INDEPENDENCE, Mo.-- During an annual full-scale anti-terrorism exercise at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, leaders identified a training gap that led to a unique government-to-government cooperation between LCAAP's government security office and the Transportation Security Administration.
Ken Griechen, government security officer a LCAAP, asked a former employee, Bill Minner, a retired Navy explosive ordnance technician now working for TSA, to build a simulated explosive device and place it in a package within another package.
During the anti-terrorism exercise, a member of Griechen's security staff inspected the package like any other that is shipped to the plant. Although the employee should have determined that the package was suspicious, he did not. The lack of detection indicated to Griechen that there was a gap in training that needed to be rectified.
"We receive a large amount of bulk materials here in the production of small caliber ammunition, and we are committed to proper scanning to maintain a secure facility," said Griechen.
Minner offered to come out and give the LCAAP security staff extra training on detection of suspicious packages with the use of x-ray equipment.
One day a week for five weeks, TSA staff spent eight hours providing advanced training to 64 contract security personnel at LCAAP to better detect suspicious packages.
"Feedback from our security personnel was extremely positive," said Griechen. "TSA's training filled a gap which enabled us to improve on our suspicious package detection procedures."
Last week, government security staff from LCAAP went to TSA's facility to formally thank and recognize TSA employees for their assistance.
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