September 30, 2002

'These aren't the jobs you'll find listed'
Rifle-area school trains for high-level security

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Denver Post Western Slope Bureau

Monday, September 30, 2002 - MONTROSE - On an early fall morning, the typical assortment of sleepy, suitcase-toting tourists is shuffling from room to car and back again in the parking lot at Black Canyon Motel.

So the two dozen taut, alert men in shades and ball caps striding purposefully to their vehicles with matching black duffel bags stand out like James Bond at a bingo game.

Clearly they are not off to visit roadside attractions like the rest of the folks here. They are headed into the high country to take on terrorists, kidnappers, bombers and hijackers.

Their mission on this day is to graduate and earn coveted credentials from Executive Security International Ltd., a Rifle-based school known for offering intensive security training that many in the field say is second only to the U.S. Secret Service Academy. Those who succeed in finishing the rigorous training join a network of ESI alumni who do everything from guard Tom Cruise to provide contract security for the United States' interests overseas.

These students have already been through several years and $7,000 worth of college-accredited academic studies before getting to this point. And now they face a tough day of tests to determine how they handle dangerous situations.

It's a different world out there for these modern-day knights and samurai. These bodyguards, or "executive protection specialists" as many of them prefer to be called, are having to adapt and learn about new dangers. They are also filling new demands as personal protection moves from being a luxury status symbol to becoming a necessary part of staying safe for corporate and political leaders.

"The need for protection has changed 180 degrees," said Bob Duggan, who founded ESI nearly 25 years ago and is now tailoring the curriculum to include more counter terrorism. "Nine-eleven has elevated the importance of security."

Or, as Dominican Republic Gen. Marcos Rodriguez Melo, who was in Montrose to observe the training exercises, put it: "Everybody's nervous."

The students - 24 men and two women who came from as far away as Norway and Puerto Rico and as close as Dallas and Baton Rouge - are definitely nervous. As they don ill-fitting, borrowed suit jackets and holster their Glocks, they draw a few deep breaths before running through simulated danger designed to blow their cool and test their mettle.

The hands-on exercises began on the streets of Aspen 15 days earlier, when the students were presented with threatening letters and charged with finding the "stalkers" (course teachers) behind them. That was a test of mental acuity.

At Elk Mountain Resort near Montrose, where their training ends with firearms practice, their nerves are now under the gun. They are in what feels like walk-in video games - shooting arenas created by Hollywood set designers and video production specialists.

The students creep through dark alleys with the deafening thwump-thwump-thwump and sweeping lights of a simulated helicopter overhead. They struggle through a subway tunnel that rattles in the blinding light of the approaching train. They walk gingerly through a changeable maze of apartment rooms, hotel hallways and stairwells. Their muscles are tensed and their breathing heavy because they don't know when or where attackers are hiding and they might go through what ESI trainers call an "ILE" - an instant learning experience.

Those experiences can cause linebacker-sized men to fall down in surprise. Normally cool professionals crash their "clients" headlong into walls as ESI trainer and Silt police Sgt. Tony Pagni stands by with a clipboard scoring their reactions.

"Even with the fake guns, the adrenaline really pumps here," said ESI trainer Rich Kluck, who is also a bodyguard for the publisher of Low Rider magazine.

After encountering the hulking Kluck as the "bad guy" in a number of scenarios, the students work through a post-Sept. 11 training addition. They strap themselves into a seat in a re-created fuselage of a Boeing 727 that thrums with engine noise and shakes from a computerized thunderstorm outside the windows.

When a mannequin with a weapon swings out behind the cockpit, the students push their mannequin "clients" to the floor for protection. They reach inside their suit jackets, which have quarters weighting the pockets so they can easily flip the garments out of the way, pull their loaded pistol, and place several shots in the back of the "hijacker's" head.

There are good shots in this class, which includes national guardsmen, former military police, security company owners and professional bodyguards. Some of the trainers sport tiny facial bruises from guns that shoot foam pellets. Some of the hawk-nosed, shifty-eyed mannequins display holes that prove some of these students can place a real bullet between the eyes from across a room.

But they should never have to.

By the time students reach this level and have gauze patches stuck over bullet "splash back" wounds and bandaged fingers from firing the required 1,000 rounds, they have already worked their way through 20,000 pages of textbook study. They have sat through many hours of lectures designed to teach them how to keep from getting into armed confrontations.

They have learned how to check out an airport to determine if security measures are up to snuff and how to "read" the faces of fellow travelers to determine if any of them might have hijacking plans.

They know how to inspect cars for bombs and to case high-rises for quick exits. They have listened to Jack Mc George, one of a number of former Secret Service agents who now act as trainers for ESI, spell out the dangers of biochemical weapons and lay out the structure and history of terrorist groups. They have watched Duggan, a former Marxist revolutionary in Latin America and a martial arts master, pretzel other trainers into painful positions with a few lightning quick moves.

They have even learned the yes-sir, excuse-me-ma'am manners required of high-end bodyguards. They have been warned to look for little problems such as loose stair railings or carpet that could trip up their clients. Even in a world of new dangers, they must protect images as well as safety.

Duggan said a few Walter Mitty types do sign on for all this, but they usually drop out during the academic phase. More than a third of the 450 students in the textbook phase of ESI training at any given time don't finish. About 5 percent don't make it through the hands-on training.

ESI, the only one of several dozen U.S. security schools to have a state-accredited curriculum, graduates about 100 students annually.

"These aren't jobs you'll find listed in the newspapers," laughed J.J. Sutton, a former military intelligence analyst who is taking the course to brush up his skills for his Aspen-area private security business.

Gunrid Kjellmark said she hopes to find a job in counter surveillance when she returns to Norway, where she was formerly in the Norwegian Air Force.

Carlton Miles said he hopes to become a counter terrorism trainer himself after he returns to the private security firm he owns in Charlotte, N.C.

Jared Van Driessche, 19, of Seward, Alaska, said he wants to work his way into the Secret Service.

Leonard Holifield, a bodyguard for Judge Roy Moore, the controversial chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, said he came here with 10 years in the military police, 35 years of martial arts training and six years as the chief of security for Moore. After sweating through his last day of shooting tests, he said he feels like he knows the skills needed to face new dangers.

"This," he said, "is the icing on the cake."