New Allied business unit a ‘one-stop shop'

ORLANDO, Fla.—Allied Universal’s recently launched Enhanced Protection Services business unit was a necessary integration of services designed to address the most critical threats to life and safety, says Glen Kucera.  

Enhanced Protection Services combines Allied’s various specialized services into one division and incorporates recent acquisitions, including MSA Security, where Kucera served as CEO of the threat protection solutions provider.  

“Allied buys a lot of companies, and it was pretty fragmented in the service offering,” said Kucera, now president of Enhanced Protection Services, at GSX 2024. “I came over with the canine business - I was the CEO of MSA Security. Inside of MSA, we also had executive protection (and) risk advisory consulting services, so the natural progression was to just do this in one unit, right? So, we moved all the Allied stuff into my division.”  

Enhanced Protection Services offers comprehensive mitigation at every stage of the risk cycle, Kucera says – from planning and preoperational surveillance to execution and completion. It features 17,000 highly specialized security experts and 3,000 canine teams. 

Prior to joining Allied, MSA did not have an active law enforcement business. But now, with Enhanced Protection Services, Allied’s manned guarding is deployed for law enforcement, for example, when an armed presence is needed. 

“We put it all together more as a solution for high-consequence threats,” he said. “The good thing about Allied is whether it’s manned guards or actual law enforcement or canine units, you have a program that ties it all together, and it works. It's more efficient and running as one program. It's just a better security protocol.”  

With a streamlined suite of services, Enhanced Protection Services can also design situation-specific plans and programs to preserve life safety, protect business continuity, and deliver peace of mind, Kucera says. 

“The community of Allied is one-stop shopping,” he concluded. “What do you want – a manned guard or anything else that we do? That's a huge advantage.”