End Users '20 under 40' 2017—Bryan Kramer

Bryan Kramer, 39

GSOC manager, Noble Energy Inc.

Houston

Bryan Kramer is the GSOC manager for Noble Energy Inc., an oil and natural gas exploration and production company with about 2,000 employees worldwide.

Kramer's responsibilities cover “everything from GSOC systems to GSOC administration, building a GSOC,” he said. The company's main presence is in the U.S., around the Gulf of Mexico, central-Western Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

“A lot of my day-to-day activities include representing the Global Security Department in meetings with cross-functional teams and different departments within the company; IT, Environmental Health and Safety, and Production. I also frequently speak with personnel in the control centers that monitor the systems that regulate the products coming out of the ground,” Kramer said. “That's where the money is made in the company. So, if we can have better relationships with them, it helps build a GSOC to be more forward-facing and provides a better service to the company—not just by watching alarms or cameras, but by correlating threats to critical processes and assets such as facilities and tracking travelers.”

Kramer served in the U.S. Air Force for 10 years, which introduced him to security. “Half of that time I was a military working dog handler,” he said. “The last year and a half to two years I was managing the Air Force Base's Visitor Center; so, very similar to access control—I see overlapping processes that the private security industry performs.”

Kramer added, “I was also a dispatcher for the base's 911 center; an Air Force security forces law enforcement desk sergeant.”

After leaving the military, Kramer attended college and received two bachelor's degrees: one in criminal justice and another in computer science - information systems.

Looking at the future of physical security, Kramer said, “It all depends on the culture of your company. There's a fine balance between convenience and security.”