Last week we posted about a topic everyone is aware of but no one wants to be a part of…An active shooter situation. We posed the question, “Are you prepared?”, while offering up a great set of training events that will ensure that yes, you are prepared. Today’s post is a profile of Steve Romano, a private consultant and trainer who offers highly specific training not only to spot warning signs of a shooting incident, but also what to do to increase your chances of survival in the event you find yourself in the midst of your worst nightmare. Steve is a partner of AXIOM and we are proud to work with him.
Steve Romano is currently working as a private consultant and trainer after more than 42 years in law enforcement and security. He retired from the FBI in July, 2004, and joined Control Risks as Vice President, Crisis & Security Management. He worked on operational projects to include cases involving kidnap, extortion and workplace violence. Additionally, he specialized in crisis management and training as well as the full scope of security services provided by Control Risks.
Mr. Romano spent the last 20 years of his law enforcement career at the FBI, where he was most recently, Chief of the Crisis Negotiation Unit of the Critical Incident Response Group. In this role he led more than 400 trained crisis negotiators in 56 field offices and was responsible for the overall operational, instructional, research, budget and personnel oversight.
During his career with the FBI, Mr. Romano was an active negotiator operationally involved in either a key leadership or advisory role in numerous hostage, barricade and kidnap incidents including the 1993 Branch Dravidians siege in Waco, the 1996 Freeman standoff in Montana and the 1999 St. Martin Parish Prison takeover in Louisiana. He also managed numerous international kidnap negotiations and was deployed to India and Ecuador.
While at the FBI, Mr. Romano sharpened his training skills by planning, evaluating and participating in a wide range of national and international crisis management field training exercises. In addition, he revised the FBI National Crisis Negotiation Course and published a number of crisis negotiation articles. He has been featured in several productions on negotiations for Discovery, TLC and The History Channel and has also appeared on CNN, FOX and MSNBC as a subject matter expert.
As a Special Agent with the FBI, Mr. Romano was also trained in behavioral analysis or “profiling” as well as crisis negotiations. He provided personality assessments and lent his interview and interrogation skills to a number of criminal and counterintelligence investigations.
At the beginning of his career, Mr. Romano was a police officer at the Rahway (NJ) Police Department. He later became a decorated Air Force officer with positions in the National Reconnaissance Office and the Security Police where he was assigned as Chief of Police at Ghedi Air Base in Italy. During the course of his military service, he was awarded three Meritorious Service Medals and one Commendation Medal.
Mr. Romano attended Fairfield University in Connecticut where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. He received a Master of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from John Jay College in New York.
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