SEC emeritus faculty George Campbell has been recognized with the 2020 U.S. Outstanding Security Performance Award (OSPA) for Lifetime Achievement. The winners were announced September 25.

The US OSPAs acknowledge the contributions that companies, initiatives, teams and individuals make to the security industry and wider community. The Lifetime Achievement Award, as described in the nomination material, “recognizes an individual who has consistently shown outstanding performance over an extended period of time and has had a substantial impact upon defining and driving standards in the security sector.”

"The SEC proudly congratulates George on this wonderful and apt recognition. He is more than worthy of the honor," says the SEC.

George Campbell has built his career on demonstrating and enhancing the value of the security function. From his beginning in law enforcement and government security contracting, through his groundbreaking leadership of the security function at Fidelity Investments, to his current role as a founding emeritus faculty member and subject matter expert for the Security Executive Council, Mr. Campbell has played a significant role in building security leadership into what it is today.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Campbell helped to develop the Casi Rusco user group, which was one of the first organized opportunities for security end users to work together nationwide to provide feedback to manufacturers on what was working and what was not in their product lines.

Mr. Campbell retired in 2002 after eight years as chief security officer (CSO) at Fidelity Investments, then the largest mutual fund company in the United States. Under his leadership, Fidelity's global corporate security organization delivered a wide range of proprietary services—including information security, disaster recovery planning and crisis management, criminal investigations, fraud prevention, property and executive protection, and security system design, engineering and installation—to all the businesses in which Fidelity invested. He made a powerful impact on the organization, seeding security into every facet of the business. Mr. Campbell has mentored so many of the strong leaders that came after him, that many have joked about erecting a bronze statue of him at Fidelity.

After leaving Fidelity he became a founding faculty member of the Security Executive Council, through which he has shared his knowledge as a consultant and educator. There, Mr. Campbell has been instrumental in helping to build the Next Generation Security Leader program, the Next Generation GSOC Group, and many resources for operational excellence in security.

He is the author of Measures and Metrics in Corporate Security (2006, second edition 2014), contributing editor of Adding Business Value by Managing Security Risks (2009, updated and renamed The Manager's Handbook for Business Security in 2014) , and Measuring & Communicating Security's Value (2015). Measures and Metrics in Corporate Security has been called "the foundational text for security metrics." At its publication, no other such resource on metrics for corporate security existed. The book continues to be a common resource in security education programs, and copies have been sold on almost every continent.

A life member of the International Security Management Association (ISMA), he has served on the board of directors and as ISMA's president in 2003. Mr. Campbell has been a member of the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) since 1978 and helped to develop ASIS' CSO standard. He is a former member of the National Council on Crime Prevention, the High Technology Crime Investigation Association and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, and is an alumnus of the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council.

Mr. Campbell is also a frequent speaker and contributor to professional security journals and seminars. He was a 2006 CSO Magazine Compass Award winner and selected as one of Security Magazine’s 25 Most Influential People in Security in 2009.

According to Dave Komendat, Vice President and Chief Security Officer at Boeing, "George (Campbell)’s work within the field of security metrics is unparalleled." The work Mr. Campbell has done in corporate security metrics led to predictive and prescriptive security metrics -- data analysis – which is a critical function today. He has consulted with dozens of organizations to build their metrics, security force and GSOC programs.

Mr. Campbell worked with Mr. Komendat in 2010 to help Boeing's security function effectively communicate its value, the results it was achieving, and the return on investment it was creating for the corporation. With George's assistance, they created an impressive suite of metrics that allow Mr. Komendat to quickly and effectively communicate the value, quality, cycle time, and cost avoidance created by each initiative.

Mr. Campbell's consistent and driving message is that while security has the data, they also have to connect the dots; they have to use their data to tell meaningful stories about how security investments contribute to reduced risk. And he is able to communicate that message in ways few others can.

Dan Sauvageau served under Mr. Campbell at Fidelity starting in 1990. "He is one of the godfathers of corporate security," Sauvageau says. "George is a master of omnidirectional communication. He can talk to people in the boardroom just as easily as in the church basement, from CEOs to the front line. He is a champion for the security function, creative and passionate about his work, and he channels that passion to the betterment of the organization and now the industry."

Mr. Campbell's focus in the private sector on attracting, retaining, and developing talent resulted in a flood of devoted former colleagues, mentees, and trainees who have gone on to lead multinational security functions of their own.

"George is remarkably generous with his time," said Mr. Sauvageau. "He stays in touch and continues to make himself available. I know many former colleagues of George's who continue to call on him, and he is there to help problem solve and listen, but he's also refreshingly candid. He's not afraid to tell it like it is."

To watch George Campbell discuss choosing the right security metric for your organization, click here.

To watch his video series on building a security measures and metrics program, click here.