Schirmer Engineering's Sean Ahrens Talks About CRE Security

Chicago-based Schirmer Engineering is part of Aon’s Global Risk Control and Engineering Group. GlobeSt.com sat down with Sean A. Ahrens, Schirmer’s project manager, security consulting and design services, to get his thoughts on security technology and property management. With more than seventeen years experience in the security industry, Ahrens is known for his technical expertise. He sits on a variety of standard setting panels, including Underwriters Laboratories, Security Industry Association (SIA), ASIS International: Commercial Real Estate Council and, most notably, participated previously on the ASIS Commission on Guidelines. Ahrens has also contributed on the forthcoming physical security guideline administered by the ASIS commission on guidelines. He has been responsible for providing security threat and risk analysis, contingency planning, loss prevention, and force protection design and planning and has provided design and construction administration for government, public, private entities that encompass telecommunications, security, video and access control systems. In the first of a two-part series, Ahrens gives an overview of the security industry and the way it affects commercial real estate.

GlobeSt.com: How did you start in security consulting?

Ahrens: That’s a long story, but my move to consulting occurred while I was attending Western Illinois University in Illinois. My original goal was to be a canine police officer, but my internship coordinator identified another possibility as a security consultant. Almost simultaneously, and coincidentally, my father sent a newspaper clipping on a security consulting company, with which I interned and later accepted a position.