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Dennis Treece and Massport: Safe Harbor

From Boston's Logan Airport to the city's waterfront shipping facilities, Massport CSO Dennis Treece patrols an anxious perimeter.

While it's the primary job of the state police at Logan Airport to look for suspicious behavior, the airport's 13,000 employees are also focused on security as an integral part of whatever their jobs might be. "The employees are our first line of defense," says Treece. "They are literally our eyes and ears."

On the theory that it's always better to catch people doing something right than something wrong, he has inaugurated an awards program to recognize employees who show an exceptional level of security-mindedness. He gets up and plucks a certificate, enclosed in a dark blue folder, from the credenza in his office. First Line of Defense Award, the certificate reads. There's a scrollwork border, the Massport logo, an embossed gold-foil medallion sticker and a line for the recipient's name.

"When an employee steps outside their own role and does some security function, we recognize them," says Treece. "There's an 8:30 security meeting every morning at Logan. Seven days a week. Packed house. Has been ever since 9/11. We pick a day convenient to the schedule of the person who is being recognized, and we award it publicly. And a letter goes up through the chain of command so their boss knows that, hey, one of your guys did a really great thing."

And this awardlike the back-scanner X-ray unit at the container cargo port, or the TSA passenger checkpoints or the inline baggage-screening system in Logan's basementis also part of the security process. It helps give shape to the small bits of effort and creates the sense that they all fit together in an orderly way that eventually equals confidenceconfidence that there's a chance of overcoming the persistent threat of wickedness and erasing the lingering stain of 9/11.