Dan Seman Will Protect You

His clients are understandably reluctant to speak on the record about their security arrangements. One who will is John Grundhofer, chairman emeritus of U.S. Bancorp. Grundhofer learned the hard way about his need for executive protection in 1990. While CEO of First Bank System (U.S. Bank’s predecessor firm), he was kidnapped at gunpoint from a Minneapolis parking garage and held for ransom in Wisconsin before escaping. After that episode, he relied on guards provided by the bank. Since retiring in 2002, he has paid Avalon from his own pocket for security during visits to Minnesota from his homes in California, South Dakota, and Montana.

“In my view, anyone with resources should know there’s some nut out there who wants those resources,” Grundhofer says. “I’m sure that even now, in my old age, I’m on somebody’s list. And every Fortune 500 CEO is on somebody’s list . . . . When I travel, I want someone like Dan or his senior people around. Pros.”

Seman stresses that all Avalon personnel get a minimum of 40 hours of training, though the State of Minnesota requires only 12 hours for security guards. (“You can’t train a busboy in 12 hours.”) That point made, however, he says that Avalon personnel range in experience and deadliness “from Barney Fife to James Bond.” They are priced accordingly. The cost for an unarmed guard in a building lobby averages $17.95 an hour. An executive-protection specialist with advanced combat training and a shoulder holster under his suit coat goes for $250 an hour, not counting expenses for the Black Cadillac Escalade that the assignment may require. Many executive-protection contractors are former military Special Forces operatives. “Some of them are the kind of guys who could, you know, kill you with a magazine,” Seman says. “I’m not kidding.”

And that’s not even the weird part of Seman’s job—as becomes increasingly evident when he settles into an armchair and begins to talk.

How Dan Seman Got Into the Security Racket

I had no intention of going into law enforcement. I wanted to be a fireman. I grew up in South Minneapolis, in the area of 29th Avenue and Franklin Avenue. The neighbors—all of my role models—were police offers, firemen, and postal workers. That’s what you did in my neighborhood, you got a civil service job. As all the mothers said, a steady paycheck.

I was paroled from Minneapolis South High School in 1975. I got a job with the Minneapolis Park Police as a park-patrol agent while I studied for the fireman’s exam. I scored extremely high on the exam, but back then it was all about affirmative action, and I got placed number 300 on the list. I was crushed. So I stayed in law enforcement.

The United States Marshal’s office hired me as what they called a WAE [when actually employed] deputy U.S. Marshal. The title no longer exists. A great opportunity—lots of travel, lots of excitement. I can’t really go into it.

Due to budget cuts, I left the marshal service in 1979 to work as a licensed police officer in Somerset, Wisconsin. You know Somerset, on the Apple River? The tubing capital of the world. A great little community of about 1,000 people, but on weekends it could blossom up to—I don’t know, 100,000. I became a self-proclaimed doctor of crowdology. You’d be dealing with everything from burglary to robbery to rape to assaults to fights—all involving inner tubes.

Then I started working off duty as a police officer all around Wisconsin. I’d work 16 or 18 hours a day, with the regular job and then security jobs. It took a year to realize I was making more money off duty, as a security guard, than I was as a full-time police officer. So I decided to go it on my own. In 1982, I came back to Minneapolis and started Avalon.

How Not To Be Stupid

I began as a security consultant, advising places like bars and condominiums—how to protect the building site while the condos were under construction, that sort of thing. Lo and behold, people would pay me to talk! I almost died.

I went from that kind of consulting to security education—teaching people to protect themselves, mostly women executives and women’s groups. I got a rash of crap for that. At the time, the standard advice was that if you’re being mugged or raped, you don’t fight back. I said, ‘That’s stupid; fight back for all you’re worth.’ Today my advice has become the norm. You’re told to fight back.

Women still get a lot of bad personal-protection advice. I hear people say, ‘A woman should walk down the street with confidence.’ I’ve interviewed enough bad guys to tell you that how you walk doesn’t have much to do with when you’re going to be a target. Predators really don’t care.

What kinds of things do matter? Know the hotel you’re staying in when you travel. Don’t just jump into random vehicles and cabs. Do an eyeball on who’s hauling you around. Don’t take stupid chances. Take your blinders off and look around. My teachers used to say I was easily distracted. Thank God, because later on it has saved my life to be easily distracted. People sneak up on you.

There’s a lot to know for executives who are traveling in other countries, with different traditions. Who you look in the eye and who you don’t look in the eye. And kidnapping is a cottage industry in some parts of the world. American executives are incredibly naïve about this. They like to boast about their positions, which is a bad idea in other countries: ‘What do you do?’ ‘Why, I’m the vice president of corporate marketing globally!’ ‘Really? Gee, you’ve got to be worth a couple of bucks.’

‘Keep . . . your . . . mouth . . . shut,’ I tell people. When I travel, what do I say? ‘I’m an elevator operator. I work for the city.’ My value goes way down.

Now, neighborhood associations call us to give security seminars to homeowners. They always want to begin with extremes: ‘Should we arm ourselves?’ Well, gosh, first of all, you might start by shutting your goddamn garage door. Most neighborhood crimes are crimes of opportunity. Use common sense. Lock your doors. Set your alarm system. You probably don’t need to arm yourself in your own neighborhood unless you live in a pretty bad neighborhood.

Just Keeping Them Back

I never expected this or thought about it, but just maintaining a perimeter has become a huge part of our business. Just keeping people away from other people.

One of my first clients was KARE-11 TV in Golden Valley. This was before they changed the name to KARE, when Paul Douglas, the weatherman [now at WCCO], started doing his outdoor weather schtick in the backyard. When he went on the air, everybody took it as an opportunity to either voice their opinion on the outdoor weatherperson or protest something or other. People were yelling and waving signs over the fence. So they hired me to come and stand there during the 5, 6, and 10 o’clock broadcasts. We’re still there today. Our guards stand just outside the perimeter to make sure nobody throws anything over the fence.

Outdoor weatherpeople caught on, and we started working for the rest of the media stations locally. Then we went national. This is a word-of-mouth business, and I began to get phone calls: ‘Hey, do you think you could come to such and such a place and just kind of hang out?’ ‘You mean for money? Well, of course we could.’ Now we work for ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, you name it. They call us when they do live broadcasts at all kinds of sports events.

Any time a crowd can get near the newspeople, they go crazy. They start pushing and shoving so they can get on TV and yell obscenities or ‘Hi, Mom’ or whatever. I always say, ‘Turn on the [camera] lights, and the flies will follow.’

I have built a whole career just on keeping people away from other people.