The Restaurant Loss Prevention and Security Association (RLPSA) held a regional RLPSA CONNECT workshop on November 16, 2023, at the Chick-fil-A headquarters in Atlanta. The room was packed with not only big brands but local franchisees as well.
RLPSA’s regional event is networking at its finest, and with nearly 50 restaurant representatives sharing challenges and solutions with each other, collaboration was the theme of the day. The mission of RLPSA’s CONNECT events is to bring together local and national restaurant representatives to build long-term, productive relationships to help each other decrease loss, protect people, and grow profits within their respective organizations.
Kurt Leisure, president of the RLPSA, Cheryl Dick, Senior Director, Enterprise Protection and Travel, Chick-fil-A Inc., and Amber Bradley, Executive Director, RLPSA, welcomed the group to Atlanta. Presentations included:
- “Domestic & International Organizational Risks” – by John Franchi, Former CIA & International Affairs Expert
- “State of the Crime in the Industry”— by John Melvin, Chief Assistant District Attorney, District Attorney’s Office, Gwinnett County.
- “Balancing Safety & Risk with Speed of Service” – by Kurt Leisure, Vice President, Risk Services, The Cheesecake Factory, Heather Hearn, LPC, Supervisor of E-Commerce Fraud & Physical Security, Wawa, Inc., Rose Roth, Director, People Safety, Chick-fil-A, and Rebecca Alexander, CSP, Associate Director, RLPSA.
- “Situational Awareness & Critical Event Management” – by Jeff Partin, Director, Corporate Security, Emergency Preparedness, Business Continuity, Workplace Violence.
- “Maximizing your Security Budget with AI” – by Lyndon Richardson, Chief Risk Officer, Whataburger, Adit Chhabra, CEO and co-founder, Wobot.ai, and David McVicker, Vice President, NAVCO.
- “Rising Crime & De-Escalation Techniques” – by Basia Pietrawska, Vice President, Crime Intelligence Analysis, CAP Index, Inc., Christopher Magana, Senior Manager, Field Safety & Asset Protection, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Rob Norton, Senior Lead Advisor, Chick-fil-A Enterprise Protection Services, and Amber Bradley, Executive Director, RLPSA.
“We’re excited these regional events are bringing together all types of brands for productive collaboration and partnership,” said Kurt Leisure, president of RLPSA and Vice President, Risk Services for The Cheesecake Factory. “Some attendees included restaurants that were not yet aware of our mission, so we’re excited to be spreading the incomparable value of RLPSA and our initiatives.”
The day concluded with facilitated roundtable discussions about the hottest topics they are tackling, including digital fraud trends in QSR. The discussion was facilitated by Patrick Finnigan, Director, Loss Prevention Analytics & Fraud, Inspire Brands.
A day of education isn’t complete without a networking reception, made possible by the event sponsors. RLPSA thanks sponsors for this event, including DMP, Early Alert, Envysion, Hanwha Vision, IPConfigure, NAVCO, OpenEye, Telaid, ThinkLP, Summit Off Duty Services, and Wobot.ai, as well as to Chick-fil-A for hosting the event.
Visit www.rlpsa.com for the next RLPSA CONNECT event in 2024.