EDITOR’S LETTER

Diversity in the LP Industry

Ethnic and gender diversity in loss prevention has been a topic of conversation in our industry for certainly the three decades I’ve been involved in LP. Given the dominate white, male demographics of retail security through most of the twentieth century, it’s no wonder that industry leaders have actively put programs in place to recruit a more diverse, professional, asset protection team.

When this magazine launched in 2001, diversity was a topic we wanted to cover. In fact, diversity was the feature article in our fourth issue in May–June 2002 and one of our most popular covers. We also found Mimi Welch, a writer with roots in retail human resources and training, who agreed to write an ongoing column on Women in LP that evolved into Diversity in LP that ran for the first four years of our publication.

Over the past several years, the LPM team has continued our internal discussion about diversity and women in the industry. The topic was often one that we discussed at our annual editorial board meetings as well. Late last year, we decided to move forward with a survey of women in LP. Jacque Brittain, LPC, the magazine’s editorial director and someone with an extensive recruiting, education, and writing background, volunteered to lead the effort. The feature article on page 15 summarizes the results of this effort.

Whenever one begins a survey project of this type, you never know how it will be received. In this case from the beginning, the reception from the industry was, frankly, overwhelming. We started by contacting female leaders in the industry to discuss the project and develop the questionnaire. What started with a few conversations snowballed into ultimately twenty LP executives—some of whom included others on their team—who provided input into what topics to include in the survey. After many weeks of development, the end result was a fifty-question survey that was promoted to the industry from January 5 to February 5, 2018. Considering the survey took approximately twenty minutes to complete, we were unsure how many women would take the time to complete the questionnaire. To our delight, we had 500 busy, female loss prevention professionals answer the survey. By any standard, that is a very strong response and further evidence that the topic had an enthusiastic audience in our industry.

The magazine wishes to thank the executives who took ownership in driving this project, as well as the LP leadership at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, National Retail Federation, and NRF’s Women in LP council. Their support and promotion of the survey to their teams helped make this project a success.

Apart from this feature article that summarizes the results, what should the response to this survey achieve? Our hope all along was not just to gauge the attitudes of females working in our industry but also start an in-depth conversation about those positive and negative issues women encounter in the workplace. This first article is just the starting point.

A second article will appear in our upcoming July–August issue that will focus on industry reaction to the survey results from both male and female LP professionals. While we chose to work with female leadership during the development of this project, it should be understood that many male LP executives were aware and equally supportive of this initiative. As it should be.

A detailed survey report is available for download on the magazine website at LossPreventionMedia.com. Anyone interested in reading the report is welcome to download the document. We hope you not only find the opinions expressed in this survey interesting but also fodder for internal discussions that result in a better connected, more diverse asset protection team.

We want to hear your opinions of the survey results and, especially, any thoughts or changes that come from your internal discussions. If you would like to contribute your voice to the upcoming article, please reach out to Jac at JacB@LPportal.com.

Jack Trlica Managing Editor

Charles Bernard Group Vice President, Asset Protection and Comprehensive Loss, Walgreens

Erik Buttlar Vice President, Asset Protection, Best Buy

Jim Carr, CFI Senior Director, Global Asset Protection, Rent-A-Center

Ray Cloud Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention, Ross Stores

Francis D’Addario, CPP, CFE Emeritus Faculty Member, Strategic Influence and Innovation, Security Executive Council

Charles Delgado, LPC Regional Vice President, Store Operations, Academy Sports

Scott Draher, LPC Vice President, Loss Prevention, Safety, and Operations, Lowe’s

Scott Glenn, LPC Chief Security Officer, Sears Holdings

Barry Grant Chief Operating Officer, Photos Unlimited

Bill Heine Senior Director, Global Security, Brinker International

Frank Johns, LPC

Chairman, The Loss Prevention Foundation

Mike Lamb, LPC

Vice President, Asset Protection, The Kroger Co.

David Lund, LPC Vice President of Loss Prevention, DICK’S Sporting Goods

John Matas, CFE, CFCI Vice President, Asset Protection, Investigations, Fraud, & ORC, Macy’s

Chris McDonald Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention, Compass Group NA

Randy Meadows Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention, Kohl’s

Melissa Mitchell, CFI Director of Asset Protection and Retail Supply Chain, LifeWay Christian Stores

Joe Schrauder Vice President, Asset Protection, Walmart Stores

Tina Sellers, LPC Director of Asset Protection, Retail Business Services LLC, an Ahold-Delhaize Company

Quinby Squire Vice President, Asset Analytics and Insights, CVS Health

Mark Stinde, LPC Vice President, Asset Protection, 7-Eleven

Keith White, LPC Senior Vice President, Loss Prevention and Corporate Administration, Gap Inc.

Loss Prevention, LP Magazine, LP Magazine Europe, LPM, and LPM Online are service marks owned by the publishers and their use is restricted. All editorial content is copyrighted. No article may be reproduced by any means without expressed, written permission from the publisher. Reprints or PDF versions of articles are available by contacting the publisher. Statements of fact or opinion are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the publishers. Advertising in the publication does not imply endorsement by the publishers. The editor reserves the right to accept or reject any article or advertisement. LOSS PREVENTION MAGAZINE

700 Matthews Mint Hill Rd, Ste C Matthews, NC 28105 704-365-5226 office, 704-365-1026 fax MANAGING EDITOR Jack Trlica JackT@LPportal.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR James Lee, LPC JimL@LPportal.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jacque Brittain, LPC JacB@LPportal.com MANAGING EDITOR, DIGITAL Kelsey Seidler KelseyS@LPportal.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Adrian Beck Read Hayes, PhD, CPP Tom Meehan, CFI Walter Palmer, CFI, CPP, CFE Colin Peacock Maurizio P. Scrofani, CCSP, LPC Garett Seivold Shane G. Sturman, CFI, CPP Bill Turner, LPC David E. Zulawski, CFI, CFE CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Kevin McMenimen, LPC KevinM@LPportal.com DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL OPERATIONS John Selevitch JohnS@LPportal.com SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGERS Justin Kemp, LPQ Karen Rondeau DESIGN & PRODUCTION SPARK Publications info@SPARKpublications.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Larry Preslar

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Loss Prevention aka LP Magazine aka LPM (USPS 000-710) is published bimonthly by Loss Prevention Magazine, Inc., 700 Matthews Mint Hill Rd, Ste C, Matthews, NC 28105. Print subscriptions are available free to qualified loss prevention and associated professionals in the U.S. and Canada at LPMsubscription.com. The publisher reserves the right to determine qualification standards. International print subscriptions are available for $99 per year payable in U.S. funds at circulation@LPportal.com. For questions about subscriptions, contact circulation@LPportal.com or call 888-881-5861. Periodicals postage paid at Matthews, NC, and additional mailing offices.

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