End Users '20 under 40' 2014—Brad Reeves

Brad Reeves, 39

Director of loss prevention, A&P, Montvale, N.J.

Reeves covers loss prevention at A&P's 300 grocery stores from Connecticut to Maryland and at its liquor store division. He manages a 140-member team of district and regional LP managers, store LP managers and LP associates. Recently he has initiated bottom-of-the-basket technology and POS exception reporting systems at some of his stores. A&P has $6 billion in sales per year.

What inspired you to get into the security industry?

My first taste of it was as a freshman in college. I was majoring in law and justice, and I took a security class. One of the professors was a retired FBI agent, and he gave me my first vision into the private sector and a little about LP. I got a job with a regional retailer, a department store chain, as a dock guard. When I saw the store detectives doing their job I knew within the first few hours that I wanted to do that. I've been in LP ever since.

If you could have any technology you wanted, without regard to budget, what would it be?

Technology is always evolving. CCTV is always at the forefront. There's cloud-based technology and IP ...� if you have a perfectly working analog system, it's hard to sell that. Keeping up with technology, repairs, public view monitors—nowadays monitors are being put right on the stock shelves. Then there is remote-based technology and video retention. All of these take up a large portion of the budget.

What's your biggest physical security challenge today, and what do you think it will be five years from now?

It's merchandise protection. We are selling commodities that are very easily moved via ORC and stolen via every day customer theft. How do we balance meeting customer demands and protecting our merchandise so it's not susceptible to theft? It needs to be convenient for the customer, not labor intensive for us. Five years from now, omni-channeling and ship-from-store will be bigger. We have to come up with these risk evaluations. We'll also need to keep up with the economy. If I just lost my job and money is tighter than ever, I'm not going to go to the local mall and steal a $100 sweater, I'm going to the local grocery store and steal $100 in groceries. The economy can affect our associates, too.