Travel security advance.
The hotel is the one building on the schedule the program does not control.
Smilodon advances a road trip before the team arrives, from $4,000 per trip: hotel and meeting space chosen with regard to who else is in the building, room assignments and key control for the coaches' floor, a device and document plan for the trip, a named contact with the hotel's security staff, and inspection of the meeting room before the first meeting. The checklist stays with operations.
- Format
- Advance visit, or remote advance with an on-site day
- When
- Bowl games, conference championships, designated road games
- From
- $4,000 per trip
- Deliverable
- A travel security checklist the operations staff can run without the firm
What the engagement covers.
Road games and bowl trips are where a program is most exposed: unfamiliar hotels, meeting rooms booked by someone else, a rival staying on the same floor. The advance is completed before the team arrives.
- Hotel and meeting-space selection, with regard to who else is in the building.
- Room assignments for the coaches' floor, and control of keys.
- What travels and what remains at home: the device and document plan for the trip.
- A point of contact on site for the hotel's security staff and local police.
- Physical inspection of the coaches' meeting room before the first meeting.
Asked about this one.
Which trips warrant an advance?
Bowl games and conference championships first, then any road game the department designates. A full advance visit, or a remote advance with one on-site day, depending on the stakes and the building.
Does the advance include a technical sweep of the meeting room?
It includes a physical inspection of the coaches' meeting room before the first meeting. An instrumented inspection can be added for bowl and championship sites, and the report says which instruments were used.
Can our operations staff run this themselves next time?
That is the point of the checklist. Most programs run their second advance without the firm, and call for the next bowl.
Read before the call.
- Bowl week: the advance, day by dayInsightA bowl trip is the most exposed week of the season: the largest hotel, the longest stay, the most credentials in the building. What the advance does from the day the contract is signed to the morning the buses leave.
- The coaches' floor: a room-assignment protocol for road gamesInsightHow to assign hotel rooms for the coaching staff on a road trip so the game plan stays in the building you are paying for. Keys, adjacency, the meeting room, and who knows the list.
- A road game OPSEC checklist for the operations staffInsightTwelve things a director of football operations can do before a road trip to keep the game plan, the coaches' conversations and the players' rooms out of reach.
Twenty minutes on a call. Then you decide.
What prompted it, the shape of the program, and whether this engagement or the assessment is the right first step. A written proposal follows within three business days.