“40 under 40” Class of 2019 — Sean Owens, 34

While studying criminology at Florida State University, Sean Owens needed a job to help pay for college. “Retail loss prevention caught my attention and I was hooked!” he exclaimed. Roles, such as plain clothes detective and corporate level positions, prepped him for his current role in healthcare security.

Daily, Owens is responsible for all aspects of physical public safety and leads a team of public safety professionals whose sole focus is on providing for the safety and security of all patients and staff.

In Owens' opinion, 5G networks will present the greatest universal benefit to the security industry as cellular networks will enable a greater expansion of networked video to areas that could not support high speed data before. “From my perspective, over the next five years, I see drones as the greatest opportunity and challenge we will have in security,” he said. “They will revolutionize logistics, policing, security, and transportation for the better but will also become a threat vector we are only beginning to understand. I can easily see that in the near future the airspace around hospitals will become increasingly congested with both autonomous and human controlled drones. Helicopter's transporting patients to and from could easily be in danger if a drone were intentionally or unintentionally placed in their flight path on final approach and we will need to tightly monitor and control our airspaces to insure everyone's safety.”

To ensure the recruitment and retention of young, talented, diverse individuals, Owens said we need to do a better job of being ambassadors of our craft. “We need to reach out to high schools and colleges; offer more paid internships and volunteer hours; and we need pillars of our industry to be deeply enrooted into the education pathways of colleges and universities.”