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Lieutenant Thomas A. Taylor (Ret.) Bio

Lieutenant Thomas A. Taylor (Ret.)

Thomas Taylor was a member of the Missouri State Highway Patrol for 30 years. His involvement in protective operations began in 1974, when he was first assigned to the Governor's Security Division. He has since been assigned to the protective details of four different governors, eventually serving as commander of the Governor's Security Division for eight years. He has served as a survival tactics instructor for the Patrol, training hundreds of officers in dignitary protection and street survival tactics. Following the September 11 attacks, Taylor was named the Anti-Terrorism Coordinator for all Patrol operations. Upon retirement, he headed an anti-terrorism team of specialists, which evaluated the vulnerabilities of Missouri’s most critical assets.

Taylor was twice elected president of the National Governor's Security Association (NGSA) by the detail leaders for every governor in America. In that capacity, he served as the security consultant for the National Governor's Association (NGA) in Washington, D.C., and helped formulate security plans for NGA events all over the nation. He has handled many protective assignments in other countries, including Russia, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Korea, China, Ireland, India, Italy, and Puerto Rico. His assignments have included protective operations for other dignitaries, including the Pope, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, and every U.S. President since Gerald Ford.

Taylor currently works as a special projects advisor for Gavin de Becker and Associates, a California-based security consulting firm that advises and protects high-risk public figures. He is a regular instructor for the Advanced Threat Assessment and Management Academy at the UCLA Conference Center and the Academy For Protectors. Taylor was among several top threat assessment experts in the U.S. chosen to serve on an advisory board to develop the MOSAIC for Assessment of Public-figure Pursuit (MAPP). He has served on several protective details for high-risk public figures, including as detail leader for the security team that protected Arnold Schwarzenegger, during his campaign as the governor of California in 2003.

The Institute of Police Technology and Management (IPTM) in Florida published Taylor’s first book, Dodging Bullets - A Strategic Guide to World-Class Protection, in 2000. The book has been reviewed by top public figure protection groups all over the world, including the International Bodyguard Association (IBA) in Ireland, the British Bodyguard Association (BBA) in Great Britain, and the Close Quarters Protection Operators Association (CQPOA) in the United States. Mortal Shield is Taylor’s second book. It is a novel about the Governor’s Security Division for a Missouri governor, and was published in 2008. He is currently working on the sequel. Taylor co-authored the groundbreaking book on public figure protection, Just Two Seconds – Using Time and Space to Defeat Assassins. It has been described as one of the most innovative and useful books ever written about public figure protection. Taylor’s name appears in the acknowledgments of Gavin de Becker’s bestsellers The Gift of Fear and Fear Less, and also the 1998 Secret Service report Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment Investigations, for his assistance in reviewing these documents.

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