Security Director vs. Security and Life
Safety Director
How professionals are bringing unique arrays of skills and experience together to meet this new and challenging title in corporate environments

By Erica D. Harrison, CPP

When William J. Curcie leaves his assignment with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office at the Riverhead Correctional Facility, within an hour he is likely to be supervising his town’s fire and rescue teams in Miller Place, Long Island. Here, he’s chief of a volunteer team responsible for addressing civilian emergencies.

For instance, Curcie and his team may be responding to a Suffolk County Fire and Rescue radio dispatch to assist an elderly woman suffering a cardiovascular accident at a local shopping center. As a New York state certified first responder, Curcie can provide emergency care and oxygen until his ambulance and EMS team arrives. Or he may be overseeing his firefighting teams as they extinguish a home fire started by an unsupervised candle burning through a countertop.

In one breath, he controls criminals. In the next, he saves lives and protects property. Because of the distinct locations where Curcie performs the different tasks, the dichotomy is reasonable. Yet, as you will see in the article below, there are times when the tactical training he initiates for Sheriff’s Department employees serves his firefighters as well.

In a corporate setting, when the job title is “security and life safety director,” the mindsets have to meld, and it isn’t always easy.

For most people leaving law enforcement careers, it is a short jump to add loss prevention and executive protection into their mindsets. But the loss prevention issue has expanded multifold in today’s corporations.  It’s now about preventing loss of life for everyone in the organization. There’s a new learning curve, with additional skill sets to develop and new certifications to maintain.

The security and life safety director may also find some surprising challenges with this expanded responsibility. In a strict security mode, the director may have few interactions with accounts payable clerks. Yet, everything changes when he has to coordinate these employees as they practice evacuation drills. He has to win their trust and establish his leadership beforehand. He has to sell them on his game plan for getting them out of any potential danger. Otherwise, it is unlikely they will do what he says when he says it—fast!

Balancing Act

Some of the skills from a law enforcement background apply directly to the life safety environment, but the mindset and context change.

As chief of the Miller Place Fire Department, Curcie is the executive officer for the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Tactical Team. He has served the organization for 27 years as a sergeant. Curcie teaches fellow corrections officers to study a subject’s body language at all times. Often, people’s eye movements or musculature indicate an aggressive move before it’s made.

When an officer’s guard is lowered, the unexpected occurs. A person in custody is released from handcuffs at some point during processing. Without warning or windup, she slugs the officer in the face. The immediate response is to suppress the subject, re-handcuff, attach leg irons, check for injuries and respond as necessary.

But Curcie’s role changes when he drives away from the jails. He’s one of the men that Miller Place residents count on to respond to emergencies, save lives and rescue people. He’s also tasked with keeping his hundred or so firefighting and emergency medical personnel injury-free during their dangerous work.

It is more unusual for victims trapped in burning spaces to assault responding firefighters. However, he still trains teams to be aware that people may panic. A victim in a smoky fire can be disoriented and impede rescue. Firefighters must know how to get the victims and themselves out of the blaze alive.

Curcie blends strength and calm in a crisis, along with the ability to shift roles quickly. He has to see where similar approaches apply and where to use a distinctly different focus.

Dual Experience – It’s Still a Challenge

For those who have tackled the role of ”security and life safety director” in modern corporations and organizations, the skill set and role shifting are even more complex.

Michael Dziuk, Security and Life Safety Director for 140 Broadway, brought 20 years of law enforcement experience, consulting work for NBC, and fire-safety directing work for New School University to his assignment at this building in the WTC area. Mike is supported by a full complement of contract security officers from Guardian Security, who carry out his initiatives on a daily basis.

When asked why more people leaving law enforcement don’t pursue this dual-focused work, life safety and security, Dziuk described the situation succinctly: It takes a different mindset. Police officers undergo a specific type of training. They concentrate on what you can’t do. In the private sector, it is much more a matter of finding a solution. Dziuk said he was influenced by ex-police chiefs he met in the Midtown business improvement district who had already made the mindset change.

“One of the first things I learned [when I left NYPD] was that there is a different set of rules [in the private sector],” said Dziuk. “There was an adjustment period, and you have to want to make the changes. It is the only way it works.”

In a corporate setting, he appreciated the level of communication required to make things run efficiently. The need for constant communication and keeping everyone in the loop was a necessity. Meetings were represented by all levels of the organization, from cleaning staff to vice presidents.  Everyone brought a different perspective to completing tasks or solving problems. “A better means to an end,” he said.

Dziuk noted that because he’d been a New York City firefighter from 1982 to 1983 and became a FDNY-certified fire safety director some years before his current assignment, he was already attuned to the fire and life safety aspects of his new work. Dziuk, who advocates ongoing training for his security staff, reflects his commitment to learning in his resume. His college training was at Brooklyn College with a semester of nursing at Downstate Medical School. He’s taken the CPP course and an array of law enforcement-sponsored training, including Microsoft’s class on anticounterfeiting & Internet investigations and the U.S. Secret Service’s electronic crimes course.

“Security is a dynamic field. There is more changing now than ever, especially since 2001,” he said. Dziuk retired from the NYPD earlier that same year. “What we have is tighter security. Before, the guard in front of the door was an accepted level of protection. Now, with bag screening at building entrances, there’s a heightened consciousness.” He hopes that it never goes back to the old way, but he points out that not everyone shares his wish for heightened awareness.

Luckily, his present employer doesn’t argue with him on budget, but at other workplaces, his budget was disappointing. He said defending the expenditures was never a problem, but that didn’t mean they were supported.

From a pragmatist’s point of view, he has developed influence with the decision makers who already share his vision about security and life safety. Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) were installed at the lobby level last year, and certification training was provided for officers, enabling them to respond to life-threatening medical emergencies at the ground level.

“As long as it gets done,” he said. “We just have to make it happen.”

Dziuk identified two accomplishments that have had a visible effect on everyone visiting or working in the building. First, he created a team approach for his security officers, weeding out those unable to meet increasing expectations. Then, he gave the team more responsibility as they followed his direction. The payoff is in image and performance.

When it comes to the life-safety aspects of his job, Dziuk notes that tenants at 140 Broadway are sensitive to anything out of the norm. “They report it immediately,” he said. The building is so close to Ground Zero that the concern expressed by people working in the building has not trailed off.

Tenants have their own emergency plans, but coordinating all of them remains an ongoing work in progress. Dziuk has also helped a number of these tenants develop emergency plans. He notes that “the out-of-towners want to go home [if there is a crisis], but they have to have a Plan B.  That plan has to cover them for 24-48 hours of refuge here in the city: housing with friends, shelter... The ‘get-out-of-town’ approach may not work because everything [emergency support] is going to be coming into the city [in a future incident].” Dziuk is sure that everyone will deal with it. “New Yorkers are survivors!”

Luckily, he gets support for his initiatives on emergency procedures from building ownership and local management. “They are driving forces.”

When I visited Dziuk in the office last week, I stopped at the front desk to get a visitor badge to allow me access through the turnstiles, instead of asking one of my officers to wand me through. Desk personnel take photos of all visitors and their official identification, keeping a permanent record of everyone entering the site.

When I arrived, Dziuk was mapping out the re-entry floors on a new elevator/stairwell map, putting the finishing touches on a single piece of paper that captured major elements of life-safety issues for the building. He talked about how former Police Commissioner Bratton’s introduction of COMPSTAT (computer comparison statistics for analyzing crime complaints and arrests) improved accountability in NYPD and how it was a model taken from the business community for analyzing success.

Dziuk noted that we’ve come full circle.

Erica D. Harrison, CPP, Security Director at Guardian Security, Inc. and President of AIMS Testing Inc., has been working with the New York City chapter of ASIS International since 1985. She has produced and moderated the seminar programs for the chapter trade show since 1990, and she writes extensively on security issues affecting chapter membership. A former Assistant Regional VP, Erica holds a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Stony Brook and a master’s from Greenwich University.

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