Back to Facility Manager
Contents

Back to Home

They came to San Diego from across all disciplines. They came as facility managers, as security directors and as law enforcement officials. And they came in record numbers, as 386 of them were tugged by the urgency of terrorism to be a part of IAAM’s 19th International Crowd Management Conference. The themes of safety and security cast a giant backdrop as speaker after speaker and session after session examined the ways that people of all nationalities could be safer following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The questions in the question-and-answer periods following the presentations frequently went past the allotted time as attendees wanted to know what they could do to make their small part of the world a safer place. And when they went back home, 386 people were educationally saturated with the kind of knowledge that only a conference of this magnitude could provide. The following pages of special coverage on the International Crowd Management Conference gives you an opportunity—whether or not you were in San Diego—to experience the intensity and the education that was a part of four very special days in southern California.

Finding Security After 9/11

By R.V. Baugus

Call it the Boomerang Effect. Everything kept coming back to 9/11.

"We've been focused on 9/11, but terrorism has been here for years," said Major General John Doesburg of the United States Department of Defense.

“Things changed because of 9/11. Until then we prepared for the imaginable. After then we prepared for the unimaginable,” said Doug Arnot of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002.

“If there was ever a time for sports entertainment to be a part of the American fabric, it is now and is a direct result of 9/11,” said Milt Ahlerich, senior director of security for the National Football League.

Call it a recurring theme. Call it the phrase most often uttered. But whatever you do, call 9/11 a powerful reason why a record 386 attendees descended on San Diego for IAAM’s 19th Annual International Crowd Management Conference.

With a focus on crowd control and crowd management issues, the ICMC has long been a staple destination for those in the security and law enforcement fields. In fact, over the years the conference draws more non-IAAM member attendees than members. The same held true this year, although there was a definite upswing in the number of facility managers who attended.

Because of the events of 9/11, the ICMC program was revamped with a lineup of speakers that included the likes of Major General John Doesburg of the United States Department of Defense; David Tubbs of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command and Doug Arnot with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002; and professional sports security heads Joe Caporicci (National Hockey League), Kevin Hallinan (Major League Baseball), Milt Ahlerich (National Football League) and Horace Balmer (National Basketball Association).

What was it about the conference that caused more facility managers to attend? Just follow the boomerang, for you know where it’s going to take you. The dates for the ICMC said November 17 through 20, but you know better. The only date that matters is 9/11. And many of the facility managers who attended were there for just that reason: to learn and to compare notes about what security measures their peers are doing in light of the events of Sept. 11.

A Calm Assurance
“On 9/11 and since, our nation has suffered and is in shock,” Doesburg remarked in his presentation that kicked off the conference. “How do we convince our nation that what happened on 9/11 was tragic and yet we shouldn’t change our way of life?”

That balance has indeed proven delicate since 9/11 as people have coped in their individual ways to return to what President Bush has repeated in a call to “normalcy.” But before anyone can in fact return to a sense of normalcy, there has to be a feeling that the places they visit and the things they do are safe. And that’s what this conference was about as facility managers, law enforcement officials, security personnel, medical and fire department individuals all came seeking answers as to how they could play better roles in providing comfort and safety for civilians.

“What I do is directly related to what you do,” said Major General Doesburg, who is the Commanding General – U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command. “I primarily keep young warfighters safe against chemical and biological warfare. You have a similar responsibility to keep the general public safe, whether you are a trained fire official or run a facility.”

On the operational side, Doesburg owns eight chemical weapon storage sites in the United States. The concern for these sites obviously heightened after 9/11, but Doesburg assured the audience that the likelihood of the sites being found and targeted by terrorists is miniscule.

“I was actually in the United Kingdom on 9/11,” he said. “I got back home the next day—I won’t say how—and went to headquarters. I asked my staff, ‘How have we protected our chemical weapons?’ They said, ‘You know, sir, we’ve been protecting them for the last 30 years.’ But now I have more than 1,000 soldiers that I didn’t have on the 11th of September helping to guard those chemical weapons storage sites. It becomes real personal to me to protect these sites and to develop plans to help protect the public.

“So why am I here? The world changed. We are facing folks who are willing to do anything and everything to change our way of life in the United States. Terrorism has always happened overseas, but it never hit home until the 11th of September.”

Doesburg talked about the importance of the Domestic Preparedness Program that was started six years ago. In fact, the program was born because of the high potential for something to happen as occurred on 9/11. The program trains “first responders” such as fire, law, medical and operators/dispatchers who are in fact often the first to respond to disasters. And, yes, facility managers are also a part of the mix, said Doesburg.

“We wanted to ask what capabilities you currently have within your fire departments, within your police departments, within your hospitals, to be prepared in an environment where chemical or biological weapons might be used,” said Doesburg. “What they need to know and understand is how to react to them. We did a number of exercises in the 120 cities where we trained to help the first responders when they found something different or something odd.

“Well, guess what? In the business you’re in, you deal with those first responders. If you think about the logic and the flow of that, those same assets and capabilities are there and available for you. Think about how things can spin out of control at one of your events. You have to think your way through what’s occurring, and a program like the Domestic Preparedness Program helps you do that.”

Security Of
Olympic Proportions
When they go off without any flaws or failures, there is nothing to quite give goose bumps like an Olympic Games. From the moment the heretofore anonymous torch bearer lights the Olympic flame in the stadium during opening ceremonies through the fortnight’s final events, the Olympics represent the best in athletes and peoples coming together at one time.

Dave Tubbs, left, and Doug Arnot discussed security measures that have been implemented for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Unfortunately, the Olympics have also been used as a bully pulpit for various causes. There were the 1936 Olympics in Germany when African-American Jesse Owens ran and won in front of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party. And, of course, there were the 1972 Summer Games in Munich when terrorists stormed the Olympic Village and killed Israeli athletes.
Now comes 2002 and postcard picture-like Salt Lake City as the host of the Winter Games. The scale of security at these Games is such that they have been designated as a National Special Security Event by the Attorney General and also approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, which means that the Secret Service has been brought in to Salt Lake City as a security advisor.

“They have the expertise and can bring in the resources that very few of us could bring in if we had to run one of these events,” said Dave Tubbs of the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command. “Their function will simply be to protect people, while we of course want to make sure we are still having a sporting event. You can’t have a lockdown, because the purpose of the Olympics is to have a sporting event. So we’re having to come up with plans that are agreeable to everybody.”

It’s a tightrope that the Salt Lake Organizing Group (SLOG) has no choice but to walk. An overbearing presence of security leaves fans looking over their shoulders and feeling more like they are at an encampment rather than a sporting event. Conversely, too little security presence can leave the fragile psyche of the public even more unnerved about the surroundings.

“After the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, there was a big push to keep the military out of sporting events,” said Tubbs. “But after 9/11, we spent parts of two weeks in Washington, meeting with Attorney General (John) Ashcroft, the heads of the Secret Service and FBI and a number of senators in discussing additional security issues and getting additional security provided to us. One of the biggest commitments was getting the Secretary of the Army to say we would get what we needed.”

In preparation for hosting the Games, the state of Utah in 1998 passed a statute to start the Utah Public Safety Command. The purpose of this was to bring together the various agencies who would be involved in public safety for the 2002 Games. Initially there were 12 agencies designated by the statute, but a vote by the membership now places that number at 20. Some 1,200 additional military personnel will also now be stationed in place of volunteers.

“We have an outstanding cadre of volunteers in Utah,” said Tubbs. “We had more than 70,000 wanting to volunteer but we only needed anywhere from 26,000 to 29,000. We knew those people would be very dependable; however, I have a much greater comfort level having soldiers there, observing every individual who comes in.”

A Chemical and Biological Rapid Response Team and Army Reserve Unit For Consequence Management will also be located in the vicinity of the Olympics. These units will be equipped with their own communications networks in case of emergency. They will have their own dedicated cell phone networks should first responders need to call them in case weapons of mass destruction are located.

Tubbs said that the National Guard is now a part of the scene, and that they became much more essential after 9/11. Throw in the local, state and national authorities, 2,500 sworn peace officers from the state of Utah and another 600 volunteer peace officers from out of state, and it becomes obvious that numerous groups are involved in assuring the safety of fans, athletes and local staff.

Another 2,000 Secret Service personnel will be present, as will 3,500 military. “You have to realize we’re spread over hundreds of square miles,” said Tubbs. “Just getting everybody to where they have to be is a major task.”

There are also lots of tedious details that go into overseeing day-to-day operations for the safety command as Tubbs does. Changes that occur on a daily basis will probably do so right up to and through the Olympics, he admits.

“When you’re working up to the Olympics, there’s a lot of minutiae,” said Tubbs. “We have lots of meetings and I can guarantee you some of us probably don’t even like each other. But the point is we all work together.”

One person who Tubbs works especially close with is Doug Arnot, the managing director of event management for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games. Arnot spent lots of time in Sydney in 2000 as that city hosted the Summer Olympics. There, he determined that the Olympics are different from any other sporting event due to the multiples involved. “You have multiple events played over multiple days over multiple locations,” he said.

Still, Arnot reserved opinion that the biggest difference from an Olympics and any other event remains the security overlay. “I believe that since Munich (1972) there has been an extraordinary emphasis on security,” he said. “You had the United States boycotting the 1980 Games in Moscow and the Russians boycotting Los Angeles in 1984, but that’s really nothing like the magnitude of security we will see in Salt Lake City.”

To prepare for 2002, Arnot said a concerted effort was made to integrate with law enforcement, the Secret Service and the FBI to understand each other’s needs. A strong anti-terrorism defense was already in place prior to 9/11 for arenas, stadiums, large public celebration areas, mountains and Nordic areas.

“The components that were in place had given us confidence that we could deal with anything,” said Arnot. “Obviously, the events of 9/11 changed things. What we did after 9/11 was go through a very extensive and very detailed menu of every element of the security plan.”

Until 9/11, Arnot said that his group was in a “friendly antagonism” state with law enforcement agencies. “They’re struggling to make the games safe and we’re struggling to make the games a great event,” he said in echoing Tubbs’ thoughts. “After 9/11 the balance point shifted significantly. It shifted significantly because there are things that we now have to do, and it shifted significantly because there are things that we want to do because we want people to come to the Games and feel they are coming in to a safe environment.”

Arnot said the perception of a threat to the Games is significant, but the reality is that the threat assessment has been adjusted only slightly since 9/11. “But that’s not what people hear, think and feel,” Arnot admits. “So it’s very important to us that we recognize there are concerns, especially where there are mass gatherings.”

Those attending the Games should expect a more aggressive, literal hands-on approach from venue workers, Arnot said. “It’s going to take longer for people to get in just because of the security measures,” he said. “Add that to the fact that people will be dressed in winter wear and it compounds the time. People should expect to arrive very early, and we’re getting the word out to let fans know that.”

One way that has been accomplished is through a spectator guide that went out after 9/11 detailing everything that people could expect upon arrival in Salt Lake City. “We warned people even more that they would go through security inspections and about how much time that would take,” said Arnot. “We also made it clear what people could and could not bring. A lot of people will be on mountainsides in 10 degree weather, but they know they cannot bring a backpack.”

Arnot said that two questions are continually asked by people not only from the United States, but from around the world. The first question concerns safety. “My answer,” said Arnot, “is that I have three children. From February 8 through February 24 they will be out at the venues at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.”

The second question is whether the Games should even be held. “To me and an awful lot of people working on these Games, the fact is that it’s never been more important that the Games go on. It is important that the Olympic Games serve as a symbol of peace in one of the most turbulent times this world has ever seen.”

Major League Sports:We Saw The Smoke
While the Olympic Games are a two-week window open for the world to peek through, professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey overlap each other and fill up a 12-month calendar. At the time of the attacks both football and baseball were into their regular season schedules, while basketball and hockey were preparing for their seasons. Football postponed its Week 2 games, while baseball stopped play until the following Monday after the attacks. All the while, security heads from all four sports were busy plotting their security strategies in a new era of unrest.

For Dennis Cunningham of the National Hockey League and Horace Balmer of the National Basketball Association, the tragedy struck too close for comfort. With offices not far from the World Trade Center, both had an even stronger personal attachment to what had happened.

“We saw the smoke … smelled it … heard the sirens,” said Cunningham. “On the organizational chart that day, security crept up quite a bit. It was difficult because we were going through the same trauma of being afraid once it occurred. Since then I believe that we have had to remain calm, because people were going to be looking at us to see how we would react and respond.”

“On the morning of 9/11 we had a breakfast meeting to talk about the pre-season,” said the National Basketball Association’s Balmer. “I was driving when I heard the news. I could see the tower and the black smoke. I had friends and relatives working in the building and got very choked up. I made it to the office and could see the World Trade Center from where I sat … and I saw it crumble … and then the second building.”

Across the Atlantic Ocean, the NHL’s Joe Caporicci was in Stockholm, Sweden, for the NHL Hockey Challenge/Stockholm. “Some of our high-profile players had just left a hospital from visiting with terminally ill children when we got to our hotel and heard what happened,” he said. “I didn’t know that all aircraft was shut down, but I did know that I had 40 players who were looking to me … and I didn’t have any information.” Logos on the team’s buses advertising the NHL event were covered up, and Swedish police helped ring the perimeter of the hotel for the athletes’ safety.

“We had a game later in the week in Stockholm, but the players decided to cancel the game,” said Caporicci. “The people in Stockholm were understanding and superb. There were memorials all over Sweden. There was a moment of silence at one point during the day, and people got out of their cars and stood. It was beautiful to see people come together.”

“The gravity of the situation has changed our lives,” said Cunningham. “People are entrusting their safe and secure being to us, but now we have a shared responsibility to doing things.” He singled out the best business practices being developed by the IAAM Safety and Security Task Force, which he believes will help facilities operate in a consistent and uniform manner. “The policies and guidelines that will be established will help us greatly as sports leagues in partnering with our facilities,” he said. “We’ll understand better what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t be doing. But as a true partnership we also want to know what you expect from us to help you do your jobs better in the area of security.”

Of all the sports, baseball was the deepest into its season, just some three weeks before its playoffs were scheduled to start. The decision was quickly made to push the week’s remaining games back to the following Monday, which in turn would push the playoff schedule back one week.

Kevin Hallinan, president of security and facility management for Major League Baseball, said the first thing he did on 9/11 was to conduct a series of conference calls with stadium operations directors. “I culled all of the information I could from them,” he said. “We went to a series of conference calls and a series of drafts. Their input was invaluable. As they say in show business, it’s an ensemble. We wanted to be comprehensive and complete in what we were doing.”

With a season already in progress, Hallinan believes communication was vital as the league and individual teams plotted the appropriate direction to take. “We talked with everyone,” he said. “We talked to every stadium operations director to make sure we had done everything possible to make our stadiums as safe as they could be. We were on the same page and everybody was putting forth their best ideas.”

Above all, Hallinan had a first-hand look at the renewed patriotism that was sweeping the country. In his case, the view came when baseball resumed at Shea Stadium for a New York Mets game. “That day came and fans were lined up out into the parking lots,” he said. “I walked out amongst them and was overwhelmed by the tremendous response from the public. They felt secure in what we were doing for them and they were still coming to games.”

Milt Ahlerich, senior director of security for the National Football League, is also encouraged by what he has witnessed from not only fans, but from facility managers and security professionals. “If there was ever a time to step up, this was it,” he said. “If sports entertainment is to continue to be an outlet and a part of the American fabric, we bear a special responsibility to ensure that. I would say you have met and exceeded that responsibility.”

As with baseball, the NFL contacted its teams’ owners to make sure that police levels and staff levels were set, and that bomb detection and canine units were in place. “The commissioner (Paul Tagliabue) said we cannot afford to fail on security,” said Ahlerich. “In fact, he established security as the Number 1 priority in the NFL.”

The commissioner also decided that the games scheduled to be played that upcoming Sunday would be pushed back to the week after the regular season ended, causing the first postponement of games since President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

A task force made up of a total of nine NFL executives, stadium managers and crowd management professionals was created to develop a series of security best practices to be implemented at NFL stadiums. “We want the absolute highest level of security that we can come up with, because the attacks caught us early in our season and we are moving 100 miles per hour with no time to slow down,” said Ahlerich.

As for the intense security that comes with any Super Bowl, Ahlerich said that the upcoming eighth Super Bowl to be held in New Orleans has been designated a National Special Security Event as declared by President Bush, which will bring security to a maximum at the Superdome. “Like the Olympics, we know where the Super Bowl will be played, and we are hardening the facility and preparing as diligently as possible for all potential scenarios,” said Ahlerich.

Nothing could have prepared Balmer of the NBA for what happened on 9/11. After the shock of seeing the two tallest buildings in the world crumble before his eyes, Balmer went into a meeting with Commissioner David Stern and others, and a decision was made to start the pre-season as scheduled on October 3.

“We decided we would build our security around our fans, employees and players,” said Balmer. “We enhanced our security with local police in our league cities, and made a top executive on each team serve as a security contact with our office. We’ve had conference calls each week with the 28 arenas in the league and talked about all the problems and concerns.

“We have security people traveling with our teams from the minute they get to an airport until they fly back out. We have a designated telephone at each arena that can be used to call our security when that is necessary. We have safeguards on the intake vents at arenas to keep those safe. And if we’ve forgotten something, we need you to tell us about it.”

Just as you would a boomerang. It really does come back to 9/11.

Next Feature

© 2002 International Association of Assembly Managers
635 Fritz Dr.  Coppell, TX 75019 USA Phone: 972/906-7441 Fax: 972/906-7418