We caught up with this year’s Professional Services Excellence of the Year to see how the Philadelphia business community has contributed to their success. Check out what Daniel Costa, President and CEO, OPS Security Group has to say as we highlight one of the excellent small businesses that drives the Greater Philadelphia region. Join us to celebrate the 36th Annual Excellence Award winners on Thursday, November 8.
Professional Services Excellence of the Year
Where did the idea for your business come from?
The concept for OPS Security Group was started during my career as a police officer and shortly after the attacks on 9/11. The design was to bridge the gap between public-sector law enforcement and private sector security, to find common understanding toward working together to achieve a goal of a safer, more involved community from all the responsible players.
The common thread was a confusion over the roles each performed, and the concern from law enforcement about the quality of staff employed by a security company and their ability to understand what their roles were in the safety and security of a community and how to assist law enforcement to achieve a goal of a safer, more productive community.
Describe the moment that you decided to go into business for yourself.
Retiring from the police department left me with a hole in my heart that I still had a drive to continue to serve my community. Reviewing my options, I took note of what segment of society that provided for greater good and had a positive impact on a community’s safety and security. For years, the private security industry had been maligned by corporate greed, unscrupulous business owners with no background in public safety who wanted to make money off the sweat and tears of security officers who were striving to not only provide for their families, but to make their communities safer.
These corrupt business owners usually offered a bill of goods about what they could do for a client and how they were “better” and “trained” and would take “great care and support” their staff. The ends never met with the means. Staff were never trained properly, remained underpaid and underappreciated, and lacked a proper level of support from their company managers or the owners. Most of it was because these owners had no training or knowledge, or even a proper understanding, or security principles and practices. But, the biggest reason I observed was simply greed.
Security Company Owners without a thorough foundation in security principles and practices were selling a service to clients they could not deliver and did this on this on the backs of their officers, simply to line their own pockets.
I recognized that I could create a company that was truly security-centric, with a thorough foundation built on experience, education, training, an appreciation for customer-service and an understanding that properly trained, compensated, and appreciated staff could provide the field of security something that had been lacking for many years: A security company honestly focused on security and the service to our clients and our community. That was the focus of OPS Security Group on day one, and we have never strayed from that mission, and have no desire to allow the untrained, unprofessional, and unscrupulous owners of other companies detract us from our objective.
How has the Greater Philadelphia business community impacted your success?
The Greater Philadelphia business community is very proactive and supportive of local companies and works together to see each business succeed. While competition among similar companies with the same deliverable can be a challenge, it is never a deterrent and not an area where a local business should be overly concerned or deterred. Improving on your deliverable is the best result of the competition among companies in the Greater Philadelphia community, and the clients we serve are the benefactors of this improved, proactive approach.
What does it mean to you personally and/or to your business to be named an Excellence Award winner?
I believe being named an Excellence Award winner validates the efforts day in, and day out, of every employee and staff member at OPS Security Group who has strived to continually improve the approach of security through positive reinforcement of customer-service, professionalism, and an obligation to serve our clients by providing a realistic level of security most clients believed did not exist, or was not obtainable in the Greater Philadelphia region.
Many companies promote how great they are, but how many can deliver on this promise? OPS Security Group promote the same mantra, but OPS employees and staff can, and do, deliver on this promise every day, every shift. The Excellence Award goes a long way toward reinforcing the efforts and results provided by OPS Security Group.
What’s something that you think would surprise people about your business?
I believe the surprising element of OPS Security Group externally would be the growth of the company with a single employee in 2012 to close to 400 full-time employees and offices in five states today. The wealth of experience throughout every level of the company provides every client with an area of expertise in almost every area related to security matters and training. Being a one-stop shop for addressing every security need a client encounters has proven its value time and again, both today and moving into the future.
Internally, OPS staff are well aware of the level of expertise and professionalism that exists within the banner of OPS Security Group. Working together to help each other to complete their duties and strive to focus on becoming better each day has proven beneficial to all employees and staff, to OPS as a company, and more importantly, to the customers we serve who can rest each night knowing their security needs are being taken seriously and are being professionally managed.
Be sure to grab your tickets to help celebrate Daniel and his team at OPS Security Group as the Professional Services Excellence of the Year honoree at the 36th Annual Excellence Awards on Thursday, November 8.
