By Marie Harrington
Brian Reich, Chapter Treasurer, opened the Google event by introducing John Petruzzi, President-elect of ASIS International.
Why pay dues to ASIS international?
John informed the chapter that the staff at ASIS has been restructured, with a large percentage actually replaced. Going forward more support will be provided to the members and funds will be released to local chapters to help fund local events. The ASIS Councils will now provide more concrete, hands on approach to help security efforts globally. These positions will no longer be just ceremonial positions. ASIS has also launched a mobile app to allow members to access info from all of their devices. Brian Reich also mentioned the assistance that may be obtained from the global reach of the ASIS member forum. Other members may have policies and practice in place to help tackle your security dilemmas. To quote Brian, “Why reinvent the wheel?”
Don Francisco, Chapter Chairman, spoke about the benefits being planned for chapter members to add value for paying membership dues. Don referenced a survey distributed to chapter members. After the results were collated and discussed by the board, the following are some salient points from the survey:
$50.00 (or less for sure) is the sweet spot for pricing an event
After work events are preferable
Thursday evening is the most preferred time
Apropos to this survey:
A BYOB- “buy your own booze” policy may be put in place for future chapter events for those who are not current ASIS members. To date drink tickets have been provided at many Chapter meetings to all registered attendees regardless of their ASIS membership status.
Steve Sacchetti, Chapter Vice-Chairman previously noted for the Chapter is considering ways to help active paying members who are interested in hitting the books for CPP recertification. Professor Sacchetti has volunteered to implement some type of group study structure for those seeking CPP accreditation. Details are still being discussed as to cost, format, etc.
Other ways to add value to membership are also being considered.
Finally, the event of the day commenced. Brian Reich, acting as Master of Ceremony, introduced Jim West, Google Regional NYC Security Director and Tom Shanahan, Google NYC Security Director. Jim was busy dealing with the advent of the COVID 19 epidemic. The chapter was fortunate to have him at the event. These three gentlemen could take their show on the road!
“The Wizard of Oz meets Disneyland”
Tom Shanahan describing the campus of Google and the Googlers
Tom has been with Google for ten years and he provided an overview of the vastness of the Google NYC property portfolio along with details of the planned expansion of the enterprise. If the square footage of Google in NYC was vertical rather than horizontal, the imagined building would be taller than the Empire State Building. This imagined building would be the 5th tallest building in NYC.
Google NYC currently employs 11,000. After the expansion, including the awesome space in the Hudson Yards Area, there will be somewhere in the vicinity of 22,000 employees. There will be a berth to tie up kayaks, in case you were wondering. Googlers requested it. The employee benefit package must be rather interesting. You may even bring your dog to work. Tom shared many of these anecdotes about the Google culture. Too many to list in a recap. Shame if you missed the event!
All kidding aside, providing security for such a large, physically dispersed pool of employees must be harrowing. Security is tight and the Googlers are well versed and on board with this strict protocol. Hats off to Jim West, Tom Shanahan and their security teams.
It was also interesting to see how the Google empire has financially benefitted from monetizing all of our info, feely given as it might have been. The Google algorithms may know more about us than our family members, perhaps even spouses. If those algorithms could talk….
So, pay your ASIS dues, get ready to hit the books, have a drink (in honor of St. Patrick this month) and make some new friends.