Last week the ORCAs in Action initiative held a closed-door summit with leadership from Organized Retail Crime Associations (ORCAs) from all across the United States, with more than 70 ORC leaders and subject matter experts meeting to discuss the needs, opportunities, concerns, and agendas of these critical industry associations for the upcoming year and how we can work together to make it happen. With so many new ORCAs and new leaders, the meeting also offered a tremendous networking opportunity to meet other leadership partners from all across the nation, and reinforce the relationships that have been such an important part of the amazing accomplishments that these organizations have achieved through their hard work and shared efforts.
Here’s a quick overview of the agenda:
- How Can We Help? The first order of business was to discuss ways that we can best support the ORCAs in 2024, whether those efforts involve improving communication, membership, technology, or some other initiative. Primary conversations focused on participation in ORCA meetings and conferences, webcast and podcast support, membership, and our ongoing ORCAs in Action webcasts through LP Magazine.
- Announcing the Latest ORCAS. The establishment of these essential ORCA associations has shown tremendous growth over the past several years, with new ORCAs including MWORCA (Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, and Iowa), LAMAORCA (Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama), TNORCA (Tennessee), and further welcoming some of our newer additions including WIORCA (Wisconsin), NMORCA (New Mexico), and MRAORCA (Missouri). With all of the new additions, we now have ORCA representation in 48 of the 50 states and Puerto Rico. Hopefully, we’ll be able to fill our map in the coming year.
- Special Guests. To show their ongoing support for the ORCAs in Action initiative, we had a few special guests that took part in our meeting, each of whom voiced their support for the vision of the ORCAs, shared a little more about their organizations, and offered additional assistance to further these efforts. These industry leaders included: Rory Stallard, president with CLEAR; Caroline Kochman, president at The Loss Prevention Foundation; David Johnston, VP of asset protection and retail operations with NRF; Khris Hamlin, VP of asset protection with RILA; and Doug Baker, VP of industry relations with FMI.
- Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Over the last several years HSI has shown tremendous support of our retail and law enforcement partners in the fight against organized retail crime. We were also joined by Acting Deputy Director Steven Shrank with Homeland Security Investigations who provided a brief overview of HSI equities/activities planned for 2024.
- ORC Training Update. To support efforts to combat organized retail crime across the nation, several courses have been designed to further educate our law enforcement and prosecutor partners to help them better understand and support efforts to quell the problem. These courses, created in partnership with the Loss Prevention Foundation, Learn it Media, the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR), and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) include:
A Patrol/LE Officer Course – Released with scholarships available for our law enforcement partners.
A Detective/Investigator Course – Currently in the final stages of production and soon to be released.
A District Attorney Course – Currently in production with additional support from the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA).
Interest and support of these important training initiatives has been tremendous, and will provide significant education and awareness of the ORC pandemic to support our ongoing mission. For more information on these courses and to request scholarships for your law enforcement and prosecutor partners, please reach out to Kevin McMenimen at kevinm@learnitmedia.com.
- Open Discussions. The session ended with a robust discussion with ORCA leaders from across the industry asking questions, sharing insights, and offering their ongoing commitment to support these efforts through resources, individual assistance, and information sharing.
Building and maintaining open channels of communication with all of these important industry leaders provides a great start to 2024. Working together and reinforcing the relationships that have been such an important part of the amazing accomplishments that have been achieved through these shared efforts only further emphasizes the power of teamwork and cooperation.
We work best when we work together! If you would like to learn more or have an interest in joining one of the ORCAs available across the country, please visit “Organized Retail Crime Associations: The Complete List” to contact the association in your area.