January 2, 2025 in PODCASTS
Employee Spotlight: Security Manager
April Chapman:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the APLL Pulse Podcast where you can uncover new insights from the logistics and freight forwarding industry through the seasoned experts at APL Logistics, a global supply chain provider. We’ll help you keep pace with the current topics impacting businesses and advance your logistics strategy.
Well, hello, everyone. This is your host, April Chapman. We are starting something new on the podcast today. While there are many great things about APL Logistics, what truly sets us apart are the people here and it’s time to shine a spotlight on some of them. We’ll be offering Employee Spotlight, where you can get to know the amazing and interesting people that work behind the scenes here. So our first Employee Spotlight is on today’s guest, Tony, our security manager in North America. A few months ago, Tony and I ran an event together and I had the opportunity to hear about his unique backstory, and I’m excited for him to share a little about it with you today. So Tony, let’s bring you into this conversation. Can you share with our listeners how long you’ve been at APLL and what you currently do here?
Tony:
Hi, April. Thank you for having me on. It’s a pleasure to be the first guest in this series. I’m looking forward to it. My name is Tony. I am the security manager for North America here at APL Logistics. Been with the company for coming up on a year and a half now, and my basic function is to provide security services and guidance to our operations team to ensure that our employees, our assets, and our facilities are safe and secure from outside threats, whether it be natural disasters, external security events or things kind of in the criminal realm, whether it be theft, anything of that nature.
April Chapman:
Criminal realm. So that brings me to asking you, hey, can you share a little about what you were doing before you moved over to the logistics arena?
Tony:
Yeah, absolutely. I began my career as a law enforcement officer. I was a police officer for over a decade, and I had the opportunity to work several very interesting assignments, to me. I got a lot of experience working very high-level investigations. I was also a K-9 officer and I got to keep my dog after I got out, who’s actually next to me right now.
April Chapman:
Well, Tony, it’s really interesting that you were on the K-9 unit. I know dogs are just beloved members of families and service dogs especially are super important. And I have heard that they speak in a different language, so can you elaborate more on that?
Tony:
A lot of the police dogs and military working dogs that are deployed throughout the United States are actually from Europe. The reason that that is is the bloodlines go back hundreds of years and in Europe they use the dogs in sports. So similar to how we play baseball, there’s dog sports over there. My dog was in a sport called KNPV, which is a protection-based sport, and when the law enforcement vendors go select the dogs, they go to multiple countries in Europe that these sports are popular. My dog is from the Netherlands, so he takes his commands in Dutch, so I had to learn his Dutch commands. I was actually able to connect with his mom via his passport.
April Chapman:
Oh, no way.
Tony:
We still keep in contact to this day. Looking forward to going out to the Netherlands to visit her and participate in the KNPV trials and training and everything like that as well.
April Chapman:
Oh my gosh, that is so cool. You know, we have an office in the Netherlands.
Tony:
I do know. Yes.
April Chapman:
Maybe they need some security help.
Tony:
We are planning on expanding our program globally. We do have responsibility for the EMEA region right now as well.
April Chapman:
That’s awesome. Oh, well, thanks for sharing. What’s your dog’s name?
Tony:
My dog’s name is Dino.
April Chapman:
Dino. Oh, that’s cute.
Tony:
He’s a five-and-a-half-year-old Belgian Malinois.
April Chapman:
That’s awesome.
Tony:
But yeah, it taught me a lot and I ended up transitioning into private sector and my first job, the private sector full-time, was with a large insurance company in the US and in that role I managed a security team, specifically focused on investigations. We would do investigations related to workplace violence. We had a lot of both internal and external incidents that would happen, and it was our responsibility to ensure that we responded to those events in an appropriate manner, gather enough information for criminal charges if it was relevant, and mostly make sure that our employees were safe from both internal and external threats in the company.
April Chapman:
Interesting. Those detective skills still at play here, huh?
Tony:
Once you get it, you don’t lose it. You start seeing the world in a little bit of different light.
April Chapman:
When you originally became a police officer, were you ever thinking private sector, I could do similar things?
Tony:
No. I’m sure this is similar to a lot of the thinking of police officers kind of throughout the country is you kind of get put into a mentality where it’s everything to you and you never really think about a career in the private sector at all. But now that I’m out and I see the other side, it’s definitely something that I would encourage. It’s no different, if you’re a high performer in the public sector, you’re probably going to be a high performer in the private sector. And it’s just a matter of taking those skills that you learn in the public sector and just transitioning them over to a different business application and more focused on revenue and cost savings rather than your traditional government type budgeting.
April Chapman:
And I think that’s true for a lot of different people, a lot of different industries or jobs. People start out thinking they’re going to do something and then 20 years later they’re often in totally different arenas. And I love that. I mean, I’m someone who loves change, so I love, hey, what is the next opportunity? Where can I use the skill set that I have to something different too and be able to learn new things? That’s awesome. Let’s talk about what some of your notable professional accomplishments have been. What would you like to share?
Tony:
One of the things that gives me the most satisfaction is having the opportunity to mentor those below me and around me and more so seeing them be successful. Kind of the way I think about my work is my achievements and my work, everything is just temporary, but if I can impact those around me and mentor those, passing on my experience, and most importantly my failures and my lessons learned from those failures, you can kind of cement your legacy for generations to come. And rather than leaving a temporary positive impact on the company for only the time that you’re there, you can really make sure that your program and your legacy lives on in every position that you’re in.
April Chapman:
You and I are similar in that, and I talk about mentoring a lot because I think it’s so important and it’s not about age, it’s about where you are and what your experience is. I think everyone should be mentoring someone and then being mentored because there is benefit in both. Also, you mentioned something that I think is really important, which is being authentic and real and being able to talk about the areas where there was failure or you didn’t feel like it was a huge success. I feel like whenever I shared those parts of my story that that’s where people connect best. It’s because we all have those and it’s like being willing to talk about that, being vulnerable about that, there’s such strength in that and there’s a bravery in that. I love that you said that. I love that you encourage that. And that’s where we can connect with others and that’s how we find those people to mentor and that they want to be mentored by you because they’re like, “Oh, I can totally relate.”
Tony:
Yeah. The private sector, especially, you come to realize it’s extremely important for not only succession planning, but also your future growth in companies as well. A lot of companies make it almost mandatory that for you to get a promotion or an advancement, you have to mentor somebody to be able to take your position day one, and I think that’s extremely vital part of our continuity of operations in any company that you go to. And if you don’t take advantage of that, you’re kind of doing yourself and your employees a disservice.
April Chapman:
Oh, I agree. And we have some mentorship programs here. We have some through our ERGs. HR is also working on some succession planning and things like that. All really important aspects of our careers. All right, so let’s move on to kind of motivation. So I want to know what motivates you to keep pushing forward in your career?
Tony:
I love new challenges. For me, it’s definitely my naive mind sometimes, but when I think of things, there’s nothing that I can’t do if I set my mind to it. That’s kind of the mindset that I go into it with. Now that said, I have failed often, definitely not always a success, but for me, sometimes I feel like I actually learn more from failure than I do from success. Not to say that the success doesn’t also translate to performance, but when you really have a time to dissect your failures, you really learn key lessons that you can take to other opportunities that you take in life and your professional life that can really translate to future success as well.
April Chapman:
Yeah, growth, growth, individually.
Tony:
Absolutely.
April Chapman:
Absolutely. I agree with you. Let’s get into a little bit of the things that you use, the things that you like. What are your favorite work tools or technologies? Can you share some of that with our guests?
Tony:
My wife is in finance and accounting, so I’d be remiss to say that Excel is one of my everyday go-to tools. I use the budgeting quite often, very important that I stay within the budgets and the parameters that are given to me. But I think my favorite tool that I currently work with is a system called Everbridge. Everbridge is a mass communications and business threat intelligence tool. We just onboarded it this year with our company for a risk management platform and to be able to provide that duty of care to our employees globally. We leverage that technology for not only emergency situations, but also to drive further employee engagement. I know you and I have had discussions on how we can drive engagement within the company and get our corporate message out to all of our employees, which can obviously be difficult at times. Everyone’s in different time zones working for a global company. And how can we do that in an efficient manner where we’re putting out a consistent message from the top and make sure that the message doesn’t get lost in translation.
April Chapman:
Right. Well, I love that tool as well, and I love the thought of expanding it more into being able to reach people right where they are. And that’s an important ability to do that in this day and age. And especially like you said, not only globally, but we have people sitting at desks in remote places. We have people in offices, we have people in warehouses. It’s just all across the board. Our favorite tools are communication tools. Hey, as a communication person, oh, that’s a good…
Tony:
And I would actually say communication is one of my weaker suits, so this’ll help me develop as well.
April Chapman:
See? And I couldn’t say that because of the calls we’ve had, so growth, growth, growth. So all right. What about advice? Let’s talk. We talked about mentoring. Obviously you’re working with people, you are able in a position where you can give advice to some people now in this stage of your career. So what piece of advice would you give to new employees?
Tony:
New employees coming into the company, my role is unique in that we support all of the operations functions and having that 30,000 foot perspective has really allowed me to see the business from end to end. And in the logistics industry, we have several different business lines that can be overwhelming. And when I first came in, it was difficult for me to look down the org chart and see the different heads of business units and business lines that we have, but when you come in and you start to learn the other business units through collaboration, it really helps you get a full understanding of what we do for customers end-to-end at APL Logistics, and more importantly, how your piece fits into that end-to-end solution. And when you understand how your piece fits into the bigger picture, it allows you to anticipate your customer’s needs a little bit better and really help drive that end-to-end success that we’re known for.
April Chapman:
That’s good. What about yourself? Thinking back to a young Tony, he’s got a dream to be a cop. He has been working in that area. What’s your advice you’d give to yourself?
Tony:
When I first started, I was hesitant to take chances out of fear of failure sometimes. If you don’t put yourself out there, it’s hard for you to grow. And if you just stay within your comfort and wheelhouse, yes, you’ll refine those skills, but it really can sometimes limit your opportunity for growth in other areas. I never pictured myself being on a business or operation side until I got in the private sector and I was like, “Yeah, man, I can do this too.” There’s obviously a lot of education and training that goes behind that. I went back and got my MBA in human resources management, something I never ever thought that I would go back and do.
April Chapman:
Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. Human resources.
Tony:
I know.
April Chapman:
And you’re not in human resources.
Tony:
No, I’m not. However, one thing that I have learned, to have a successful security program, you really lean into HR very heavily. The collaboration with HR is extremely critical because a lot of the stuff you’re dealing with is employee-related matters on some of the internal side. And having a good relationship with HR and having that baseline background knowledge really helps you make sure that you’re staying both within the legal bounds and being able to come up with a good solution that’s going to work long-term.
April Chapman:
That’s very interesting. All right, well, thank you so much for sharing, Tony. Now I’m going to do something that I’m going to do on all of my Employee Spotlights. I’m going to do a lightning round, which means I’m just going to ask you like A or B, what do you like? What is it? I want your quick response on some of these questions, okay? You ready?
Tony:
Yes.
April Chapman:
Okay. Favorite time of day.
Tony:
Afternoon.
April Chapman:
In a word, how would you describe your work style?
Tony:
Self-sufficient.
April Chapman:
Good. Your parents are probably proud of that. Text or phone call?
Tony:
Phone call. I feel like it’s more personable.
April Chapman:
Next question on lightning round. Cups of coffee per day?
Tony:
I’ll say on a good day, at least two, but I’m kind of a weirdo because I’ll brew my coffee at night and let it sit to cool down because I like iced coffee and I throw some ice cubes in the morning and just drink it throughout the day.
April Chapman:
Pre-planning.
Tony:
Yep.
April Chapman:
I like iced coffee, but I’m not a good pre-planner, so there you go. And then favorite business book or movie, whichever. What comes to mind?
Tony:
I’m going to have to say two here. So on the business side, I think there’s a book called Our Iceberg is Melting and it’s a book about change management. I’d highly recommend it. And then for leadership, my favorite book is The Mission, the Men, and Me.
April Chapman:
The Mission, the Men, And Me. What’s that about?
Tony:
It is a book by a guy, his name is Pete Blaber, and it talks about your priorities of leadership and what they should be through his lessons and his time as a Delta Force commander.
April Chapman:
Oh, okay. So we have some military background in there. Got it. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today, Tony. It’s been a pleasure talking with you and we just really appreciate you.
Tony:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me and for any new employees coming into the company, feel free to reach out anytime. Be more than happy to give you whatever guidance I can.
April Chapman:
Thank you, Tony.
Tony:
All right, have a good day.
April Chapman:
See you next time on the APLL Pulse Podcast. Thanks for joining us today. If you like what you heard or if you have any questions about today’s episode, reach out to us at global_marketing@apllogistics.com. Make sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast apps. You will also find us on LinkedIn or visit us at apllogistics.com. We’ll see you next time on the APLL Pulse Podcast.
Thanks for joining us today. If you like what you heard or if you have any questions about today’s episode, reach out to us at Global_Marketing@APLLogistics.com. Make sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast apps. You’ll also find us on LinkedIn or visit us at APLLogistics.com. We’ll see you next time on the APLL Pulse podcast.
Thanks for joining us today. If you like what you heard or if you have any questions about today’s episode, reach out to us at global_marketing@apllogistics.com. Make sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast apps. You’ll also find us on LinkedIn or visit us @apllogistics.com. We’ll see you next time on the APLL Pulse Podcast.
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