Canadian Security: What interested you in leaving the U.S. to take on this role with Securitas Canada?

Gulsby: I’ve been very fortunate in my career at Securitas to work with a number of the team members here in Canada and over the years I developed an admiration and respect for what they were doing here. I saw this opportunity from a professional standpoint in that it gave me an opportunity to become part of a team that I had a lot of respect for and to lead them into the future in a direction that will deliver the results that are being looked for from the company.

CS: What was your position in the U.S. prior to coming here to Toronto?

Gulsby: My previous role was vice-president of sales in the mid-Atlantic region, as well as business development manager and operations manager in the Virginia area.

CS: Before joining Securitas you were in the U.S. Marine Corp. What’s interesting is that G4S Canada also has a relatively new president and CEO and you started at roughly the same time. Jean Paul Taillon came from a telecommunications/business background and you came from a military background. What do you think is more appropriate for leading a guard force operation?

Gulsby: I think both backgrounds bring value to the organizations they serve. Over time you develop strengths in the areas you need development in and ultimately when you get up to a certain level with an organization you get well-rounded enough, whether it’s having a military or formal financial business background you round yourself out to being a better total package.

CS: What are your goals for Securitas Canada? Do you plan to change course at all?

Gulsby: We want to really focus on service delivery for our guard service and work on strengthening that position and becoming best in class within our industry from a guard service standpoint.

CS: Robert Pretto is president of the mobile operations division and you are president of the guarding division. Can you explain the current management structure and how the different divisions are handled?

Gulsby: In Canada we’re broken into two divisions — our guarding division, which I oversee, and our mobile division which Robert Pretto oversees and that’s more in line with the North American organization. Under my direct responsibility we have seven area vice-presidents who are placed geographically throughout the country. Under the area vice-presidents we have about 40 branch managers that deliver the local service to our customers and we’re strategically placed so it provides a very strong and robust footprint throughout the country for our customer base. Although we are a very large organization from a global standpoint, the investment we always try and make back into the organization is at the local branch manager level to make sure we are close to our customers and close to our employees. We always remember that this is a local service. We’re only as good as our local managers are.

CS: Competitors seem to be pushing hard on providing integrated security systems. Is Securitas pushing in that direction or is your focus still primarily on providing the guard service?

Gulsby: We do bring some industry-leading technologies to the table for our customers, such as mobile remote surveillance, but our focus is on guarding, unlike some other organizations in the industry that have an electronic side or armoured car division, we are focused on becoming the best we can at one discipline and that is guarding.

CS: What’s your impression of the changes made to the private security guard legislation in Ontario and other provinces with respect to regulation of guards and private investigators?

Gulsby: I’ve had a chance to start to absorb most of it and I applaud the provincial government for taking the step that it did. I think it is something that is needed for our industry in helping to professionalize the industry and that is definitely a focus for me right now — taking our industry forward into a more professional light.

We’ve been fortunate to be able to work with the Ministry in the area of the testing and turnaround time on the licensing. Outside of the training itself that we can prepare for and provide, it’s the turnaround on the provision of the licences that can have the direct impact on our ability to service our customers and we’ve been working with the Ministry on that issue.