By R.V. Baugus
Mark Herrera, IAVM’s Director of Safety and Security, has trained more than 400 venues and organizations in various facets including Situational Awareness (Mitigating Risk Through Guest Services), De-Escalation Training for Frontline Teams, Active Threat/Active Shooter Preparedness, and Best Practices for Building Your Security Culture.
These groups are the beneficiary of training from one of the best anywhere on the topics above. If your venue is not one of those groups, what are you waiting for? A disaster of epic safety and security proportions? The last thing any venue wants is to be unprepared for any eventuality that could happen. By having Mark Herrera come to your venue and train your staff, you are given the vital tools necessary if and when bad actors (and for you performing arts folks we don’t mean bad actors performing on your stage) seek to disrupt, destroy, and even kill.
“The International Association of Venue Managers has provided over 418 Live Security Training to all venue types and other facilities to develop a security-focused culture, empowering employees to feel confident in carrying out their day-to-day responsibility with a safety and security mindset,” Herrera said. “The goal of the live training is to inoculate front-line teams and leadership to the challenges plaguing our industry today and to better equip teams on forecasting critical incidents with mitigation efforts to better prepare, plan, respond, and recover.”
Kerry Painter, CVE, CMP, CEM, Director/General Manager of the Raleigh Convention and Performing Arts Complex at City of Raleigh Municipal Government as well as IAVM 1st Vice Chair, recently welcomed Herrera to her venue for full-scale training and was complimentary of the value she and her team received.
“As we continue to welcome crowds back into our public spaces, it’s more important than ever to stay up-to-date with training that will help ensure the safety and security of our guests, performers, and staff,” Painter said. “We were honored to host this internationally recognized training which brought together those in charge of services, spaces, and activities both public and private. Whether a church service, a community gathering, or a large sporting event, we all have one thing in common: the desire for all of our guests to go home safe and happy.
“Not only is this security training vitally important for our traditional industry venues, but I am also honored to be able to share with other local venues and community partners such as colleges, churches, museums, and hotels who might not be able to afford this elite-level training otherwise. “
Herrera’s schedule also took him recently to Houston to train the Building Owners and Managers Association to another training program that resonated with the audience.
“Houston Building Owners and Managers Association hosted Mark Herrera as the guest speaker at our August Luncheon,” 
said Bradley Elliott, MBA, CAE, CEO of Houston BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association). “Mark taught our members how to assess safety threats in building infrastructure, guest behavior, and large-scale events. The techniques he shared for utilizing guest services to enhance security and mitigate risk are particularly helpful, as our industry continues to increase its focus on hospitality. Property managers and building staff walked away from the luncheon feeling empowered and confident in their ability to provide safety and security for their tenants and properties.”
In addition to being recognized as one of the 25 most influential leaders in the meetings and event industry, Herrera also represents the Department of Homeland Security Office of Infrastructure Protection as the current Chair for the Public Assembly Facility Sub-Sector Council. He is a seasoned law enforcement officer and trainer with 20 years of experience in different roles including patrol officer, detective for the Gang and Narcotics Unit, Entry Team
Leader, and Tactical Seargent for a special operations unit known as S.W.A.T.
“From the moment Mr. Herrera took the stage he immediately engaged the audience with his presence and humor,” said Eric Neill, Director of Theatre Operations for the Boch Center for the Performing Arts in Boston and President & CEO of Guardian Security & Protection. “Mark is clearly not just on stage reading from a PowerPoint program. He draws from his experience of when he was in law enforcement and brings his knowledge of lessons learned from prior incidents in our event space and passes that information on in an engrossing way.”
Neill adds that Herrera’s involvement with the Department of Homeland Security resonated when Herrera trained before a Boston audience that was a community-wide crowd.
“His involvement with the DHS gives him real time knowledge of current threats and other important information which he disseminates to his up to 25 groups he chairs in IAVM and in his training programs,” Neill said. “His passion to make those in the audience better prepared is extremely evident from beginning to end.
“The situational awareness part of the training focuses from all aspects of outside the venue to the inside. He included the external threats that can sometimes be overlooked such as traffic patterns, parking garages, and other local structures that could pose an opportunity for a bad actor to cause harm to your patrons and stressing the importance of getting your patrons off the sidewalk and into the building. As protectors of our buildings, we often can focus on just outside our front doors to inside and not going a little bit further out to see the concentric circle of protection to potentially see a threat. Again, a great reason to invite the community so we have one big circle to help each other out with.”
For Herrera, the training comes as a labor of love and covers a number of safety and security elements.
“IAVM’s Live Training has been deemed as the preeminent source of community-wide security training in the areas of Building Elite Guest Service and Security Cultures through a team engagement tool developed to foster leadership buy-in and identify training & technology gaps,” Herrera said. “Training also includes Active Threat/Shooter Preparedness, Risk Mitigation Through Guest Service Interjection, Behavioral Indication Training, and De-escalation Strategies & Techniques. Training has been heavily supported by the entire event industry inclusive of our Federal partners with the Department of Homeland Security.”
To visit with Herrera about coming to your venue to provide live training, contact him at mark.herrera@iavm.org to get on his busy training schedule.
