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Author: Keith Oringer and Michael Hymanson
ISBN No: 9781 032259048
Review date: 22/06/2026
No of pages: 372
Publisher: CRC Press
Publisher URL:
https://www.routledge.com/Legends-of-the-Security-Services-Industry-Profiles-in-Leadership/Oringer-Hymanson/p/book/9781032259048
Year of publication: 06/01/2025
Brief:
price
£42.45, hardback
I wonder if the American authors of the book ‘Legends of the Security Services Industry’ have in fact written two books, that happen to be inside one cover. Even if that’s so, and the two halves don’t have all that much in common, readers can enjoy getting more for their money.
The 15 chapters cover, as the title and sub-title suggest, leaders who built up security companies, some still around today, if only in name or merged with others. Roughly, the first half is given over to true ‘legends’, who are both long gone and the world that they worked in likewise; whereas those in the second half will still be recalled – indeed, Steve Jones, Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Allied Universal, is arguably the world’s most prominent person in the contract guarding sector (and more generally, as Allied is the world’s third largest employer – sadly we aren’t told who are numbers one and two). Jones is the author of an autobiography. Also profiled is Stephan Crรฉtier, the founder of the Canadian firm GardaWorld, now one of the world’s biggest security providers.
The opening legend of the book, Alan Pinkerton, likewise is well known, and while the authors trace his story faithfully they don’t bring anything startlingly new to light (although, did you know he was born in Glasgow, in 1819, and made his way to North America because of his backing of the 1830s and 1840s suffrage movement Chartism, surely the sort of political activists that he and his detective agency were later to investigate?!).
In between the two historically, then, may be where readers get the most benefit: in stories of the likes of George R Wackenhut in the United States, and a trio of Scandinavians such as Jรธrgen Philip-Sรธrensen, who settled at Broadway in the Cotswolds and was behind UK-based Group 4. Next comes Lars Nรธrby Johansen, who was in charge of the Danish firm Falck (which duly became part of Group 4) and which also acquired Wackenhut. And then comes Thomas F Berglund, who while at the helm of Securitas around the turn of the millennium acquired Pinkerton’s. I query whether you can usefully compare as the authors do the styles of the earliest and these most recent ‘legends’, just as the age of the stagecoach and the American Civil War (when Pinkerton spied behind the lines for the Union) don’t have much to do with AI and drones.
They achieved success ‘that most only dream about’. While that’s true, the size of their businesses came about at least partly because of deals – that is, not purely because of the service (the chapter on GardaWorld does recall ‘the battle for G4S’ which went to Allied). In other words, they grew because of their general acumen, that happened to be deployed in the securing of assets. I’d have like to have read more speculation about whether or how security services ‘legends’ compared with ‘legends’ in other fields of business. And about whether it gets similarly harder for a firm set up by a pioneer – Pinkerton’s in security, Ford in car-making – to stay as a dynasty, or whether it’s more or less inevitable that the descendants turn the business over to others, and it becomes like any other. The German author Thomas Mann in his great novel Buddenbrooks chronicled this – the first generation builds the business, the second merely manages it, and the third relinquishes it to others, or squanders it. Is that cycle unbreakable?
As the chapter on Pinkerton shows, making a success of business was partly about seizing opportunity, whether in current affairs (Pinkerton foiled an assassination plot against President Lincoln, and the book has a wonderful portrait of the two in the Civil War field, posing in front of a tent – Abraham Lincoln has a tent pole apparently coming out of his stovepipe hat) or in the economy (as cash flowed across the westward-developing United States, it needed guarding); partly about good hires (of people talented enough to do well, which did come with the risk that they might strike out on their own account; Pinkerton also employed his ‘trusted sons’); good placement (Pinkerton based himself in Chicago, the hub for the United States’ east-west railways) and good marketing (‘we never sleep’ was the still fresh-sounding motto of Pinkerton’s detective agency, besides an open eye).
And what of the tension in security services in particular and in business in general, across the ages, of there being a place for the visionary, the disruptor (as Stephan Crรฉtier is described) and the manager, who ensures a consistent service and looks after the detail, such as payroll and uniforms?
As for how the legends did it, and (not necessarily the same thing) how entrepreneurs might profit from their example, partly it’s thanks to luck. Partly, you need to invest in tech (the tools for the job), have a vision (and a plan so that you actually execute it), and manage your risks (which includes your cash flow). The conclusion is hopeful; security services are as vital as they ever were.
