The company has a 50,000-square-foot global command center with operations staff who mine and receive security data and disseminate it to guards on the street.

Patrick Brosnan, Founder and CEO, is a highly decorated former New York Police Department detective.

On a construction site, after a natural disaster or in the event of a terrorist threat, Brosnan Risk Consultants, Ltd. (Brosnan) protects people, property and assets. Patrick “Pat” Brosnan, a former Detective for the New York Police Department (NYPD), started the company in 1996 to provide security, investigative and intelligence services to clients across the country.

Pat was injured in a line-of-duty shooting 25 years ago and retired from the NYPD as one of the most highly decorated detectives in the history of the department, receiving the New York State Police Officer of the Year Award for investigative skills that led to the arrests of over 900 violent criminals during his career and was heralded by the governor as a “one-man war on crime in New York City.” Yet, he was determined to continue to serve and protect his community. He found an avenue to do just that, forming Brosnan to provide security services in his hometown of Pearl River, New York. As his expertise and reputation grew, so did his firm’s portfolio and service locations. “We have fused labor, patented technology, process and manpower to provide a differentiating set of factors to mitigate and manage risk in America today,” says Pat, who serves as the company’s CEO. “It’s important for us to understand what keeps our clients up at night.”

Brosnan provides physical security services that incorporate technology solutions, assessments and investigative work to help meet clients’ security needs. The company’s client base is diverse, including schools and college campuses, convention centers, restaurants and concert venues, multifamily complexes and retail and commercial buildings. Robert Hoyt, Senior Vice President of the company’s Northeast region, believes that being client-focused is critical. “Different clients have different security needs,” Robert says. “Sometimes they want to have a view of who is coming in and out of their establishments, and sometimes they want to track employee behavior. Often, burglaries and vandalism may be a concern. No matter what the motivation for wanting additional security, our team listens to the client first and then establishes a plan on what works best to suit their needs.”

To continue to put clients first, Brosnan has expanded its security services to include luxury retail security, catering to high-end retailers to protect valuable goods. “The service is more of a subtle, concierge-type security guard than a traditionally uniformed guard,” Robert says.

Expertise in Spades

Brosnan is one of the largest privately held providers of technology-driven security services in the nation, with the staff members touting more than 500 years of law enforcement experience combined. Pat’s professional experience alone includes terrorism, active shooter situations and criminal investigations. He is nationally respected and serves as a security analyst on television networks such as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC plus the syndicated program “Inside Edition.”

The company boasts a roster of 5,000 active and retired law enforcement officers and military personnel. “We have a deep bench of retired law enforcement on our management team, including our CEO,” Robert says. “I’m a retired NYPD lieutenant myself.” And, it’s not only former police officers who are attracted to the company. “We have a great mix of retired military and retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. We also have people with business backgrounds on our management team. We’ve put together a good mix of expertise that lets us see operations from different vantage points.”

The company operates in 37 states and has offices nationwide. Disaster-relief work across the country actually helps to fuel recruiting efforts. After Hurricane Maria, Robert recalls, “As in the same spirit of the 9/11 aftermath, people were actually reaching out to us. They wanted to help and be a part of whatever recovery was happening. It was really a great thing to see.”

Technology-Enabled Security

The majority of Brosnan’s work is related to security, and the company is focused on delivering technology-based risk mitigation solutions. To achieve this goal, Brosnan has developed a state-of-the-art global command center, patented as the “Brosnan Command Center,” evolved its innovation lab and started a training academy.

The global command center uses technology to analyze thousands of streams of public data to track police, fire and ambulance transmissions. Alerts are instantly transmitted to security officers in the field.

The company has also developed a fleet of mobile command centers and SmartTrucks, which monitor real-time threats and risks and provide responses to these situations. These are roving security vehicles equipped with monitoring and GPS tracking as well as 360-degree cameras. In an effort to maintain employee accountability, the trucks also have facial recognition technology that is used to assess what is taking place inside the vehicles. Robert says it’s about executing correctly. “If you are driving one of our vehicles, you need to be doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing,” he says. Brosnan rolled out this service in 2017 to be utilized in big-box retail store parking lots.

Brosnan also equips all security guards with smartphones to use its GPS to put a geofence around the client’s location. The company also requires guards to clock in and out. Not only can the company better monitor a client’s assets, it can keep track of guards’ movements in real time. Robert says, “The strength of any organization is its people and the execution of service. You can’t have eyes on employees all the time. But for our security guards, we’re pretty close.”

The company obtained a patent for its Brosnan Smart Security Solutions, an all-inclusive system using proprietary technology, security best practices, intelligence gathering, real-time location and activity monitoring, analyzed by trained personnel to deliver information and guidance to on-site security teams.

This system allows the company to remotely monitor situations around the world. “We’ve developed a special way we collect information at our 50,000-square-foot global command center and then disseminate it to our security guards on the street,” Robert says. “We’ve put a set of security standards in place that our government thought was so unique they gave us a patent for it.” For some situations, this capability can save lives.

Natural Disasters and Terrorist Threats

“We started doing emergency response and disaster recovery back in 2017 when there was civil unrest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, regarding a police shooting,” Robert says. “After this, we became involved with disaster-relief efforts for Hurricane Harvey in Houston and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We discovered we were good at it.”

Brosnan’s client, Walmart, has hundreds of stores plus Sam’s Clubs in Puerto Rico. The retail organization needed help getting stabilized and armed with supplies to help residents. So, Brosnan mobilized more than 200 people, chartered planes and organized barges filled with gasoline and diesel fuel to help its client reestablish the infrastructure on the island as to better serve the community.

It’s not just natural disasters that require quick mobilization. The mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019 involved a gunman who killed 22 people and wounded 26 others. “To preserve the peace and instill a feeling of safety back into the community was vital,” Robert says. “We mobilized several hundred law enforcement officers from throughout the country and brought them into Texas to help stabilize the area.”

Another act of domestic terrorism last year hit close to home for the company. There was an anti-Semitic attack in Rockland County, New York, just 7 miles from where Pat grew up. People were celebrating Hanukkah on a Saturday night at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey when an intruder wielding a machete attacked. “Pat offered that community 30 days of roving patrol and security and armed security, all pro bono, to help stabilize that community and help them feel safe,” Robert says. “We’ve received an incredible outpouring of gratitude from that community.”

Protecting Job Sites

According to the National Fire Protection Association, fire alarm systems require a fire watch if the system is impaired for more than four hours in a 24-hour period (which primarily occurs on renovation or new construction projects). Brosnan provides these services, particularly in the Northeast. “Fire watch services require security guards with fire watch certification. They basically monitor renovation or new construction projects for any signs of leaks, fire or smoke and protect the property as well,” Robert says.

He adds that the company also uses security cameras to monitor construction sites. Security is always a high priority, but these cameras are also used to monitor employee behavior. “Smoking cigarettes on construction sites is a big liability,” he shares as one example, “and could leave a client vulnerable to massive fines.”

No matter if a client needs to monitor a job site or a city needs to track crime in real time, Brosnan has the expertise and resources to meet a variety of client needs. The company has made a name for itself by not only providing security solutions that protect against threats but also through identifying and mitigating issues before they become a threat.

Because Brosnan’s mission is focused on leveraging manpower, data and technology, it promotes an atmosphere of teamwork. Everyone—from the guard on post to the operations manager in the global command center—is on the same team, working together to achieve the same goal. Every person’s role is integral to the overall goal—keeping communities safe.