1st Corporate Security’s team grows!

1^st Corporate Security are delighted to welcome Joe woods to our management team!

 

Joe brings a wealth of experience to the table with a career already spanning two decades.

 

Joe’s career began with Sabrewatch Security in East Grinstead as a fraud investigator, going undercover to various corporate retail and corporate locations. Acting as new member of staff and establishing himself, Joe would try and discover crime within the premises. Joe worked for a number of high profile clients including M&S, Sainsbury’s and Makro the trade cash and carry both at the head office and store level.

Joe eventually moved on to becoming the area manage, looking after projects such as Harvey Nichols Edinburgh as the first security manager. He also looked after contracts for all the Sainsbury stores in Scotland and Northern Ireland whilst being responsible for all store detectives working at M&S in Scotland.

Again, Joe was internally promoted within Sabrewatch Security to the head office as the Head of Retail Crime Analyst, working with M&S to track crime trends. This role allowed Joe to work closely with crime agencies such as the Police and anti-fraud Police whilst developing close professional ties with civil partners such as Retailers Against Crime Scotland.

After 5 years with Sabrewatch Security, Joe began a new challenge with VSG, an industry leading security provider. Joe joined VSG as an area manager looking after security for all of the B&Q stores in Scotland. This role involved vetting staff at management level, investigating internal theft and helping reduce shrinkage in all there stores through use of innovative data mining technologies. Joe also pioneered a new way of securely delivering deliveries through using GPS within VSG and B&Q.

Joe moved on to work with the Scottish operations team at VSG where he was tasked to look after more shopping centres, retail and corporate security both in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is where Joe met Colin Ruddie, 1st Corporate Security’s managing director. During this time period Joe continued to foster close relationships with various crime agencies and introduced a new crime report for B&Q allowing the large retailer to detect and deter large professional groups targeting B&Q stores. This is an industry leading blueprint that is still in use today!

From here Joe was asked to project manage VSG Assure. VSG Assure was VSG’s key holding and alarm response arm. Joe managed Scotland and Ireland to enormous success working with VSG’s head office alarm receiving centre, introducing innovative technologies and innovations. This was alongside Joe’s roll within investigations as the fraud investigator for Scotland and Northern Ireland working with British Petroleum (BP) for four years.

Working with BP, Joe focused more closely on the oil and gas sector when asked to manage a project on the Shetland Isles, 75 miles north of the Scottish main land. This remote project seen Joe working with VSG’s partners at Compass group. Petrofac were building a new gas plant on the north of the island for Total the French oil giant and VSG had built a hotel for the work force to stay. At the time Joe had to secure the building site by managing static guarding and mobile patrol teams. As this project grew Joe had to deploy four floating hotels to the island to house the increasing workforce and the contract ended up spanning manage security, cleaning, catering and maintenance with Joe overseeing 265 staff.

After working in Shetland Joe found himself back on the mainland managing a variety of shopping centres and retail contract from Scotland to Newcastle including the NHS and pharmaceutical sites.

It is at this point Joe decided to join 1st Corporate Security. Here’s why he decided to make the move.

“I left VSG to work with Colin Ruddie, someone I have known for over ten years, someone I can trust. I have always believed that staff are the most important people in the security industry. We work in a people industry and people are our main asset. I treat all my staff with the respect and dignity that they deserve. Clients respect me for my honesty and my knowledge of this industry. “

“I always act with dignity and integrity and will always do the right thing by my staff. One of my main focuses is the Health and safety of my employees. We all deserve to be safe at our work no matter what role we are in and I am certain that my knowledge of this industry along with my desire to make our industry a safer place will work hand in hand with the ethos of Collin and 1st Corporate security.”

“Before this industry I was eight years in the British army both Parachute regiment and a spell in army intelligence doing covert roles in various areas around the world. I am a family man married with two daughters and two grandkids I enjoy all outdoor activities but my favourite is hill running and climbing, I volunteer with the British Red cross as part of their emergency response teams this includes mountain rescue.”

The team at 1st Corporate Security Could not be more delighted to have such an experienced leader join our rapidly growing company!