RIVER FALLS – When Dave Skinner and Troy Szotkowski retired from the public safety field in 2015, neither man was quite ready to stop serving others and providing quality training when it comes to safety and security risks in the modern world.

The pair came together shortly after their retirements to create a consulting firm, Applied Countermeasures Group, or ACG. ACG specializes in training clients in emergency preparation of all types. They work with public and private businesses, as well as places of worship. Whether it’s a medical emergency, behavior recognition and response, risk assessments, or an active shooter threat, ACG strives to provide quality training for its clients to ensure that no emergency goes unanswered when a situation occurs.

“Troy and I both have a background with doing physical and operational security risk assessments for the government and there was a big void in the private sector of people doing that,” said Skinner. “We saw that void, and saw an opportunity for us to take all of our skills and training and experience to the private sector and bring that service there.”

Skinner himself spent his first four years in the Air Force stationed in Montana. Skinner’s posting eventually led him to work for the City of Great Falls Police Department in Montana. Then, his military service led him to other opportunities abroad such as the United Nations international peacekeeping mission in Kosovo

S– SECU4ITY FI4M, Pa6- 13 and the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service.

Szotkowski’s career began as a fire fighter and eventually led into law enforcement. After the events of 9/11, he went into the Federal Air Marshal Service, or FAMS, where he helped pioneer the FAMS Surveillance Detection and Reporting system. Szotkowski also conducted domestic and international missions for FAMS and was an instructor at the FAMS Training Academy.

Filling the void of emergency preparedness has been rewarding for both Skinner and Szotkowski. Being able to provide services to create safer work/places of worship environments is critical to the work they do with every client.

Skinner explained, “If we can help people get prepared to physically and operationally deter crime, put measures in place that will help mitigate underdeveloped abilities, and then train them on emergency action plans and how to respond to the types of emergencies, they're going to have a lot greater success when faced with an emergency.”

Each client who comes to ACG has needs that are not always the same. Skinner explained that training services for two churches will not always follow the exact same approach in how to train for an emergency situation. Most places of worship that work with ACG receive training on what to do during a medical emergency.

“So we spend a lot of time with that training, we got a course called tactical, metal, technical medical. And we have subcontracted firefighters, paramedics, medical professionals to teach that class. With all the material that we train them on, they use it actively throughout the year. We pray and hope that they never have to use active threat response training that we provide them. And we know that the risk for them having an active threat inside their church is extremely low, but the consequences are extremely high,” said Skinner.

Churches that partner with ACG go through a 12-month training program that begins with a physical operational security risk assessment to identify all vulnerabilities within the building. From there, ACG is able to put together a plan on how it can mitigate any issues found in the assessments and create an emergency action plan.

When the emergency action plan is put into place, the 12- to 15-month training around the plan begins. A 26-hour curriculum is provided to all volunteers who want to receive training. This training is needed to maintain certification from ACG. This 26hour curriculum is a yearly training all places of worship must go through.

Both Skinner and Szotkowski take active roles in their own congregations, and that was a leading factor in ACG contracting with places of worship. Skinner spoke on the importance of doing these trainings on an annual basis with congregations.

“It's teaching people how to better communicate, when they see an active threat with their language, and so that the police can understand it,” Skinner said. “It's not just someone having a bad feeling. It's giving actual descriptions. That's our barrier program, and if they go through that process, then they'll be able to articulate exactly what it is they're seeing.”

There is certainly a difference in training places of worship and corporate/private business sector clientele. As Skinner said, services depend on the corporation itself and where it’s located. Companies can pick and choose which classes are the best fit for them.

“A lot of our clients are in downtown Minneapolis,” Skinner said. “We know the crime rate is much higher there today than it was a few years ago and so we've been working a lot down there … The corporate setting is a business that's running that's trying to get through their day, and they're accountable for every hour of every day. So, to get them to sit down and take a class. It costs them money to do that, where the church, they're all volunteers, and they're extremely excited about going through all 12 programs and putting all the time and effort in.”

Skinner hopes to continue providing services for clients with ACG for as long as he possibly can. His passion for providing security and safety for people in all different fields drives him to continue to go into work every day, knowing he’s making the world a safer place.

As ACG continues to grow, they hope their services help many communities in Western Wisconsin.

“With ACG, our goal is to touch as many churches and schools and businesses we can to help mitigate their vulnerabilities,” Skinner said. “And as we do that, it reduces the risk of what happened in California, because those active shooter-type situations continue to happen.”

Skinner said it’s important to study active shooter situations after the fact, because they learn from them. Unfortunately, those situations are becoming more frequent, he added. That’s why he and Szotkowski help others put measures in place to prepare, even if the chance of it happening is hopefully rare. He understands that some small businesses can’t afford these services.

“There are many businesses out there that either are not going to hire a professional security consultant to come in and help them put that stuff in place, or there are some small businesses out there that just can't afford to,” Skinner said. “So there's always going to be a risk out there. And I hate to say that there's a lot of job security for somebody like me in my field, because the threat continues to escalate.

“I pray for the day that I have no more job security, and these threats stop and the killing stops. But realistically, it's for the unforeseeable future, things are continuing to escalate. And so we're doing all week can to make our debt, to make our impact and anybody who we can come in touch with to help prepare them,” said Skinner.

To learn more about this River Falls-based business, visit tacticalacg. com or call 612-442-1355.

Tony Szotkowski