Executive Protection Training Academy: Keeping our Clients Safe, Happy, and Productive®

Executive Protection Overview

Executive protection (EP) is a service which boosts productivity and mitigates the elevated and ever-changing personal risks, threats, and vulnerabilities of individuals due to their prominence, wealth, occupation, reputation, travel destinations, or other factors. Services include secure travel logistics, close personal protection, intelligence analysis, and related measures to ensure the productivity and safety of the principal wherever and whenever necessary. In addition to providing peace of mind for prominent individuals and their families, corporate boards mandate executive protection for CEOs and other Principals. This mandate fulfills duty-of-care requirements to safeguard shareholder interests which are often contingent upon the wellbeing of these principals.

Enhanced productivity for the principal is more than a byproduct of executive protection. This is a goal, and frequently the most tangible near and long-term benefit of best-in-class corporate executive protection programs.  Ultimately, the mission of Allied Universal® Executive Protection and Intelligence Services is Keeping our Clients Safe, Happy, and Productive®, and the goal of the EPA-301 training program is to help ensure that EP agents receive the proper tools to accomplish this critical mission.

The Executive Protection Academy (EPA-301)

Allied Universal® Executive Protection and Intelligence Services offers the Executive Protection Academy (EPA-301) training program in Las Vegas, Nevada. The comprehensive program culminates in a capstone, full mission profile situational training exercise (STX) in which students are evaluated on the entire spectrum of skills that encompass the course curriculum.

The ten-day/80-plus hour course is a modular training program that utilizes a hybrid combination of live, instructor-led instruction combined with web-based/online components. The training program is designed to deliver a very comprehensive blend of both human/soft and hard skills for executive protection professionals of all experience levels, including entry-level, novice, and seasoned practitioners currently protecting Fortune 500 principals, C-Suite ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) individuals, and public figures. 

We designed the program to be modular in nature and includes five distinct instructor-led training programs, including:

• Executive Protection Defensive and Security Driving course (DRV-201); 1-day/8-hours 
• Tactical Emergency Casualty Care course  (TEC-201); 1-day/8-hours
• Defensive Tactics and Physical Response course (DTC-201); 2-days/16-hours
• Executive Protection Handgun course (HGN-201); 1-day/8-hours
• Executive Protection Training Program (EPT-201); 5-days/40-hours

Performance Objectives

• Mission of executive protection 
• The Corporate UHNW environment
• Allied Universal Executive Protection and Intelligence Services culture
• Agent conduct, wellness, and daily best practices
• Legal and ethical considerations
• Organization of the protective detail
• Concepts of security and protective rings
• Executive protection arrivals 
• Executive protection departures
• Defensive driving
• Walking coverage
• Protective intelligence
• Advance planning
• Site surveys
• Technology, communications, and specialized equipment
• Legal physical response
• Defensive tactics
• Executive protection firearms
• Tactical emergency casualty care (TECC-LEO certification from the NAEMT)
• Active threat mitigation and response
• Modes of transportation
• Other related subject matter

What Makes this Executive Protection Training Program Different from Others?

Many training academies focus on the government executive protection model of the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Department of State, and other federal and state-level organizations. However, the curriculum of EPA-301 is focused on training our agents to support private sector C-Suite ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) embedded clients, domestically and internationally.

Rather than training agents to operate in three-car motorcades and multi-agent details like the government model, the curriculum focuses on the more realistic mission profile typical of C-Suite UHNW executives. A common EP detail in today’s UHNW / corporate setting may include one to three agents and one or two motorcade vehicles in support. It’s more common in the corporate setting to see an agent providing a “loose follow” coverage of a principal rather than being an arm’s length away or part of a diamond formation around the principal, typical of the government EP model. This protection coverage is reflective of actual concepts being provided to current contracts of HNWI / Fortune 500 / Fortune 50 companies.

While hard skills are certainly important, the course focuses on the “probable versus possible” contingencies while weighing the “risk versus service” components of executive protection. While an attack-on-principal is certainly a possibility, it is more probable for agents to deal with the daily challenges of vehicle collisions, vehicle maintenance issues, lost luggage, last minute travel modifications, non-attack medical emergencies, and a myriad of other considerations. EPA-301 focuses on these probable issues. Additionally, the emphasis in training is to focus on proactive soft/human skills so agents may remain “left of bang” and stay ahead of contingencies through solid executive protection program leadership, proper vetting and selection of security professionals, extensive mission planning, sound protective intelligence, and detailed advance work.

EPA-301 strives to instruct students on the “why” behind executive protection practices. It is not enough for students to be able to simply perform the concepts, but to be able to persuade, defend, and instruct clients, principals, and others on industry standard best practices. The curriculum is meant to equip students with recent / relevant training to prepare them to seamlessly apply these concepts to the corporate setting. This training program recognizes the “primary learning” concept, which is, an individual will fall back to the primary learning concepts they first received. For this reason, EPA-301 curriculum recognizes the importance of instilling “best practices” which are directly applicable to the environment the agents will be operating in and will avoid training scars.

Who Should Attend?

This training program is open to public and private sector professionals, including federal, state, and local government; military; veteran; public safety (police, fire, EMS); and private security personnel. Allied Universal Executive Protection and Intelligence Services champions diversity in the executive protection industry and encourages qualified individuals of all backgrounds to apply. Graduates of this training program will be thoroughly qualified to lead, plan, coordinate, and conduct corporate executive protection operations under various environmental conditions while operating as a member of a single or multiple-agent executive protection detail. 

Who Provides the Training?

Instruction for the EPA-301 is provided by the Allied Universal Executive Protection and Intelligence operations and training teamEach instructor possesses decades of recent / relevant real-world operational experience in both domestic and international environments.

Additional Inquiries

For additional information about the Executive Protection Academy or any of the other training programs offered, please visit https://www.aus.com/executive-protection-and-intelligence-services 

Blog contributors from Allied Universal® Executive Protection and Intelligence Services:

Sam Hovenden
Deputy Director, Embedded Operations

Duke Speed, CPP®, PMP®
Senior Training Manager