A skill set that does not come from a seminar.
Smilodon Security & Intelligence is led by a former intelligence officer and security officer. The tradecraft taught to coaching staffs, and the practices examined in an assessment, are the ones used by people whose safety depended on getting them right.
- Founded
- 2026, Arizona
- Principal
- A former intelligence officer and security officer
- Practice
- College athletic programs, football first
- Engagements
- Nationwide, on campus and on the road
Why the firm exists.
Name, image and likeness changed what an athlete is worth to a stranger. The harassment, the fraud, the surveillance and the leaks that followed are the same problems intelligence and security professionals have managed for decades. Athletic departments were never built to handle them, and the firms that could help were never built to call a mid-major.
Smilodon exists to place a professional in that gap, at a price a department outside the Power Four can pay, with the principal doing the work.
Quiet, in writing, and candid about limits.
- Every engagement begins with a letter that states what is reported, to whom, and what is outside scope.
- Every report states what was examined, with what, and what was not.
- No member of a client's staff is monitored, recorded or investigated without a separate, licensed engagement and the department's written instruction.
- The firm does not sell jamming, interception, or the surveillance of any person.
- Work requiring a license the firm does not hold in a given state is referred to a licensed partner, and the client is told.
What the consultation covers.
- Whether the program requires an assessment, a single engagement, or neither yet.
- Which of the department's concerns are real, and which are television.
- A price range before the call ends. The written proposal follows within three business days.
- What the firm will not do, and who to call for those things.
Where the work is done.
The firm is based in Arizona and travels. Assessments, briefings and staff training are conducted on campus. Travel advances take place at the hotel and the venue before the team arrives. Threat response begins by telephone within the hour and continues wherever it must.
Investigative work is conducted under the applicable state license or by a licensed partner named in the engagement letter. That is not a formality. It is the reason a department can hand the firm's documentation to campus police without hesitation.
How the firm works inside a department.
The habits that make a security firm tolerable to the people whose building it is in.
- One person, start to finish
The principal takes the consultation, writes the proposal, does the work on site, writes the report and presents it. There is no account team, and nothing is learned about the program by someone the department has not met.
- Without disruption to the building
An assessment week is scheduled around practice and meetings. Rooms are walked when they are empty. Conversations with staff are arranged by the director of operations at times that suit them, and last as long as they are useful.
- Colleagues, not suspects
No one in the building is being investigated. Staff are asked how information actually moves because they are the ones who move it, and findings are written so that the remedy can be made without naming anyone.
- Athletes are told what the department can see
Before any briefing or exposure check, players are told exactly what the department will and will not learn about them: categories and severity, never contents. That sentence is what makes them willing to report.
- Decided in advance
What the firm does if it finds a live threat, a device, something concerning a minor, or evidence of misconduct is written in the engagement letter before the work begins, so that no one is surprised during it.
- Candid about what the firm is not
Not law enforcement, not event security, not executive protection, not information technology. The firm says so, and makes the introduction to the people who are.
Partners, named in advance.
Some work requires a license the firm does not hold in a given state, or equipment that a principal-led firm does not carry. In those cases the engagement letter names the partner before the work begins, and the department deals with the principal throughout.
- Sealed-room certification. A technical surveillance countermeasures partner with laboratory-grade equipment, for the rare room that warrants it. Quoted separately, and the report says whose instruments were used.
- Licensed investigation. Where a leak review would become an investigation of an individual, a licensed investigator in the relevant state, if the department decides to proceed at all.
- Executive protection. A licensed protection firm, for a coach or athlete under a specific physical threat. The firm makes the introduction and stays on the matter as the department's adviser.
Confidentiality and records.
Everything the firm learns about a department, its staff and its athletes is used only for the engagement. Working notes and evidence are kept for a stated period after delivery and then destroyed, unless the department asks for them earlier or the law requires longer. One copy of each report goes to the named client contact.
The firm does not disclose which programs it works with, does not use a client's name in any material without written permission, and does not report to the media, the conference, the NCAA or law enforcement on its own initiative except where a person is in danger or the law requires it. The engagement letter says all of this in more words, and the department's counsel reads it first.
The founding year.
Smilodon is a new firm with an established skill set, and it says so rather than pretending otherwise.
The first programs to engage the firm receive a reduced rate and more of the principal's time than will be available once the practice is full. In return the firm asks for a written reference once it has been earned, and for the candor that a founding client is in a position to give. Nothing on this site describes clients the firm does not have, and nothing will until it does.
The name.
Smilodon is the saber-toothed cat: an apex predator that hunted by ambush, worked in groups, and is the most frequently recovered large carnivore in the fossil record. The mark is its skull in profile. The seal on the firm's correspondence is the same animal, alive. Programs under the firm's care are not easily surprised.
Speak with the principal directly.
There is no one else to speak with, which is the point.