Facilities BY: COREY DELANEY

Who are the personnel involved?  Facility Operations Manager  Law Enforcement/Security

What are their job descriptions and areas of work?  Facility Operations Manager  Ensure that day-to-day functions follow the strategies of the chief executive officer in advancing the goals of the organization. (Locsin)  Meet with department heads and employees, determine staffing requirements and promote subordinates to become heads of departments (Locsin)  Find the most efficient ways to formulate and impelement company-wide policies. (Locsin)  Law Enforcement/Security  Address complicated safety and security issues when planning major sports events (O”Toole & Stevens)  Ensure the safety and the security of athletes, officials, spectators, and members of the community of the host nations and cities. (O”Toole & Stevens)  Develops an effective safety and security plan for large scale sporting events. (O”Toole & Stevens)  Considers unique cultural and operational characteristics during the planning process at each host venue. (O”Toole & Stevens)

What are the responsibilities of these folks?  Facility Operations Manager  Ensure they have leadership to assist in making sure dedical personnel, supporter relations groups, broadcasting coordinators, technology troubleshooters, and other have their areas of operations set up and ready to run smoothly.  Success requires an organized, rigorous system that clearly defines where everyone needs to be, what tasks need to be done, and when they need to be started and completed. (Football Operations)  Law Enforcement/Security  Commence security planning for a major sporting event as soon as the venue is announced, if not before. (O”Toole & Stevens)  Have existing blueprints that can be modified and adapted for specific circumstances of major events in. (O”Toole & Stevens)  Security officials should study after-action reports from previous events and, if possible, visit and interact with their counterparts in other host cities. (O”Toole & Stevens)  Make planning and preparation more efficient by adapting plans to specific circumstances. Such plans should incorporate and prioritize collaboration, communication, comprehensive planning, intelligence and information sharing, public order strategy. (O”Toole & Stevens)

What are you key findings?  Public Order Strategy is a tiered strategy for public order incorporates elements of security takes a friendly and cooperative approach to fans while remaining vigilant for early signs of trouble. There are people in charge of different areas of crowd control during large scale sporting events in areas such as ordinary crowd management, visible community police officers, rapid response/trouble shooting teams, and riot police on standby. Each tier has a different level of visibility and interaction with the crowd. (O”Toole & Stevens)  There are hundreds of behind the scene personnel involved in the success of a large scale sporting event who manage everything from technology and equipment to concessions and the fan experience inside the stadium or other large facility.

Is there anything unique about the AU experience related to this topic?  On Auburn University football game days, around town you can see where local law enforcement personnel are strategically placed at check points, each team has police escorts to get them to the venue on time and safely, and then law enforcement and security who are in charge of the safety of those in the facility.  Jordan-Hare Stadium can have an attendance up to 87, 451 people. Facilities want to be used as much as possible to gain profit from them but since 1939 when the stadium was opened, it has had only a total of 392 games played there (excluding high school games and other events held at the stadium). The stadium provides accessible services (parking), ATMs, charging stations (electronic devices), concessions, first Aid stations, guest assist (text message), guest services both, guest WiFi, lost & found, shuttle trams (for limited mobility guests), and water stations.

References  Locsin, Aurelio. What Is a Facilities Operations Manager?  O’Toole, Kathleen M. & Stevens, John A. Anticipating Safety and Security at Large-Scale Sporting Events. play_arch&article_id=2643&issue_id= play_arch&article_id=2643&issue_id=42012  Football Operations. behind-the-scenes/ behind-the-scenes/