We’ve reviewed the submissions and our committee has narrowed down the choices to these outstanding finalists for the Loss Prevention Hall of Honor! Each year, select industry leaders will be recognized for their lifetime of contributions to the retail loss prevention industry as they are inducted into the Loss Prevention Hall of Honor. The Hall is a place to tell the story of their achievements, to celebrate their success, and to continue their legacy, preserving their lessons in leadership as examples for future generations of loss prevention professionals.
To be eligible for nomination, the individual must have served in a leadership role of Director or above within the retail loss prevention industry, or, if they are a solution provider, have been directly responsible for their significant contribution, achievement, innovation, or role as a stand-out leader. They may be a current leader, retired, or may be nominated in posthumous recognition. Individuals must be nominated by someone other than themselves.
AND THE FINALISTS ARE…
NOMINEE: King Rogers
King Rogers’ background encompasses over 40 years in the security and loss prevention field as well as early experience in a government intelligence agency. After spending six years as vice president of loss prevention at Strawbridge & Clothier, in 1984 King moved to Target Corporation where he was vice president of assets protection for almost 18 years. He was instrumental in the development of the Criminal Justice Long Distance Learning Graduate program at Michigan State University and was a co-founder of the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) at the University of Florida. He was also one of the first inductees in the National Retail Federation’s Loss Prevention Ring of Excellence.
King has been a successful entrepreneur since 2001 when he retired with the intent of bringing his successful experience to the broader industry. In partnership with several other practitioner/leaders, King started, grew, and sold two successful advisory services firms, KRI and KRG. Both companies capitalized on leveraging the knowledge of the founders who understood the application of forward-thinking technology and the value of meaningful intelligence in making measurable impact in permanently reducing loss.
In early March, 2016, KRG was acquired by Master Technology Group, Inc. and King served as senior assets protection advisor. Through his knowledge and experience he provided MTG with guidance to help grow its business and to better serve its clients. After a successful relationship with MTG, King recently returned to the role of bringing his expertise and experience to retailers as an independent loss prevention consultant providing assets protection advisory services to the broader marketplace. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Indyme Solutions, Inc., an Artificial Intelligence technology company and on the Advisory Board of BearCom, the nation’s largest provider of Motorola radios
With a Bachelor of Arts in history, King is a graduate from Yale University. While at Target he was on the forefront of identifying and developing comprehensive plans to attack organized theft rings, which is now known as ORC. I can recall personally meeting and having the chance to sit under the learning tree 20+ years ago discussing ORC approaches and leading-edge programs such as using data to track and identify problematic refunders. King has always been generous in giving back to the LP community and mentoring people like myself.
NOMINEES: Doug Wicklander and Dave Zulawski
Doug Wicklander and Dave Zulawski founded Wicklander Zulawski & Associates Inc. in 1982, a business that revolutionized loss prevention. Doug and Dave developed Interview and Interrogation techniques that were far from the traditional police interrogations of that time. Understanding the employee/employer relationship and the liabilities of poorly performed interrogations, they developed a non-confrontational style of interrogation that conformed with the way businesses preferred their employees be treated even when involved in criminal activity within the company.
This new style of interrogation allowed interviewers to develop rapport with employees involved in wrongdoing and this relationship allowed interviewers to develop more information on all the ways employees were able to deprive the company of its assets. This allowed loss prevention to establish controls to help prevent other employees from being involved in similar incidents and helped solution providers develop technology to prevent or identify employees involved in unethical behavior.
Doug and Dave were instrumental in helping the loss prevention community move from the reactionary police-type of investigation to the highly valued proactive loss prevention/asset protection culture now recognized in virtually all successful retail companies in North America and spreading internationally. There are many LP/AP executives that contribute part of their success to what they learned early in their career from Doug and Dave, including myself.
NOMINEE: Dave Myers
Any connection you want to make, any LP Professional that ever worked for Montgomery Ward, Dave’s your man. Not only does Dave have a wonderful way with people, it helps him guide his way through tumultuous times (Montgomery Ward) and still get top notch support for his organization.
Dave began his loss prevention career with Ventures Stores in 1970, where he became divisional vice president of loss prevention. He moved to Household Merchandising in 1982, and then on to lead the team at Montgomery Ward as vice president of asset protection from 1987-2001. He moved on to work for Secure Controls where Roger Laydon, the owner was a dear friend, and gracefully got Roger to share the customer satisfaction end of the business. He retired from Secure Controls after serving nearly 8 years as vice president of business development.
NOMINEE: Benjamin A. Guffey, CPP
Ben Guffey was one of the most remarkable men I have ever known. A quiet, focused, strategic yet tactical, courageous, caring business leader who, while average in physical stature, was a giant in the retail loss prevention industry. Most old-timers in loss prevention remember Ben from his days at Kmart as vice president of loss prevention, and his leadership service on the NRF LP Board, his role on the IMRA (now RILA) Steering Committee, and his numerous responsibilities with ASIS. Ben was inducted posthumously into the NRF Ring of Excellence in 2007. He was instrumental in shaping and mentoring many of today’s influential LP executives, frequently behind the scenes quietly developing them and opening doors for them in their career paths.
Ben served several tours with the US Army in Vietnam, first as an explosive ordinance disposal technician and then later, after earning his degree and subsequent commission, as an EOD officer. In his very humble, quiet way, Ben would joke that he was very fortunate to come back from those experiences with all ten fingers intact, an unusual statistic for that profession.
Because of our employers, Ben and I were competitors (along with Dave Gorman from Walmart and Dave Myers from Montgomery Ward). But, in spite of that competitive spirit, we developed a long-lasting mutual respect—and ultimately a deep friendship. Consequently, when Ben and I retired from our respective corporate roles, we became partners in KRI, LLC, a professional international security consulting firm in which Ben served as president.
After retiring, Ben and his wife Jean relocated to Las Vegas where the climate and the tax structure were both more forgiving than what they had experienced for years in Michigan and elsewhere in the Midwest. When I would fly into Las Vegas for various meetings, Ben would always graciously meet me at the airport and when I spotted him waiting for me in the baggage claim section, I would inevitably greet him with “Dry heat, my a**”.
It has been almost sixteen years since Ben’s sudden and unexpected passing. Today he is remembered by many as a gentle and courageous leader in both his professional career and personal life. It is truly an honor to have known him and to have been his friend.
NOMINEE: Dr. Richard Hollinger
Dick Hollinger is a living legend across the entire loss prevention field. I first heard of Dr. Hollinger in the early 80’s having read his work on workplace deviance. I first met and worked with Dr. Hollinger in 1989 as Dr. Bart Weitz and I were working the first National Retail Security Survey (NRSS) draft, and as I was a research novice, he and Bart essentially helped me shape and write up what would become the global retail LP/AP survey standard. Dr. Hollinger and I became friends and colleagues, as well as he has long been a tremendous research mentor for me, and countless others.
Since we were on a roll with the NRSS, Richard and I launched into a similar shopping center-focused survey. We initially worked with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) but ran into shopping center corporate lawyer headwinds concerned about legions of personal injury lawyers craving lawsuit benchmarks, and had to go it on our own, getting hundreds of participants to provide valuable information center operators used to improve protection.
Dr. Hollinger continued to build the NRSS and UF brand worldwide in the retailing industry, taught and mentored legions of students and practitioners, provided invaluable insight into how to leverage research and critical thinking into lower loss and crime results as a speaker at industry events, and even convinced many of his brightest students join the AP/LP ranks.
NOMINEE: Fred Wilson
Fred Wilson was a one-of-a-kind leader that was ahead of his time and one of the greats who paved the path for all of us today. Fred was a leader of very few words, but when he spoke it was on point, purposeful, and everyone listened. His leadership helped give us the seat at the table that we have today.
There were several lessons from Fred that I still follow today. He taught me the importance of surrounding yourself with talent—the best people, and particularly those who have more potential than you do. Fred always had a team of very diverse, top-talent leaders during a time when there were very few females in asset protection leadership. He had an eye for talent and potential.
Fred was also one of the best investigators I have ever worked with, never leaving a stone unturned. He was not afraid of innovation and pushing the vendors for out-of-the-box ideas. There were times when you thought he was a little crazy with an idea, but he was never afraid to try something outside of the box to solve an investigation or a business opportunity. Circuit City was one of the first retailers to have a DVR that phased out VCR tapes, it was mind blowing when we rolled it out.
Fred’s master skill was his listening skills—he was the best. He would let you ramble on with whatever it was, never interrupted, and at the end he would say, “Well, what do you want to do?” I would realize I answered my own question, talking it out with him. I can still hear him listening to me today from a random pay phone on the side of the road after I paged him, (for those of you that knew him he had a very distinct whistle when he was breathing and listening). These were pivotal moments for me in my career. It taught me the importance of trusting your team. They know the answers—our role as their leader is to listen, coach and let them thrive.
Probably one of the most memorable leadership moments for me with Fred was during a high shrink store visit in a very high shrink market during my first week in a new role. All of the division, field, and corporate leadership were at the store in a conference room presenting their action plan. Fred knew instinctively that these were just words on paper and he left the meeting. The team just assumed that he had a call to make. Rather, he left the meeting to get out into the store and get to the root cause. He paged me and we walked the stock room and we found the root cause. He found old empty refrigerator boxes that were being used by the associates as places to take naps – pillows and blankets were in these boxes on the racks. He also found that a back door alarm had never been connected to the alarm system, and based on the grass and footprints he found, the door was being used on a regular basis. He was right. The following week we closed out several internal theft cases and the shrink numbers in the store improved overnight. Just last week I took the same approach with unannounced visits to engage with the teams to solve the shrink problems in the stores. He taught us that the real answers are in the stores, not in a meeting!
What I admired about Fred was the love he had for his wife, family and sailing. Fred would light up when sharing stories about his sailing trips with his wife.
I am so blessed that Fred saw something in me that I never did. I would not have had this amazing journey without his leadership and support! He kick-started many young LP professionals’ careers.
NOMINEE: George “Pops” Luciano
George “Pops” Luciano is one of those people who always believed in sharing his experience with others looking for a mentor. He began his career in loss prevention with Vons Grocery Company in what at the time was called security. His first director position came with Smith’s Food King where he met his mentor, Lou Saenz. Lou was ahead of his time when it came to inventory control and cash handling procedures. Pops had a law enforcement background which helped his interview skills. From Smith’s he moved to HRT Industries, where he was first exposed to the latest anti-theft technologies such as EAS and cameras. About that same time civil recovery laws were being passed and he worked to implement recovery procedures to help retailers deter theft.
Because Pops has such a magnetic personality, many of the more successful people in loss prevention are attracted to him and still keep in touch (He just turned 89). Some of the other retailers he has worked with include Clothestime, WR Grace, and he started the LP program at Petco.
He was asked to become a partner in a startup company called Civil Demand Associates and was involved in growing CDA when he was offered the Petco job. That was when he approached me to work for CDA so he could move on with confidence. This offer to help me was life changing.
After the second or third time he retired, he returned to CDA to help me with sales. Working with my dad was the greatest time in my life. There are many personal stories, too many to mention here, but because of his personality there was never a day when we were not laughing. He isn’t good at remembering names so that was a source of incredible laughs especially at trade shows. I love my dad very much and to still have a pioneer around to talk to is a true blessing.
NOMINEE: John Hegan
John Hegan had a life-long career of over 40 years with Bamberger’s. His last position held at Bamberger’s was vice president of security before the organization was merged into Macy’s. Following the merger, John assumed the position as the vice president of security operations and standards at Macy’s. In this position he was responsible for the operating standards, primarily in areas such as training, expense control, the alarm monitoring center, risk management, and public events, such as Macys Fireworks, Macys Flower Show, and the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade.
John also handled sensitive areas, including all issues of safety and protection with Macys Board of Directors and Company Executive Committee group. John had a strong understanding of talent and developed some of the best leaders in the industry, past and present. He is also credited with developing the framework for law enforcement partnerships for Macys, a foundation that still is still followed today.
John’s greatest asset was his personal and business standards and ethics. He molded accountability and always had a strong focus on business commitments and delivering results. Many of John’s practices are still active across the industry today, such as the proper use of CCTV to avoid litigation issues, and using interior alarm system traps to better protect Fine Jewelry and high-value merchandise.
John was always a very approachable leader and had a calm demeanor regarding the way he addressed critical business stations. His leadership style is one we all should embrace and add to our skill set.
NOMINEE: Lew Shealy
Lew Shealy lived by his own code that ultimately would be adopted by many of us that worked with him as we went on to other endeavors. There are a few things that still stand out today that we learned from Lew. He taught us the importance of networking and the development of relationships in the industry. I was always amazed at the fact that Lew knew someone everyplace and if he did not, it wouldn’t take long for him to make a new “friend”.
He was old school in integrity. If you remember the Jim Collins book “Good to Great” Lew was a level five leader in many respects. He always fully supported his team, and we knew he had our back. He absolutely did not micromanage us and simply expected results and no one wanted to let him down. He loved recognizing young talent and giving them an opportunity to grow.
Lew was an innovative thinker and was willing to take risks to get to the next best thing. He was one of the first LP leaders to play in the exception reporting arena and endorse the use of data analytics as a way of moving loss prevention towards the use of professional technology as opposed to a cops and robbers department. Even in the 1980’s he was aggressively going after what we call ORC today and his contacts in law enforcement supported this with complicated sting operations.
He was also not at all afraid of the media, in fact he leveraged them to get the LP mission out there in the public eye, all the time using his lovable county boy image.
Two things that everyone that worked for Lew will always remember are the messages he had on his desk. The first was the Harry Truman quote “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
The second was a paperweight that he gave to all of us on his team. It simply said “Does it stand inspection? This was the question that he regularly challenged us with. I still have mine on my desk thirty-one years later. I had one of these made for all my team and I have Lew to thank for that. I left Fields in 1990 when we were bought out by Dayton Hudson. Lew and I both ended up in Florida at different companies. We stayed in touch on a regular basis until we lost him earlier this year. He was a great teacher, leader, mentor, and friend. Like many, I will miss him.
NOMINEE: Peter Berlin
The New York Times called Peter Berlin the nation’s best known and most active consultant on inventory shrinkage. He is an international consultant on retail theft, president of The Peter Berlin Retail Consulting Group, Inc., publisher of two leading retail industry newsletters on inventory shrinkage (named The Peter Berlin Report On Shrinkage Control – Executive Edition and Store Managers Edition) and founded the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention, Inc., a non-profit organization directed toward shoplifting prevention and rehabilitation.
Peter Berlin started his career in retail in 1966 joining the executive training program at Abraham & Straus. He was assigned to inventory control and two years later became head of the department. In 1969, he was one of the first retail executives to see the value of alarm tags and began using the Sensormatic theft device, a system of plastic tags that set off an alarm if they are not removed before an item is taken from a store. In the A&S junior apparel department, shrinkage amounted to 7 percent of sales, but within a year of adding the Sensormatic, he said, it dropped to 1 percent. Later he found that shoplifters considered the plastic tags to be the most effective theft deterrent.
He later spent five years as the National Director of the Retail Loss Prevention Consulting Group for Price Waterhouse, traveling worldwide and consulting with more than 100 retail firms about how to prevent shoplifting and employee theft. Mr. Berlin conducted advanced educational seminars for retail executives was frequently quoted on radio, TV and in the media.
In 1977 Peter Berlin founded Shoplifters Anonymous out of his belief that by understanding and addressing the “root causes” of shoplifting, millions of individual lives and families could be improved and a significant reduction in shoplifting could be achieved for the retail industry.
Early in his career as a director of loss prevention for department and specialty stores, he observed that most of the people he apprehended had “no idea why they did it”, were not career criminals but were otherwise decent, law-abiding citizens—mothers, fathers, grandparents, juveniles, business, and professional people. Most shoplifters had a family, a job, had money in their pocket, did not need the item they stole, did not associate with known criminals, were humiliated, ashamed, guilty, and fearful and often felt devastated by what they had done.
Peter Berlin questioned why people would engage in such self-destructive behavior when it was clearly out of their character. After hiring three psychologists to study the problem and conducting surveys and personal interviews, and self-help groups he concluded that for the non-professional shoplifter, shoplifting was rarely about greed, poverty, or values. It was rather about individuals struggling with their own personal conflicts and needs, their feelings of entitlement, and other underlying issues in their life. It became evident that the shoplifting was not the real problem for these people but rather a “symptom” of the real problem.
It was also evident that these people were not proud of what they had done and wanted help to stop their self-destructive behavior. This was true for almost all shoplifters except the professional “career criminals” or “drug addicts”. These people could not easily be rehabilitated and clearly belonged in either a drug treatment program or jail.
Realizing that the vast majority of shoplifters were not career criminals; that there was little public understanding of the shoplifting problem; knowing that people who shoplift had nowhere to turn because of the shame and fear about what they had done; in 1989 Mr. Berlin started the non-profit organization known today as the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention.
Peter Berlin retired in 2005 but continues to work one-on-one with individuals dealing with shoplifting issues.
Born in Brooklyn in 1940 Peter Berlin received Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in 1963 from Long Island University in New York. Today Peter and his wife Meryl live in Boca Raton where he happily plays tennis 3 times per week.
NOMINEE: Bob MacLea
Bob MacLea left an immeasurable impact on both people and programs. At the same time, like myself, many people called him a true friend. He led us through ground breaking strategies that helped us achieve world-class results. In the industry, he was very involved in key associations and remained an advocate for all the we hope to accomplish in our profession.
Bob had more than 40 years of experience as a loss prevention expert. He worked his way through the ranks at The TJX Companies Inc., beginning as a security guard at Marshalls in 1975 and eventually becoming senior vice president of loss prevention in 2010. His compassion for others left a lasting impact on many in the loss prevention community. Long an advocate for the profession, Bob was a founding member of the Loss Prevention Foundation and the Loss Prevention Research Council as well as an active member of the NRF LP Council.
To the scholarship recipients, Bob MacLea may be just a name, as most did not have the privilege of meeting him. What they should know about this LP industry legend is this:
- Bob was a consummate professional who treated all with kindness and respect — from the C-suite to store staff.
- He was generous with his time and advice, both personal and professional.
- Accolades written about Bob are not just words. They are tributes rooted in the deep connections he fostered with his family, friends, and LP colleagues.
- If you were lucky enough to spend time with Bob outside of work — golfing, fishing, hunting — you were fortunate to have had the opportunity.
Bob would advise the scholarship recipients to put this honor to good use. Maximize your LP knowledge. Better yourself. And most importantly, bring your A game to your LP career and your life. Bob was a true gentleman and he is remembered every day.
NOMINEE: Gary Manson
Gary Manson began his retail career at Montgomery Ward like many others in the 70’s laying the foundation for what the loss prevention industry has become today.
Gary and I went way back to our days with Montgomery Ward. I first met him when he and I were assistant regional directors. Soon after we both were promoted to regional manager and shared many stories of our challenges and successes. Over the years, I visited with him at Neiman Marcus and shared a seat with him on the NRF loss prevention advisory council. Gary was always the first to volunteer for any new session.
Gary was inducted into the Retail Loss Prevention Ring of Excellence in 2009 following his retirement from Neiman Marcus as the vice president of loss prevention. He was always there to guide his team and mentor those in the industry. Gary was a man of impeccable integrity and high expectations for his team and the industry. He ensured the best vendor resources/services were developed and implemented as well as was incredibly supportive of exceptional training resources. His guidance and counsel were invaluable to the industry. He expected your best efforts and supported all to become exceptional leaders. He had an incredible talent and memory for the details that he was able to personalize with everyone and truly make them the center of attention.
NOMINEE: Sandy Katz
Sandy Katz spent almost 20 years as vice president of audit and control for Talbots, a specialty retailer focusing on men’s and women’s fashions. For nineteen years he was responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the appropriate control environment throughout the company, including loss prevention, internal audit, inventory control, sales audit, and policies and procedures.
A certified public accountant with over twenty-five years of experience in loss prevention, Katz was the director of loss prevention for The General Mills Specialty Retailing Group, which included Talbots and Eddie Bauer at the time, and, prior to that, the director of loss prevention for How land Steinbach, a junior department store chain
Sandy was always very active throughout the LP industry. He was a member of the National Retail Federation’s Loss Prevention Advisory Council for many years, serving as its chairman for six years. He was also a member of Loss Prevention Magazine’s editorial board. He has also long believed you have a responsibility to give back to the community that you live and work in, and became very active in taking that approach, saying on many occasions that this helps us all keep things in perspective.
NOMINEE: James Bridges
Often in life individuals are bestowed with the title “pioneer”. But Jim Bridges is best described by the verb “pioneered”, meaning first to apply new methods and innovations. He was a doer and always thought we should work smarter rather than harder.
In the mid 70’s Bridges was appointed as the corporate security director for Federated Department Stores. Federated was composed of a number of prestigious department divisions, discount stores, and a grocery store chain. It was a very powerful company and was often referred to as the “Queen of Retailing”.
As Bridges began his tour of Federated businesses, he was surprised to learn that many of the security departments were mostly in the “cops and robbers” mode. The preponderance of the security chiefs were former police officers, and their only mission was to arrest and convict. There was very little CCTV. Most that were available were black and white units that had to be manually rotated to view another surveillance point. Security employees were not trained, and there were no procedures or practices guiding security functions or activities. Interactions between corporate management and security hardly existed.
Bridges recognized that retailing was changing and that the security he observed was not in a position to keep up with the pace of change. Computers were replacing cash registers, store design was allowing merchandise to be more openly displayed, and there was going to be a massive expansion of retail malls.
Bridges knew that security had to change from the 70’s mode. Importantly, he worked with human resources to start recruiting security managers that were college educated, and had management and business skills capable of effecting change in the midst of the growth. He consistently worked with security product vendors to provide more tools and products that allowed smarter approaches to investigations and prevention. He required mandatory training for all security employees. While Bridges accomplishments were many, the most pride he felt was seeing loss prevention professionals elevated in management organizational charts, evidencing the importance of their position.
From Boardroom executives to the front door guards, Bridges knew them all and called them friend. He was the spark and the compass that provided for today’s loss prevention stature and success.
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