Tell us about the facilities you oversee and your responsibilities for those facilities.
I oversee security operations for the Parking Division, and I have 65 officers under my command. We are responsible for everything from traffic control and customer service to routine security patrols to investigating suspicious activities. Our jurisdiction encompasses all parking operations for SFO, which includes paying customers and employee facilities. All told, we have capacity for 16,000 vehicles, with about 10,000 parking transactions a day.
Can you describe how your officers’ tours work?
Our officers are divided into different patrol routes. Some are assigned to long-term, some to employee parking, domestic, and so on. Our domestic facility, our largest and most time-consuming tour, has about 90 buttons, with 30 in stairwells and 35 in our elevator core, the area through which everyone has to pass to enter the main terminal facility. Typically, the officer will zigzag back and forth between the core and stairwell.
We also have 6 buttons in our government parking zone, the government employee-only restricted area a couple of hundred feet from the main terminal. It’s considered a blast zone, so those government zones are high priority. Officers patrol the government parking routinely throughout the day. They do one patrol through domestic, which will take about 2-3 hours to complete one round. Combined, our two international garages are 58 buttons, and officers patrol stairwells and elevator banks as well as storage rooms. Our long-term garage is the same, with buttons at bus stops and the fence perimeter on the surface lot, in the stairwells and elevator banks. Typically, each of these takes 30 minutes to one hour to complete one tour.
What kind of security issues do you face?
One of our biggest concerns obviously is terrorist activities. A lot of what we encounter has to do with abandoned bags, but more typically we’re dealing with customers needing assistance to find their vehicle, or making sure cars aren’t broken into. When you deal with the public, you never know what’s coming your way.
What was the security setup like before you brought in the Guard1 Plus system?
I came aboard as the Parking Division’s Security Manager in January 2008. When I joined, we had no patrol system in place. In fact, our security was awful. There was no accountability. A guard could sleep for eight hours and no one would know.
When I came in, I decided we needed a system of accountability. We sent out RFQs and got back three systems to consider. I recommended Guard1 Plus because I had used it at my previous job.
What do you like most about the PIPEs?
First and foremost, I’d say durability. A couple of years ago, when I was a guard, I left one on top of my car and pulled away. It flew off and by the time I realized it, it had been run over numerous times. Amazingly, it turned right back on. That’s when I knew this was a unique product. Durability is extremely important because our officers aren’t the gentlest people. I’ve seen PIPEs come back with chunks of metal taken out, some look like they’ve been dragged behind the car, dropped a couple of floors, but they can’t kill them.
Another thing is that they’re easy to use. I’ve seen systems that required you to insert a key, turn it and hit a mark in the tape. I’ve used others that used a scan bar that was difficult to use. With the PIPE, the guard knows exactly when he’s made contact because it gives an audible beep.
Have your officers come to like the system at this point?
I wouldn’t say they like the system, but I think most understand why they use it. They realize the program isn’t going away and that the wands aren’t going to break, which would mean they couldn’t do their job. And I believe that most have a renewed sense of pride that they’re doing something worthwhile.
What features of the Guard1 Plus System are most helpful to you?
The thing I like best is that the reports are fully customizable. I can set the parameters to see things I want. If I want a week’s worth of data at a certain rule, say, that they have to hit 21 buttons in a week in a certain location, I can see an exception report to see they only hit, say, 15 buttons. And I can customize the look of the reports so the information pops off the page.
Would you say the system has been easy to learn and use?
Absolutely. It’s easy to set rules up. And if I’ve had problems, customer service has been excellent.
How has having the Guard1 Plus system allowed you to improve security at the airport?
We’re absolutely convinced that our security is an order of magnitude better than it was before.
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