Bill Turner currently serves as a contributor to LP Magazine. He is also a founding member of the Loss Prevention Foundation, serving as its Treasurer and member of the executive committee of the Board of Directors since inception.
Over the past 40 years Bill’s career has concentrated in two fields – retail and the entertainment industry. He began his retail career as a part time security agent with Bullock’s Department Stores in Los Angeles, a division of Federated Department Stores. After graduating from UCLA he joined Bullock’s full time as an executive trainee. The next 11 years included assignments in LP, store operations, store management, and warehousing and distribution eventually leading to the positions of director of asset protection and Vice President of Operations. While at Bullock’s, Bill completed the Executive Program at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management. He left Bullock’s to join Lorimar Productions, producers of Dallas, Falcon Crest and Knott’s Landing as vice president of administration.
Bill later moved his family to Florida to join Walt Disney World as director of warehousing and distribution. Later he became vice president of operations for all Florida theme parks and resorts leading as many as 7 operating divisions simultaneously, including security, transportation, distribution, risk management, health services, laundry operations and horticulture. After Disney, Bill rejoined the retail field as director of loss prevention for Nike retail, later running all Nike’s retail operations and global loss prevention. After a 3-year assignment in New York City running retail operations for Nike’s Cole Haan division, Bill made the decision to return “home” to Florida when Cole Haan was sold rather than return to Oregon with Nike. Back in Florida, he served as vice president of customer relations for Universal Surveillance Systems (USS) for the next two years.
Throughout his career in loss prevention and operations, crisis management and response have been a passion of Bill’s as well as a reoccurring responsibility. He led the effort to formalize the programs at Bullock’s as well as Walt Disney World and later at Nike retail. Walt Disney World completed construction of their first formal emergency operations center under Turner's direction, seeing its completion just prior to 9/11/2001. Nike has since formalized its corporate crisis management and response protocols using the efforts began in Nike retail as a model.
Turner and his wife Mary have 3 grown daughters. Two are raising families in Orlando and one finishes medical school at LSU in the spring of 2016.
