Event Pros Seek More Safety and Security Training

From an interview with The Meeting Professional, Sept., 2018.

With decades of experience in both law enforcement and meeting management, Alan Kleinfeld, CMP, CMM, MTA (MPI Carolinas Chapter), sees a definite trend in what planners want in terms of safety and security education.

They want to learn how to prepare themselves for something of a doomsday scenario: What do they do if an active shooter invades their event or if a hurricane or massive fire or other catastrophe occurs on their watch?

“I tell my groups that they are far more likely to have something happen like an attendee tripping and falling at one of their events than they are to have something like an active shooter incident,” says Kleinfeld, director of emergency planning for Charleston, S.C.-based Arrive Conference Solutions and a frequent speaker to groups of meeting professionals (including at the MPI World Education Congress in June). “But in part because of the incidence of public violence that people are seeing on their televisions these days, planners want to know how to prepare themselves to be ready if the worst happens. So I teach that as well as the basics of handling the everyday stuff.”

See the entire MPI article here.