was great. And then the probably the part, the part where I started to feel like, well, first of all, I heard other people had gotten it. So I'm thinking, okay, other people have gotten it, but nobody's notified me. And then, and look, I'm not, you know, we'll talk a little bit from an after action standpoint. Andrew, you know, as well as me, the number one thing in an after action review is you don't want to assess blame, right? We're just trying to learn. But when we notified, you know, when we notified Reed, you know, we got kind of the canned response of, you know, if you weren't close contact with anyone, please let them know. And we're following CDC protocols, which they were, you know what I mean? And that was it. But, you know, if I weren't in the situation I was in and one of my employees had been around somebody else who had had COVID and I bring them home and then they infect everybody. And now I've got 10 people out for two weeks, right? I mean, it could be crippling to a business. And so when we're bringing all these people together, I just thought if my folks weren't the only people there and if three of my 25 that went got it, so say 10%, 7%, whatever. I mean, how many thousands of people were there? That means there were literally hundreds of cases of COVID as a result of that event. And I heard nothing. And so that's really at the point where I went on LinkedIn and I went, you know what? We need to talk about this because we have to do better. We're security and safety industry leaders. And we just went to a event where nobody was wearing masks. We're using this little wrist scanner and we're calling it good. And we're supposed to be setting the example, right? For the rest of the country. And so that's why I really put it up there. Not that I know exactly what the solution should be. I know that it could have been catastrophic to my business. I could have had multiple people come back and I had to quarantine them. I was very fortunate. And I just, I don't know. I mean, it just seemed to me like there should have been the opportunity for there to be more communication. And, you know, I don't know. Contract tracing used to be a thing, right? And I don't, does that even exist? Because, you know, there was no opportunity to do that at the show. So, you know, I don't know. I just, for me, it was a situation where it just seemed like a lot more should have been done. And us as leaders going into the, into shows where, you know, Reed's putting it on, but, you know, it's SIA and PSA and us as leaders, you know, that are, that are doing this, right? We can't put this on Reed because us as industry leaders, right? Deciding what it's gonna look like going forward. And the last time we want to create like a super spreader event, right? Because of something that we're doing, right? And we send a bunch of people home with COVID. So, so that's what happened. And that's kind of what started the dialogue. So, I mean, you know, I obviously you saw a lot of people had a lot of opinions on this. And, you know, I just think we, you know, I just think we can do better, I guess, is the bottom line from my standpoint. And I think we're gonna have to, I'm not sure why. So, I had that Apple contact tracing, you know, on my phone and I didn't get any alerts from that. And so, I'm guessing that the people that I know that got it, that I was near, very near didn't have it turned on or didn't report it to the app that they had come up positive. You know what I mean? So, there's some sort of universal tools baked into some of our technology that could be used to alert us. It isn't like we need to, as an industry, build another one or per event, have one or register for it. But maybe that would be a good idea. To your point, if there were 9,000 at the event and at ISC West and 10% or so were infected, you know, that's nearly 1,000 people that went home. And like in Hawaii's fairly well vaccinated, like 60%, but our, the current spread rate is like almost 7%. So, if those 1,000 people, whoever they came around, let's just say it was 500, in that next week, if they were infected and say they're vaccinated and didn't even know they had it, you know, 7% of the people that they came around, vaccinated or not, potentially are infected. And so, you know, to your point, there's no way for us, if we're gonna be leaders, we need to be able to somehow follow that data or alert people or maybe have an institutional practice or a per company practice of sort of isolation upon return or something like that, right? Not, maybe you don't have to quarantine at home, but home office, you know, wear a mask for the next two weeks, get tested, you know, three days later, seven days later. In Hawaii, it's still free for a resident as long as you're not traveling. It's not for travel, so it's no good for travel, but it is good if you live here and you just wanna go get tested. And it's, you know, you get the results back in about a day. So, but still, to your point, we could lose our people for that whole day because, you know, obviously, you'd like to have them tested before they come back to the office, right? Yeah, and for us, it's $150 a pop, right? So, you know, I drop a couple grand testing people, which, you know, is the right thing to do, but, you know, yeah, it's just one of the situations where, you know, even if it were informally notifying, you know, even if it were just like, hey, we're not trying to track anyone, we're not trying to invade anyone's privacy, but if your company has a positive, send a note, right? Just so that they, you know, just to get some general, just some general information, because again, if I hadn't been told by these people, I wouldn't have tested anybody and I wouldn't have known, but I think it's, I don't think we're being unreasonable, Andrew, and assuming 10% of the folks there got COVID. I mean, somewhere, but you know, I'm not trying to create history, you know, between five and 10%, I think is a reasonable amount, which means, and other than you and I getting personal phone calls from people, there were no notifications. So 600 people at a trade show got COVID and we have no idea if we were around them or anyone else was around them or anything happened. And so, you know, when we even sell contract trade, contact tracing in our industry, right? As a product. I think so. We don't even, you know, so it was just one of these things where I'm like, you know, we were fortunate because we were notified and we could react to it, but there were a lot of people that went home from that show and they weren't notified. And, you know, of the three of mine that got, you know, that I'm aware of two were vaccinated, one was unvaccinated, the two vaccinated people, you know, didn't have really strong symptoms and, you know, and the one that wasn't did, but, you know, there are people that were vaccinated that would have very mild symptoms and they wouldn't even know unless somebody said, hey, there was some COVID at the show, you might wanna go get tested. Or like you said, maybe, you know, maybe it is a standard practice that you get tested when you come back, you know, I mean, every company's gonna decide to do this however they want, but I just thought it was important for them to know it was there and I wanted to let folks know that because I didn't see any type of formal note of, you know, Reed didn't contact anybody to say, you know, and I'm not putting this on them, I'm just saying they weren't gonna notify anyone. And other than person, you know, people taking personal responsibility for this, I didn't get any other notifications from any other companies either, right? It was all person to person individual notification. So that just felt odd to me, you know, that there was a level of responsibility, I guess ultimately, you know. Yeah, we could definitely do better with our leadership. I'll tell you what, we're gonna pay some bills, I'll lose and I'll be back in just one minute. So stick around. Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness. I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life. I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha. Hey, we're back. Thanks for joining us on Security Matters. Again, Luis Bogariz is here with me, and we are a little concerned about how we're leading as a security industry through these times of COVID. You know, Delta this variant, I think caught us all off guard. You know, we were getting comfortable with our shows. We were getting comfortable with our mandates. We're wearing masks. We're getting vaccinated. We had a PSA tech show that went well. Then we had an ISC West show that went well. I mean, everyone loved the show. I haven't heard anybody, everybody's glad to get back together as an industry, but we know there were a lot of cases that came out of that, both vaccinated people and unvaccinated people who got COVID. And I've had some friends that were vaccinated that got sick from this new variant that they caught. So this is not something we should take lightly. And you know, Luis brought up the point already that we've got an impact to our workforce that comes back if they're infected, they've got a quarantine for a couple of weeks. You might lose those people in their productivity. You've also got to maybe pay for their tests depending on where you're at. In Hawaii, we can get that done for free, but not in Los Angeles. So if you know, depending on the size of your workforce, there's a bit of risk now that you have to look at. There's an impact to having them go to these future events. And I don't think the events are stopping. I'm glad, I guess. I guess I'm glad they're not stopping, but maybe we can do better to lower this impact or potential impact of this Delta variant that seems across an awful lot of boundaries awful quickly in comparison to the earlier version that we seem to be able to crush with vaccination and masking and social distancing. That maybe is not gonna be enough now. So what could we do next that was going forward? I mean, how stringent you think we need to be upon arrival, compared to just the temperature check that we did at IC West? Yeah, I think so. We have a lot of large medical providers as you do too, that we do business with. And we just got to notice today that they will require the vaccine for everyone or a recent negative test, one or the other. So why wouldn't we as an industry require the same thing, right? And really, this isn't a, hey, I'm trying to take your personal freedoms out, I'm not, we're not politicizing what's going on and we're not trying to do any of that. But if we take personnel to these shows, we don't wanna have to come home and quarantine our staff for two weeks. So really this is a business decision, right? We want everybody there, everybody there healthy and then get everybody home healthy. Now there's a plane ride home, there's a plane ride there, there's, if we were in Vegas, there's all the time people spent, I don't even wanna think about where people spent their time in Vegas, but there's a lot of other stuff going on, but we have to do our part. So I think, so if you think about that, if you're not vaccinated, you're wearing a mask, if you're, or maybe where are we requiring masks for everyone, or we're requiring a recent negative test, just as a starting point. And I know, Andrew, you were talking about folks that are putting shows on that are requiring vaccinations, right? For everyone that's attending them. So, I just, there was a lot of optimism. We had just, we were like crushing this thing. And then we went to the show and everything changed really while we were there. A lot of the guidance changed, right? And so I get it. I mean, I get that there was a ton of optimism, but our jobs as security leaders and health leaders is to stay in contact with the times and what's going on and react to it. And that's what's happening right now. So, I think at a minimum, it would be nice to see those. And again, we talked about it, but what happened to contact tracing? I mean, is that just a theory? I mean, does it, is it really happen? I don't know. I just, those are some basic things, I think that could be done that would completely change. I think it would take a lot of risk out of the show in general. And the impact of contact tracing is fairly minimal. I mean, this isn't absolute. That way, and it's fairly good. It's gonna be post-event, right? So, all we would find out is after the fact, if someone reported that they had a positive test and then you would find out that you were around them, at least you could go get tested and not unintentionally be spreading the virus that you may have because you're asymptomatic. So, I think there's value in that idea 100%. I know there's a, there's people protesting down at Hawaii's state buildings or start County Hall this morning about going back to mandating masks. But maybe for sure, obviously it's always a voluntary thing that you can wear a mask at the show. Maybe that advice needs to be pushed a little bit. That seems to help with the spread. We know social distancing isn't going to happen, right? Because we're at a show. Everybody wants to get together. So, they're gonna be standing close. I mean, through a mask, you gotta stand in close. I don't know about your experience, but it's harder to hear, right? So, it's a little bit of an anti-distancing sort of a problem there. But maybe that has to happen. Maybe it'd be nice to know like the way PSA did, people who are vaccinated or who aren't or who want to be the red, yellow, green, lanyard type idea, right? Who aren't afraid to be contacted or who are, like stay away. Maybe that would give some more comfort to everyone and be an additional level of assurance that the people who do go there could have for maintaining some boundaries. I don't know, I'm not sure what else we can do. I'm not a fan of kind of going backwards. I like that the industry is cranking back up again. Business is strong. It was strong through COVID security industries, one of those kind of industries. It's very resilient. What are your thoughts? Do you, what do you think the impact would be if we asked the industry to not show up if they weren't vaccinated? Just that, or if they weren't willing to wear a mask the whole time? What do you think would happen? I mean, you know, look, you know, again, I mean, I take this back to, you know, used to be if you worked in a hospital and you didn't get the flu vaccine, you had to wear a mask, right? So if that was just the policy, right? And a lot of the hospitals out here are kind of leading the way around what should happen, right? And, you know, it's your vaccinated or you're gonna show a recent negative test and you're gonna mask up, right? That's what's gonna happen. You know, we're leaders in this industry, right? We, you know, we have this obligation to set the example in my opinion. So, you know, I don't have an issue with people being at a show that aren't vaccinated if they're willing to mask up. I just think then we should see 50% of the show wearing masks, right? Yeah. And, you know, I think the other thing, you know, Andrew, that's interesting, we talked about it when we first started talking is we were doing thermal screening at that show. And we know that's not an effective screening method. Now Reed's doing it because it meets the requirement but for us as industry leaders to have a show that says whatever ISE says, you know, security industry, global, this, that, GSX, the global thing and be doing thermal screening because, you know, regardless of how anybody feels about how the actual thermal screeners work, it is not an effective tool to provide a healthy environment. We know that, right? So I think those are the things where we look at this and we just go, you know, we don't put the shows on but we have leadership in roles that support these shows and I just think that that conversation about how we role model what we're doing and the dialogue over on what we're doing needs to be stepped up and regardless of where we end up. And it was just, you know, ISE was one of those things where I think everybody felt like we were on the down, you know, we were over the hump and they're like, all right, over half the people are gonna be vaccinated, we're gonna tell everyone we're wearing masks, we're gonna screen them and we're all good. And it didn't work. And now the numbers are worse, right? We're at 70% capacity over 70% capacity in our ICUs here in LA and it's getting worse. And so we don't wanna contribute to the problem. So, you know, I think, you know, when you look at that and you say, okay, you're either vaccinated or you're showing a recent negative test and you're masking up. I mean, it doesn't sound unreasonably, I know some people might have an issue, it might affect attendance a little bit but I mean, isn't the priority really getting everybody there and home safely? I mean, that really should be ultimately the priority, right? So... Yeah. And especially for a security industry, you know, and we're going to Florida, right? Florida is not doing well. Their cases are skyrocketing. We've got, what, six weeks, maybe six weeks till the show, five weeks. So there's plenty of time, if you're watching this show today, maybe to consider, you know, what you're going to do to help, you know, there's time, I think what I read, it takes about a month after, you know, you've had sort of your shot, then two weeks go by, another shot, and then a few weeks later, you probably got full immunity, but that's one way you can protect yourself and potentially, I can't tell about the spread, right? It just seems like this thing, you know, vaccinated people tend to carry it as well. So keep that in mind. So when you return, you don't come back and infect your office or your family, maybe, you know, work on a little bit of, you know, you'd hate that to be masked at home until you can get tested, but, you know, maybe presume infection. If you had thought about it that way, how would you act? Maybe there's a different sort of way to think about it. We've got about a minute left, and I'm talking too much, Lewis. What's your heartfelt plea for our industry, man? You're a leader amongst men out here. So what, give us your, give us your ask. Well, no, I would just ask that as is, and you know, the other folks putting on GSX, because that's the next big show, put their thinking caps on, look at some industry best practices and make some really, you know, effective recommendations and suggestions for the show. It's an opportunity for us to show leadership, to role model the right way to do this. If we want to stay open, we have to do this the right way. So I would challenge them to do that. And, you know, have a spirited dialogue around this and then let's figure it out. Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much. I hope we get it figured out. I hope we continue to lead and our industry has that opportunity sitting in front of us. Thanks for joining us today, Lewis. Thanks for taking the time. And I will hopefully see you soon, sir, in the flesh with a mask. That was great. Thank you. Aloha.